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Cutting Out Worry: Popularizing Psychosurgery In America, Antonietta Louise Iannaccone

Antonietta Louise Iannaccone

Contemporary Americans think of the lobotomy as an utterly primitive and brutal form of psychosurgery. The film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, especially, popularized the image of it as a violent form of suppression and mind control. But when it was first introduced, the procedure was considered compassionate, effective, and so delicate it was compared to “cutting through butter.” The therapeutic effect was described as “cutting out worry.” Between 1936 and 1978 it is estimated that 40,000 psychiatric patients received lobotomies in the United States; the procedure was not only tolerated, it was popular. How did it ever gain …

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …