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Review of Richard S. Lazarus & Bernice N. Lazarus'-Passion and reason: making sense of our emotions (review)Philosophical Psychology 9 401-403. 1996.
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82Moral nature of the dsm-IV cluster B personality disordersJournal of Personality Disorders 20 (2): 116-125. 2006.Moral considerations do not appear to play a large role in discussions of the DSM-IV personality disorders and debates about their empirical validity. Yet philosophical analysis reveals that the Cluster B personality disorders, in particular, may in fact be moral rather than clinical conditions. This finding has serious consequences for how they should be treated and by whom.
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162Feeling and representing: Computational theory and the modularity of affectSynthese 105 (3): 273-301. 1995.In this paper I review some leading developments in the empirical theory of affect. I argue that (1) affect is a distinct perceptual representation governed system, and (2) that there are significant modular factors in affect. The paper concludes with the observation thatfeeler (affective perceptual system) may be a natural kind within cognitive science. The main purpose of the paper is to explore some hitherto unappreciated connections between the theory of affect and the computational theory o…Read more
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51Cognitive modularity of emotionIn Luc Faucher & Christine Tappolet (eds.), The modularity of emotions, University of Calgary Press. pp. 213-228. 2008.
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Technological reason and regulation of emotionIn James Phillips (ed.), Philosophical perspectives on technology and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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103Review of "Strong Feelings: Emotion, Addiction and Human Behavior" by Jon Elster (review)Philosophical Review 110 (1): 108. 2001.The Diagnostic Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association defines substance dependence, more commonly known as “drug addiction,” as “a cluster of cognitive, behavioral, and physiological symptoms indicating that the individual continues use of the substance despite significant substance-related problems. There is a pattern of repeated self-administration that usually results in tolerance, withdrawal, and compulsive drug-taking behavior.” If drug addiction is a matter of compulsio…Read more
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A Commentary In Response To: By What Authority? Conflicts Of Interest In Professional EthicsJournal of Ethics in Mental Health 3 1-2. 2008.
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124Why Psychiatry Should Fear MedicalisationIn K. W. M. Fulford, Davies M., Gipps R., Graham G., Sadler J., Stanghellini G. & Thornton T. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry, Oxford University Press. pp. 159-175. 2013.Medicalization in contemporary psychopharmacology is increasingly dominated by commercial interests that threaten the scientific and ethical integrity of psychiatry. At the same time, the proliferation of new social media has altered the manner in which the social groups and institutions that have stakes in medicalization interact. Consumers are at once more powerful than ever before, but also more vulnerable. The upshot of all these developments is that medicalization is no longer simply the pr…Read more
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85Decision-making capacityStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2011.In many Western jurisdictions, the law presumes that adult persons, and sometimes children that meet certain criteria, are capable of making their own health care decisions; for example, consenting to a particular medical treatment, or consenting to participate in a research trial. But what exactly does it mean to say that a subject has or lacks the requisite capacity to decide? This last question has to do with what is commonly called “decisional capacity,” a central concept in health care law …Read more
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686A Madness for Identity: Psychiatric Labels, Consumer Autonomy, and the Perils of the InternetPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 11 (4): 335-349. 2004.Psychiatric labeling has been the subject of considerable ethical debate. Much of it has centered on issues associated with the application of psychiatric labels. In comparison, far less attention has been paid to issues associated with the removal of psychiatric labels. Ethical problems of this last sort tend to revolve around identity. Many sufferers are reticent to relinquish their iatrogenic identity in the face of official label change; some actively resist it. New forms of this resistance …Read more
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14Benevolence and discipline: the concept of recovery in early nineteenth-century moral treatmentIn Abraham Rudnick (ed.), Recovery of People with Mental Illness: Philosophical and Related Perspectives, Oxford University Press. pp. 65. 2012.This is a chapter on the history of ideas related to recovery. Moral treatment was a novel approach to caring for mentally ill patients that arose towards the end of the eighteenth century in Europe, and then spread to North America. It is most famously associated with the names of William Tuke in York, and Philippe Pinel in Paris. These two very different men—Tuke was a wealthy English Quaker businessman and philanthropist, and Pinel was a famous French medical author and doctor—formulated two …Read more
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35The Hypothesis That Anorexia Nervosa Is a Passion: Clarifications and ElaborationsPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 20 (4): 375-379. 2013.We are grateful for these two insightful commentaries, which both see novelty and value in the manner in which we invoke the hypothesis that anorexia nervosa is a passion, to help explain data from the Anorexia Experiences Study, which provides the basis of our inquiry. In this response, we wish to clarify and elaborate on our hypothesis; in particular, the difference between passions and moods, the manner in which our hypothesis touches on issues of authenticity and identity, and the compelling…Read more
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41Review of 'What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories', by Paul E. Griffiths (review)Mind and Language 17 (3): 318-324. 2002.
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76Medical or Moral Kinds? Moving Beyond a False DichotomyPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 17 (2): 119-125. 2010.I am delighted that Zachar and Potter have chosen to refer to my work on the DSM-IV cluster B personality disorders in their very interesting and ambitious target article. Their suggestion that we turn to virtue ethics rather than traditional moral theory to understand the relation between moral and nonmoral factors in personality disorders is certainly original and worth pursuing. Yet, in the final instance, I am not entirely sure about the exact scope of their proposed analysis. I also worry w…Read more
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12How Not to Walk Away From The Science of ConsciousnessJournal of Consciousness Studies 13 (4): 17-19. 2006.
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37Cognitive Modularity of EmotionCanadian Journal of Philosophy 36 (5 (Supp.)): 213-228. 2006.In a recent survey of contemporary philosophy of emotion, Ronald de Sousa states that "in recent years … emotions have once again become the focus of vigorous interest in philosophy, as well as in other branches of cognitive science" (de Sousa 2003, 1). He then goes on to make the important observation that "in view of the proliferation of increasingly fruitful exchanges between researchers of different stripes, it is no longer useful to speak of the philosophy of emotion in isolation from the a…Read more
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53Anorexia and the MacCAT-T Test for Mental Competence: Validity, Value, and EmotionPhilosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 13 (4): 283-287. 2007.How does one scientifically verify a psychometric instrument designed to assess the mental competence of medical patients who are asked to consent to medical treatment? Aside from satisfying technical requirements like statistical reliability, results yielded by such a test must conform to at least some accepted pretheoretical desiderata; for example, determinations of competence, as measured by the test, must capture a minimal core of accepted basic intuitions about what competence means and wh…Read more
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26Affective Neuroscience and AddictionAmerican Journal of Bioethics 7 (1): 20-21. 2007.Hyman (2007) should be commended for bringing up the vexing question of how “loss of control” in addiction relates to issues of moral responsibility. However, his account suffers from a cognitive bias that overlooks the affective and emotional dimensions of addiction. To fully understand these issues, we need to look beyond the confines of cognition and cognitive neuroscience. It is not the case that addiction must be either a brain disease or a moral condition, which is Hyman’s starting point (…Read more
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77Affective neuroscience and addictionAmerican Journal of Bioethics 7 (1): 20-21. 2007.The author comments on the article “The neurobiology of addiction: Implications for voluntary control of behavior,‘ by S. E. Hyman. Hyman suggests that addicted individuals have substantial impairments in cognitive control of behavior. The author states that brain and neurochemical systems are involved in addiction. He also suggests that neuroscience can link the diseased brain processes in addiction to the moral struggles of the addicts.
