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56Decision-Making Capacity to Consent to Medical Assistance in Dying for Persons with Mental DisordersJournal of Ethics in Mental Health 1-14. 2016.Following a Canadian Supreme Court ruling invalidating an absolute prohibition on physician assisted dying, two reports and several commentators have recommended that the Canadian criminal law allow medical assistance in dying (MAID) for persons with a diagnosis of mental disorder. A key element in this process is that the person requesting MAID be deemed to have the ‘mental capacity’ or ‘mental competence’ to consent to that option. In this context, mental capacity and mental competence refer t…Read more
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10Lost in Myth, Lost in Translation: Philippe Pinel’s 1809 Medico-Philosophical Treatise on Mental AlienationInternational Journal of Mental Health 47 (3): 245-249. 2018.Philippe Pinel is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern evidence-based psychiatry. Yet, until recently, his most important contributions to psychiatric theory and practice were effectively lost in myth, or lost in translation. It is instructive to review the history of these developments in order to correct any errors or omissions that may stand in the way of an accurate recognition of Pinel’s contributions to psychiatry, while at the same time highlighting some of his achievements th…Read more
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82The Varieties of Compulsion in AddictionAmerican Journal of Bioethics 2 (2): 50-51. 2012.The target of Hanna Pickard's very erudite and thought-provoking article is compulsion. She argues that “addiction is not a form of compulsion” and that “addictive desires are not irresistible” (Pickard 2012, 40). However, I fear that compulsion as she presents it is ultimately a metaphysical straw figure, trapped in a false metaphysical dichotomy. What is lacking is a proper attention to specific individual clinical cases, examined over time. At the same time, Pickard's discussion is extremely …Read more
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29Character: Moral Treatment and the Personality DisordersIn Jennifer Radden (ed.), The Philosophy of Psychiatry: A Companion, Oxford University Press. pp. 64-77. 2004.This chapter argues that the conditions under the umbrella “personality disorders” actually constitute two very different kinds of theoretical entities. In particular, several core personality disorders are actually moral, and not medical, conditions. Thus, the categories that are held to represent them are really moral, and not medical, theoretical kinds. The chapter works back from the possibility of treatment to the nature of the kinds that are allegedly treated, revisiting 18th-century ideas…Read more
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696Descartes on émotionEmotion: History, Culture, Society. forthcoming.The primary aim of this discussion is to present a detailed case study of Descartes’ use of émotion in Les passions de l’ame and in his early writings leading up to that work. A secondary aim is to argue that while Descartes was innovative in suggesting that émotion might be a better keyword for the affective sciences than passion, he did not consistently follow his own advice. His innovation therefore failed in that regard, even though it did inspire later thinkers to explore the distinction be…Read more
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361A Puzzling Anomaly: Decision-Making Capacity and Research on AddictionOxford Handbook of Research Ethics. 2020.Any ethical inquiry into addiction research is faced with the preliminary challenge that the term “addiction” is itself a matter of scientific and ethical controversy. Accordingly, the chapter begins with a brief history of the term “addiction.” The chapter then turns to ethical issues surrounding consent and decision-making capacity viewed from the perspective of the current opioid epidemic. One concern is the neglect of the cyclical nature of addiction and the implications of this for the vali…Read more
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114Decision-Making CapacityStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2020.Decision-Making Capacity First published Tue Jan 15, 2008; substantive revision Fri Aug 14, 2020 In many Western jurisdictions the law presumes that adult persons, and sometimes children that meet certain criteria, are capable of making their own medical 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 question has to do wi…Read more
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290Psychiatric Ethics: A HistoryIn Psychiatric Ethics 5th Edition. forthcoming.The chapter traces the history of psychiatric ethics with a focus on the emergence of autonomy and how assumptions and thresholds surrounding informed consent and decision-making capacity have changed over the centuries. Innovators like Philippe PInel and William Tuke are featured in this account of how the 'mad' and the abuses of the 'domestication paradigm' of madness eventually gave way to more humanitarian approaches of treating the 'mad', like moral treatment. The chapter closes with a bri…Read more
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14Review of ‘Strong Feelings: Emotion, Addiction, and Human Behaviour’, by J. Elster (review)Philosophical Review 110 (1): 108-110. 2001.
