If psychopathic personalities exist and can be identified, and if their behaviors harm fellow employees, organizations, and society, would screening to exclude them from employment be legal and ethical? This narrowly targeted question receives an evenhanded, objective assessment in this thoroughly researched and meticulously argued book. Steverson (Gonzaga Univ.) extensively reviews the research on psychopathy and its measurement and first argues the case for guarding against employment of persons identified as presenting such personality types in corporate organizations. This position is termed the "Corporate Psychopath Hypothesis." Granting the force of this argument, Steverson then suggests that screening for such traits could pose possible liability risks under a strict reading of the Americans for Disability Act. More broadly, then, he makes the careful though counterintuitive case that, given certain questions about the validity and reliability of such measurements, the case for screening is ethically unsupportable. . . Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.
— Choice Reviews
In this interesting and eloquent book on the ethics of screening for psychopathic employees, Brian Stevenson provides a comprehensive and very useful examination of the complex, and sometimes conflicting, moral and legal issues involved.
— Clive Boddy, author of Corporate Psychopath: Organizational Destroyers and A Climate of Fear: Stone Cold Psychopaths at Work
Professor Steverson not only offers one of the first genuinely philosophical treatments of psychopathy in the workplace. He strikes a bold blow for disability rights by arguing that employment screening for psychopathy is unethical. The Ethics of Employment Screening for Psychopathy certainly made me think, and it should give human resources professionals serious pause.
— Daryl Koehn, DePaul University