TY - JOUR T1 - Psychopathic disorder: a category mistake? JF - Journal of Medical Ethics JO - J Med Ethics SP - 77 LP - 85 DO - 10.1136/jme.17.2.77 VL - 17 IS - 2 AU - C A Holmes Y1 - 1991/06/01 UR - http://jme.bmj.com/content/17/2/77.abstract N2 - Although the concept of psychopathy 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 control functions rather than a medical diagnosis with treatment implications. I wish, in this brief article, to suggest that it is essentially, and most usefully, an ethical category which stands outside the diagnostic framework of present-day psychiatry. ER -