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8Tuke’s Healing DisciplinePhilosophy, Psychiatry, Psychology 9 (2): 183-186. 2003.THE TARGET OF ERICA LILLELEHT'S interesting comparison between 19th-century moral treatment and 20th-century psychiatric rehabilitation is contemporary psychiatric rehabilitation. Using Foucault's (1979) Discipline and Punish as her critical foil, she argues that psychiatric rehabilitation is "an approach to madness fraught with paradox." The paradox lies in the fact that the techniques of psychiatric rehabilitation can be practiced in a manner that contradicts its professed humanitarian intenti…Read more
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5Heroin addicts and consent to heroin therapy: a comment on Hall et al. (2003)Addiction 98 (11): 1634-1635. 2003.Sir—In their editorial, Hall, Carter & Morley [1] present an incorrect interpretation of my central argument. The point of my paper [2] is that there are solid reasons to suspect that the capacity of heroin addicts to consent to heroin therapy is compromised because of their addiction. As one medical commentator on my paper states, if active heroin addicts can give voluntary and competent consent to heroin therapy without any problems, then we need a new conceptualization of addiction: they are …Read more
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25Ethics in speech-language pathology: Beyond the codes and canonsJournal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology 29 (1): 29-36. 2005.
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20Passion and Decision-Making Capacity in Anorexia NervosaAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 6 (4): 66-68. 2015.The question of decision-making capacity for informed consent to experimental brain surgery for severely ill anorectic patients is about as dramatic an ethical issue one can imagine. Sabine Muller and her co-authors (2015) should be commended for this extremely timely and original clinical and ethical discussion of decision-making capacity in relation to the issues raised by informed consent to such therapies. In this commentary, I elaborate on the new account of the nature of anorexia nervosa t…Read more
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EmotionIn Donald Borchert (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Vol. 2) (2nd Edition). pp. 197-203. 2005.
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7Emotion: Philosophical IssuesIn Patrick Wilken, Timothy J. Bayne & Axel Cleeremans (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Consciousness, Oxford University Press. pp. 259-262. 2009.
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Ethical Issues (in affective science research)In David Sander & Klaus Scherer (eds.), Oxford Companion to Emotion & the Affective Sciences, Oxford University Press. pp. 157-158. 2009.
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QualiaIn David Sander & Klaus Scherer (eds.), Oxford Companion to Emotion & the Affective Sciences, Oxford University Press. pp. 327. 2009.
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Affect (Philosophical Perspective)In David Sander & Klaus Scherer (eds.), Oxford Companion to Emotion & the Affective Sciences, Oxford University Press. pp. 9-10. 2009.
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4Moral TreatmentIn Robin L. Cautin & Scott O. Lilienfeld (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Clinical Psychology, Wiley-blackwell. 2015.Moral treatment refers to a psychological approach to treating mental disorder that arose across Europe and North America around the turn of the eighteenth century. It is mostly associated with the French physician Philippe Pinel (1745–1826) and the English Quaker philanthropist William Tuke (1732–1819). Pinel and Tuke each independently developed their own distinct models of the once popular therapy known as moral treatment. Although moral treatment is often considered to have been a successful…Read more
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8Jean-Etienne Esquirol (1772-1840)In Robin L. Cautin & Scott O. Lilienfeld (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Clinical Psychology, Wiley-blackwell. 2015.Along with Philippe Pinel (1745–1826), Jean‐Étienne Esquirol (1772–1840) is often considered one of the fathers of clinical psychiatry. While his indebtedness to the views of his teacher, Pinel, is indisputable, his own later contributions to the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorder are often considered to be clinically superior and more sophisticated than those of his mentor. Esquirol's contributions to the psychopathology of affectivity are especially important and differ in many importa…Read more
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12Philippe Pinel (1745-1826)In Robin L. Cautin & Scott O. Lilienfeld (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Clinical Psychology, Wiley-blackwell. 2015.Philippe Pinel (1745–1826) is often said to be the father of modern clinical psychiatry. He is most famous for being a committed pioneer and advocate of humanitarian methods in the treatment of the mentally ill, and for the development of a mode of psychological therapy known as moral treatment. Pinel also made important contributions to nosology and the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorder, especially the psychopathology of affectivity, stressing the role of the passions in mental disorde…Read more
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1Mental Competence and Value: The Problem of Normativity in the Assessment of Decision-Making CapacityIn Françoise Baylis, Jocelyn Downie, Barry Hoffmaster & Susan Sherwin (eds.), Health Care Ethics in Canada, Harcourt Brace. pp. 267-278. 2004.
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55Moral Treatment and the Personality DisordersIn Jennifer Radden (ed.), The Philosophy of Psychiatry: A Companion, Oxford University Press. pp. 64-77. 2004.This chapter argues that the conditions under the umbrella “personality disorders” actually constitute two very different kinds of theoretical entities. In particular, several core personality disorders are actually moral, and not medical, conditions. Thus, the categories that are held to represent them are really moral, and not medical, theoretical kinds. The chapter works back from the possibility of treatment to the nature of the kinds that are allegedly treated, revisiting 18th-century ideas…Read more
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22A Moral Line in the Sand: Alexander Crichton and Philippe Pinel on the Psychopathology of the PassionsIn Louis C. Charland & Peter Zachar (eds.), Fact and Value in Emotion, John Benjamins. pp. 15-35. 2008.Psychopathology is the science of what mental illnesses are. Affective psychopathology – or, alternately, the ‘psychopathology of affectivity’ – is the branch of psychopathology devoted to the study of mental disorders that implicate mental states associated with moods and emotions and what used to be called ‘passions’. Some segments of the history of affective psychopathology have been skillfully traced. However, there is one episode in that history that has not received the attention it deserv…Read more
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28Decisional Capacity and Responsibility in AddictionIn Jeffrey Poland & George Graham (eds.), Addiction and Responsibility, Mit Press. pp. 139-159. 2011.Addiction of the variety discussed in this chapter, is a condition that by its very nature compromises decision-making capacity across the decisional spectrum. The impairment is present not only at moments of withdrawal and intoxication, but at all stages of the active addictive cycle, as long as the pathological dispositions to overvalue addictive drugs remain entrenched and operative. In light of this entrenched and pervasive reorientation in pathological values, it seems reasonable to questio…Read more
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14Moral Treatment in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth CenturyIn Abraham Rudnick & David Roe (eds.), Serious Mental Illness: Person-Centered Approaches, Crc Press. pp. 19-25. 2011.
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19Contagion, Identity, Misinformation: Challenges for Psychiatric Ethics in the Age of the InternetIn John Z. Sadler, K. W. M. Fulford & Werdie (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Psychiatric Ethics (Vol. 2). pp. 711-721. 2015.The evolution of the internet and associated social media pose novel challenges for psychiatric ethics. Issues surrounding emotional contagion, personal identity, and misinformation figure importantly among these new challenges, with important consequences for consumers of mental health services, as well as psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. The evolution of the internet and associated social media pose novel challenges for psychiatric ethics. Issues surrounding emotional conta…Read more
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9Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale: Anatomy of a PassionIn Susan Broomhall (ed.), Ordering Emotions in Europe, 1100-1800, Brill. pp. 197-225. 2015.This essay results from a common interest in the history of emotions shared by an academic with appointments in philosophy and psychiatry (Charland) and a literary historian (White). Where our interests converge is in the early modern concept of 'the passions,' as explanatory of what we now call mental illness. The task we have set ourselves is to see how this might: (a) be exemplified in a 'case study' of the dramatic revelation of Leontes's jealousy in the first half of William Shakespeare's T…Read more
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7Bill C-203: a postmortem analysis of the "right-to-die" legislation that diedCanadian Medical Association Journal 148 (10): 1705-1708. 1993.
Louis C. Charland
(1958 - 2021)
London, Ontario, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy, Misc |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics and Epistemology |