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235Reconciling cognitive and perceptual theories of emotion: A representational proposalPhilosophy of Science 64 (4): 555-579. 1997.The distinction between cognitive and perceptual theories of emotion is entrenched in the literature on emotion and is openly used by individual emotion theorists when classifying their own theories and those of others. In this paper, I argue that the distinction between cognitive and perceptual theories of emotion is more pernicious than it is helpful, while at the same time insisting that there are nonetheless important perceptual and cognitive factors in emotion that need to be distinguished.…Read more
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62Is Mr. Spock mentally competent? Competence to consent and emotionPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 5 (1): 67-81. 1998.Most contemporary models and tests for mental competence do not make adequate provision for the positive influence of emotion in the determination of competence. This most likely is due to a reliance on an outdated view of emotion according to which these models are essentially noncognitive. Leading developments in modern emotion theory indicate that this noncognitive theory of emotion is no longer tenable. Emotions, in fact, are essentially representational in a manner that makes them “cognitiv…Read more
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92Emotion as a natural kind: Towards a computational foundation for emotion theoryPhilosophical Psychology 8 (1): 59-84. 1995.In this paper I link two hitherto disconnected sets of results in the philosophy of emotions and explore their implications for the computational theory of mind. The argument of the paper is that, for just the same reasons that some computationalists have thought that cognition may be a natural kind, so the same can plausibly be argued of emotion. The core of the argument is that emotions are a representation-governed phenomenon and that the explanation of how they figure in behaviour must as su…Read more
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9By What Authority? Conflicts of Interest in Professional EthicsJournal of Ethics in Mental Health 3 (2): 1-3. 2008.Paradoxically, the profession whose primary mandate is to instruct and comment on matters of ethics spends inordinately little time reflecting on its own ethical practices. Consider the fact that while professional ethicists of all stripes crusade to expose and denounce conflicts of interests in all other branches of the health care system, they typically fail to pay much attention to their own potential ‘ethical’ conflicts of interest. Admittedly, there have been some efforts to address the pro…Read more
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206The Natural Kind Status of EmotionBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53 (4): 511-37. 2002.It has been argued recently that some basic emotions should be considered natural kinds. This is different from the question whether as a class emotions form a natural kind; that is, whether emotion is a natural kind. The consensus on that issue appears to be negative. I argue that this pessimism is unwarranted and that there are in fact good reasons for entertaining the hypothesis that emotion is a natural kind. I interpret this to mean that there exists a distinct natural class of organisms wh…Read more
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Reinstating the Passions: Arguments from History of PsychopathologyIn Peter Goldie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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45Describing our “humanness”: Can genetic science Alter what it means to be “human”?Science and Engineering Ethics 4 (4): 413-426. 1998.Over the past several decades, geneticists have succeeded in identifying the genetic mutations associated with disease. New strategies for treatment, including gene transfer and gene therapy, are under development. Although genetic science has been welcomed for its potential to predict and treat disease, interventions may become ethically objectionable if they threaten to alter characteristics that are distinctively human. Before we can determine whether or not a genetic technique carries this r…Read more
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47Moral Undertow and the Passions: Two Challenges for Contemporary Emotion RegulationEmotion Review 3 (1): 83-91. 2011.The history and philosophy of affective terms and concepts contains important challenges for contemporary scientific accounts of emotion regulation. First, there is the problem of moral undertow. This arises because stipulating the ends of emotion regulation requires normative assumptions that ultimately derive from values and morals. Some historical precedents are considered to help explain and address this problem. Second, there is the problem of organization. This arises because multiple emot…Read more
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26In defence of emotion: Critical notice of Paul E. Griffiths's what emotions really are: The problem of psychological categoriesCanadian Journal of Philosophy 31 (1): 133-154. 2001.
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9Consent or Coercion? Treatment Referrals to Alcoholics AnonymousJournal of Ethics in Mental Health 2 (1): 1-3. 2007.Clinton is certainly correct that there can be serious ethical problems with mental health professionals referring clients with substance dependence and other addictionrelated problems to 12-step programs. But the philosophical doctrine of representationalism he proposes is not a helpful way to address those issues. It seems more like red herring that only serves to detract attention from the real problem. This is the coercive nature of referrals to 12-step programs in many treatment and rehabil…Read more
Louis C. Charland
(1958 - 2021)
London, Ontario, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy, Misc |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics and Epistemology |