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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
The Non-Problem Of Free Will In Forensic Psychiatry And Psychology, Stephen J. Morse
The Non-Problem Of Free Will In Forensic Psychiatry And Psychology, Stephen J. Morse
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This article demonstrates that there is no free will problem in forensic psychiatry by showing that free will or its lack is not a criterion for any legal doctrine and it is not an underlying general foundation for legal responsibility doctrines and practices. There is a genuine metaphysical free will problem, but the article explains why it is not relevant to forensic practice. Forensic practitioners are urged to avoid all usage of free will in their forensic thinking and work product because it is irrelevant and spawns confusion.
The Uneasy Entente Between Legal Insanity And Mens Rea: Beyond Clark V. Arizona, Stephen J. Morse, Morris B. Hoffman
The Uneasy Entente Between Legal Insanity And Mens Rea: Beyond Clark V. Arizona, Stephen J. Morse, Morris B. Hoffman
All Faculty Scholarship
There is uneasy tension in the criminal law between the doctrines of mens rea and the defense of legal insanity. Last term, the Supreme Court addressed both these issues, but failed to clarify the relation between them. Using a wide range of interdisciplinary materials, this article discusses the broad doctrinal, theoretical, and normative issues concerning responsibility that arise in this context. We clarify the meaning of mental disorder, mens rea and legal insanity, the justification for and the relation between the latter two, and the relation among all three. Next we consider the reasoning in Clark, and for the most …