Will I love Without Conscience?

I wanted to build a psychopath character from the ground up (day 1, to be exact), and this book took me right to the brink.

I loved it because it’s less technical than Blair et al. yet digs down into the roots of how a psychopath could develop, what they behave like, and—critically for me—the sometimes all too subtle differences between them and the non-psychopaths among us.

Robert Hare has been the premier researcher on psychopathy for decades. He wrote the test, the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, which has become the gold standard for identifying individuals high in psychopathy.

What is so refreshing about his work is that it is based on research and that it neither sensationalizes nor minimizes psychopathy. There is a huge category of true crime books that sensationalize and almost romanticize people who are callous, remorseless, and lack a conscience. They are written about as though they are larger than life and almost anti-heroes.

On the other hand, there are accounts that seek to empathize… show more.

Robert Hare is a world authority on psychopaths and sociopaths. He explains how they avidly pursue their own self-interests and totally disregard the impacts on others. Psychopaths can be extremely personable, but they are very manipulative and totally lack empathy for others. They occur in all societies and gravitate to positions of control, power, and wealth in both business and politics. They relentlessly push for changes in society that benefit them the most. What I found most eye-opening and exciting about this book is that it helps explain many of the cultural developments in prehistory, including traditional secret societies, the leaders of which seem… show more.