Scholarly Rift, Legal Threats, and the Smell of Blood

In my previous post, #5 Kindling Skepticism, I described how, in the middle of 2015, a seed of doubt began to take root. I had spent years immersed in the fascinating world of psychopathy research. But as I dug deeper, I began to notice a pattern: many of the field’s most foundational assertions rested on astonishingly thin empirical ground.

Looking back, that realization was perhaps the true beginning of Psychopathy Unmasked. It marked the moment I began to ask not just whether the psychopathy diagnosis was scientifically grounded, but also whether its role in the legal system was ethically sustainable. Still, at that point in 2015, I hadn’t let go of the basic idea of psychopathy. My skepticism was kindling, but I was very much a believer; perhaps a disillusioned one, yet a believer that psychopathy was a real phenomenon.

In this post, I want to describe another episode that nudged me further down the skeptical path.

Late in 2015—probably in November—I stumbled across a 2010 article written by Jennifer Skeem and David Cooke titled “Is Criminal Behavior a Central Component of Psychopathy?” The paper interrogated one of the field’s most taken-for-granted assumptions: that psychopathic personality traits—like superficial charm, lack of empathy, manipulativeness, etc.—are tightly linked to, or predictive of, violent criminal behavior.

Today, in 2025, we know there’s little empirical support for this link (which I address in detail in Psychopathy Unmasked). But in 2010, simply suggesting as much was indeed very controversial.

As someone who had started his journey into psychopathy research by reading Robert Hare’s 1993 book Without Conscience, I found the title of Skeem and Cooke’s article almost offensive. I remember scoffing to myself: “Psychopaths have predatory personalities! Saying they’re not violent is just academic mumbo jumbo.”

I’m embarrassed to admit that I immediately branded their article as a classic case of overthinking—a distortion only possible from within the proverbial ivory tower.

However, after reading Skeem and Cooke’s article, I discovered that Robert Hare and his frequent collaborator Craig Neumann had written a formal reply. “Yes,” I thought to myself, “here comes the brutal takedown.”

What I read instead was something else entirely—and thoroughly disappointing.

Rather than offering a careful rebuttal, Hare and Neumann opened their response by dismissing Skeem and Cooke’s paper as little more than “a tutorial on the philosophy of science.” They accused the authors of erecting strawman arguments and misrepresenting the field, yet their response offered little substantive engagement with the actual criticisms.

But here’s the thing: Skeem and Cooke simply pointed out logical and evidentiary problems with the claim that there’s a reliable link between psychopathic personality traits and crime. That doesn’t constitute a strawman unless you're misrepresenting your opponent’s position—and they weren’t. They had asked hard but fair questions and shown that the empirical evidence was inconclusive.

As I read on, a knot of disappointment tightened. Was this really the best response the field’s leading figures could muster?

To me, Robert Hare and Craig Neumann’s rebuttal seemed designed more to deflect than to engage. My internal bullshit-detector—if I ever had one—was now firing on all cylinders.

And then came a revelation that irreversibly changed my view of the field.

As I continued digging, I learned that Robert Hare had tried to block Skeem and Cooke’s article from being published in the first place—by threatening the academic journal Psychological Assessment with a defamation lawsuit in 2007. The threat delayed the article’s publication for nearly three years. To call this an overreaction would be generous. To my mind, it was antithetical to science. If a piece of academic writing genuinely misrepresents your work, the appropriate response is counterargument—not legal intimidation. This is science, not cynical market capitalism.

I remember feeling deeply disappointed. This was the same person whose work had first inspired me to enter the field. And now, I was watching Robert Hare try to suppress critical dialogue through legal threats. What was that all about?

Shortly after, I came across a 2010 interview with Stephen Hart, a former student and collaborator of Hare. Reflecting on the controversy, Hart remarked: “People I speak with automatically think, ‘Well, what’s in that article [by Skeem and Cooke] that makes him [Hare] so upset? What’s he so afraid of?’” Stephen Hart went on to say he found Hare’s behavior “completely inconsistent with the man I had [great] respect and affection for.”

As a graduate student who had never met Hare, I couldn’t have agreed more.

Those days in November 2015 marked a turning point in my trajectory. My skepticism was no longer kindling—it was ablaze. I had seen not just scientific disagreement, but rupture. Not respectful criticism, but open legal threats. And that’s when I realized the rifts in the field weren’t just academic—they were political, personal, and perhaps deeply entrenched.

I was disappointed—but more curious than ever to find out how deep the rabbit hole went.

I smelled blood.

PS: Today, the debacle between Skeem/Cooke and Hare/Neumann is widely regarded as a low point in the field’srecent history.I have learned from private conversations that itdiscouraged several researchers from continuing their work on psychopathy.

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This blog is part of the series “The Making of Psychopathy Unmasked,” which shares behind-the-scenes stories about how the book came together and the experiences that shaped my thinking on psychopathy.