Discerning Humanity's Edges: Cleckley, Nietzsche, and the Interpretative Dilemma of Psychopathy

Abstract

This dissertation explores the philosophical presuppositions of psychopathy as a diagnosis and asks whether epistemological certainty is possible in discerning the disorder. The current psychological literature on psychopathy suggests that the disorder can be empirically discerned through observable symptoms. However, I argue that this construct of psychopathy is at odds with the original conception articulated by Hervey Cleckley, who suggests that the disorder is sensed rather than just empirically perceived. Through a careful reading of Cleckley’s The Mask of Sanity, I show how he conceives of psychopathy as the negation of the full, striving subject. Because this negation is not observable in itself, I argue that interpretive effort is required for the discernment of the psychopath, and I suggest that the disorder is co-constructed as opposed to empirically observed. I furthermore explore the philosophical implications of Cleckley’s account of the psychopath by attending closely to Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. Nietzsche’s claims about the blond beast and priest, I argue, clarify Cleckley’s claims about the psychopath and human. Both thinkers construct a framework that pits a moral agent against its antithesis, which, I suggest, places Nietzsche and Cleckley in the same interpretive dilemma: because moral categories structure human consciousness, the ability to perceive its absence in the blond beast (for Nietzsche) or the psychopath (for Cleckley) is compromised. I furthermore argue that Cleckley’s indebtedness to philosophical and psychoanalytic traditions helps illuminate society’s paradoxical responses to the character of the psychopath. Attending to the figure of Donald J. Trump, I offer a reading of the increased polarization in the United States through the lens of psychopathy. I suggest that Cleckley’s psychoanalytic understanding of the disorder helps explain Trump’s contradictions and the U.S. electorate’s contradictory responses to him.