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199Delusion, dissociation and identityPhilosophical Explorations 6 (1): 31-49. 2003.The condition known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is metaphysically strange. Can there really be several distinct persons operating in a single body? Our view is that DID sufferers are single persons with a severe mental disorder. In this paper we compare the phenomenology of dissociation between personality states in DID with certain delusional disorders. We argue both that the burden of proof must lie with those who defend the metaphysically ext…Read more
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154Mental impairment, moral understanding and criminal responsibility: Psychopathy and the purposes of punishmentInternational Journal of Law and Psychiatry 27 (5): 425-443. 2004.We have argued here that to attribute criminal responsibility to psychopathic individuals is to ignore substantial and growing evidence that psychopathic individuals are significantly impaired in moral understanding. They do not appear to know why moral transgressions are wrong in the full sense required by the law. As morally blameless offenders, punishment as a basis for detention cannot be justified. Moreover, as there are currently no successful treatment programs for psychopathy, nor can de…Read more
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114Mental time travel, agency and responsibilityIn Matthew Broome & Lisa Bortolotti (eds.), Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience: Philosophical Perspectives, Oxford University Press. 2009.We have argued elsewhere that moral responsibility over time depends in part upon the having of psychological connections which facilitate forms of self-control. In this chapter we explore the importance of mental time travel - our ordinary ability to mentally travel to temporal locations outside the present, involving both memory of our personal past and the ability to imagine ourselves in the future - to our agential capacities for planning and control. We suggest that in many individuals with…Read more
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56Reasons, emotion, and moral judgment in the psychopathIn Luca Malatesti & John McMillan (eds.), Responsibility and Psychopathy: Interfacing Law, Psychiatry and Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2010.17 page
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Social Science |