Without Conscience

The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us

By: Robert D. Hare

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Most people are both repelled and intrigued by the images of cold-blooded, conscienceless murderers that increasingly populate our movies, television programs, and newspaper headlines. With their flagrant criminal violation of society's rules, serial killers like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy are among the most dramatic examples of the psychopath. Individuals with this personality disorder are fully aware of the consequences of their actions and know the difference between right and wrong, yet they are terrifyingly self-centered, remorseless, and unable to care about the feelings of others. Perhaps most frightening, they often seem completely normal to unsuspecting targets. Presenting a compelling portrait of these dangerous men and women based on 25 years of distinguished scientific research, Dr. Robert D. Hare vividly describes a world of con artists, hustlers, rapists, and other predators who charm, lie, and manipulate their way through life. Are psychopaths mad, or simply bad? How can they be recognized? And how can we protect ourselves? This book provides solid information and surprising insights for anyone seeking to understand this devastating condition.

©1999 Robert D. Hare, Ph.D. (P)2011 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A fascinating, if terrifying, look at psychopaths.... Hare makes a strong case for the view that psychopaths are born, not made.... A chilling, eye-opening report - and a call to action." ( Kirkus)

Dr. Hare, always at the forefront!!

This guy is the father of all this type of research. He created the PCL-R!! What more to say. All points made are always backed with the statement, 'for example...' The examples are great and get right to the point.

Mr. Mackey

Listen to this on audiobook if you want to hear South Park’s Mr. Mackey narrating the novel. Sound unappealing? I agree. Content is good but I personally can’t get past this guys voice and intonation. He also makes women sound like idiots.

This brought me clarity

Without a proper diagnosis, I have been lost as to what is really going on with my 19 year old daughter. This book helped me get a grip on what she is lacking and that it is not a quilt I need to carry. She was born this way and this book helped me under that. It lightened the burdens in my mind. Thank you Dr Hare for the dedication you have endured so that others may better understand their loved ones

A Must-Read

Like Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear, I highly recommend Without Conscience as a Must-Read for everyone, but especially parents and 18+ young people, in order to understand and protect ourselves from human predators of all kinds

Martha Stout's book is better

This was not a very good book. Having listened to several audiobooks about psychopaths, notably Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door and Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test, I think the lesson learned here is that journalists are better writers than academics.

Criminal psychologist Robert Hare is famous for having devised the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, which is referenced several times by Stout and Ronson. However, in this book he spends entirely too much time talking about how much research he's done and how clever he is to have formulated this unique way of studying and understanding psychopaths, yet the actual evidence he cites is largely anecdotal and even speculative at times. I started to doubt the doc's credibility about the third time he used fictional characters (e.g., Hannibal Lecter, Buffalo Bill) to make a point.

He does this throughout Without Conscience: he will describe psychopathic behavior, and then use a sensationalist example, often from a movie! He talks about psychopaths as if they are monsters who are practically a separate species. Granted, many psychopaths, even those who aren't murderers, are monsters. But it hardly seems useful or truly serving the cause of truthful inquiry to dwell on how horrible psychopaths are, using serial killers as the primary examples, even though Hare himself admits that serial killers are an extreme minority of psychopaths, rather than addressing more interesting and informative questions like how to identify psychopaths and what to do about them.

Martha Stout and Jon Ronson cover much the same ground, and while of course they talk about the most spectacular, cruel, and flamboyant psychopaths as well — serial killers, bigamists, con-men, etc. — they do both more entertainingly and with a little more sense of balance, addressing the fact that most psychopaths, while horrible people to deal with, live fairly ordinary lives (often miserable ones), doing as much damage to themselves as others. Whereas Hare seems to want everyone to hire a professional like himself and apply the Hare Psychopathy Checklist whenever you suspect you're dealing with a psychopath, which could be anyone who exhibits any psychopathic behaviors.

Here is where Hare's book also seems to flounder: he uses many examples of psychopathic behavior, and conflates them with psychopaths. Rapists, for example, are "often" psychopaths, he says. Yet while noting that not all rapists are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are rapists, Hare then goes on to describe rape as a crime that is typical of a psychopathic mindset, the extreme lack of empathy for others, the lack of impulse control, etc. Okay, and? What does this actually tell us about the relationship between rape and psychopathy?

