Psychopathic disorder : a category mistake ?

Although the concept ofpsychopathy retains its currency in British psychiatry, apparently being meaningful as well as useful to practitioners (1), it is often taken to refer to a purely legal category with social controlfunctions rather than a medical diagnosis with treatment implications. I wish, in this briefarticle, to suggest that it is essentially, and most usefully, an ethical category which stands outside the diagnostic framework ofpresent-day psychiatry.