The way I think about things there’s a difference between blame and accountability. Blame is a social judgment that there’s a fault with a person or what they did. Accountability means capable of being explained or accounted for. There are two ways that somebody can account for their actions – the social, based on the effects of their actions on others, and the psychological or motivational, based on what is going on inside a person, and they are different.

It’s not just a matter of cognitively knowing or deciding what is “right” or “wrong”. There are lots of times where it’s not so clear, there are lots of shades of gray. Life is complicated. From what I understand – cognitively, because I don’t know from my own experience – psychopaths and sociopaths lack a reliable sense of remorse and compassion. Yet they, like everybody, have to make decisions every day about how they will live their lives and get what they want and need.

I think it would be very dangerous for society if we did not require that psychopaths and sociopaths be held accountable for the social consequences of their actions. Nevertheless, in a way I am lucky. I experience guilt when I hurt someone and I experience it just thinking about doing something that would hurt someone. So I am less likely to do something that would have adverse social consequences, with the problems that could cause for me, too, than a sociopath or some psychopaths would. My cognition gets a lot of help from my emotions, which isn’t necessarily the case with psychopaths and sociopaths.

Sociopaths and psychopaths aren’t to blame for their “handicaps”. But they can endanger others in society and so I think it is realistic to accept them as they are. From what I understand, current psychotherapy is not very helpful so I hope some more can be learned about these disorders and maybe ways can be found to help these people get and find what they want without hurting other people. I think that could benefit everybody.