He makes vague assertions about how various crimes, from stock market manipulation to government fraud and abuse to violent crime, "may" be the result of psychopaths, and that this is evident of the massive social and economic damage psychopaths do. Well, yes, I'm sure a lot of Wall Street predators and street-level grifters and conniving, bad people everywhere in-between are psychopaths, but not all of them, so just how many are and what is the measurable contribution of psychopaths to our social ills? It's impossible to say, but Hare just hints that psychopaths are becoming more common, as evidenced by how much "worse" society is getting - again, with no evidence.

The few chapters that were interesting and informative were those that talked about what makes a psychopath's brain different — they seem to often have linguistic mannerisms like misusing words or inventing neologisms, and they also seem to often have poor impulse control, an inability to control themselves even when they may be very smart and quite capable of foreseeing the consequences of their actions. This would also explain why psychopaths tend to get caught out eventually, whether they are serial killers or just that lying manipulator in your office who's always telling stories behind people's back.

Hare does not offer much hope for the treatment of psychopaths, since he points out the condition seems to start in childhood, if not at birth, and no form of behavioral therapy actually changes them: at best, you might convince a psychopath to "play by the rules" so long as they are convinced it's in their best interests.

Overall, while there were some interesting bits and a very comprehensive description of psychopathy, Without Conscience appeared to me to be scientifically weak, too much a vehicle for Robert Hare to promote himself and his work, and not as good as other books that have covered the same subject.

Helpful book

Where does Without Conscience rank among all the audiobooks you???ve listened to so far?

The subject matter is in the top 5 books on psychopaths that I have read.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Without Conscience?

Being that it is a nonfiction book, the most memorable moments are when I recognized the traits of paychopaths in certain people I have known.

What about Paul Boehmer???s performance did you like?

He makes the book clear and understandable. He does what a good reader does. He becomes the book rather than imposing his interpretation onto the book.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Psychopaths. How many do you know?

Any additional comments?

Since I have had unhappy dealings with psycho/sociopaths, I am always trying to understand how they get to be that way and if there is a positive outcome. The book has furthered my understanding is a significent way.

Forget al you think you know about psychopaths

Few psychopaths are actually murderers. They're everywhere: many are career criminals, but some of them are CEOs at top companies. You've almost certainly come across one, hopefully without too much damage to your life. Many are less fortunate, though. This book helps you to spot them, and gives you strategies for minimising the damage they can cause you. Essential reading.

Basic Stuff at Best

It took me forever to get through this book. With the final sentence ended I asked myself what I had learned. The only real insight was a 10-minute section on the difficulty psychopaths have with sequencing and story-telling. Fascinating. But overall, I found the information gleaned to be rather superficial and skewed almost entirely to criminality. In addition, Boehmer's narration was rather snooty throughout. He added authentic sarcasm where it was clear that the author was condescending to his colleagues or when quoting actual psychopaths. But by the end, I was over the whole "smartest guy in the room" feel that I got from the author and especially as it was narrated.

Robert Hare is the self-proclaimed inventor of the Psychopathy Checklist. But that is the one thing missing from this audio book - the actual check list. And so he ends the book by saying that if you are a victim of a psychopath, educate yourself and seek professional help - which is probably what many people thought they were doing when buying this book. Hmm.

Interesting, but a little dated

Definitely worth a listen. It was written in the 1990s and a lot of research with brain Imaging has been done since then. The author has done plenty of research and wrote a check list for clinical use, so he knows his stuff.
One of my favorite Parts was about Psychopathic speech. Although psychopaths have a firm grip on reality, apparently, they have a hard time telling the truth. when a subject was asked whether he thought he was violent, he replied, " I'm not a violent person, but I had to kill somebody once."

Superficially interesting

Interesting in what feels like bullet form presentation. However, I kept waiting to delve deeper into some interesting cases. Thus book is riddled with brief snippets of interesting cases. Worth the read for learning purposes, less so for entertainment.

The reader’s intonation felt, at times, automated. I sometimes wondered if it was a computer reciting the words.

The heavy and repetitive use of “However,” ”Therefore,” “Thus,” was at times distracting and broke the cadence of the reader’s flow. By the end of the book, the frequent use and reader’s delivery was annoying.

Overall, worth the read once.