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28In Defence of the Concept of Mental IllnessRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 94 77-102. 2023.Many worry about the over-medicalisation of mental illness, and some even argue that we should abandon the term mental illness altogether. Yet, this is a commonly used term in popular discourse, in policy making, and in research. In this paper I argue that if we distinguish between disease, illness, and sickness (where illness refers to the first-personal, subjective experience of the sufferer), then the concept of mental illness is a useful way of understanding a type of human experience, inasm…Read more
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329Recovery without normalisation: It's not necessary to be normal, not even in psychiatryClinical Ethics 18 (3): 298-305. 2023.In this paper, we argue that there are reasons to believe that an implicit bias for normalcy influences what are considered medically necessary treatments in psychiatry. First, we outline two prima facie reasons to suspect that this is the case. A bias for ‘the normal’ is already documented in disability studies; it is reasonable to suspect that it affects psychiatry too, since psychiatric patients, like disabled people, are often perceived as ‘weird’ by others. Secondly, psychiatry's explicitly…Read more
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30The Enacted Ethics of Self-injuryTopoi 41 (2): 383-394. 2022.Enactivism has much to offer to moral, social and political philosophy through giving a new perspective on existing ethical problems and improving our understanding of morally ambiguous behaviours. I illustrate this through the case of self-injury, a common problematic behaviour which has so far received little philosophical attention. My aim in this paper has been to use ideas from enactivism in order to explore self-injury without assuming a priori that it is morally or socially wrong under al…Read more
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17Deliberative Democracy: A Critical IntroductionPalgrave. 2012.In spite of the global diffusion of democracy and a general commitment to democratic values, there is a widespread alienation from the political process in advanced democracies. Deliberative democracy has received much attention in recent years as a possible solution to this malaise. Its promise of a more engaged and collective form of politics has drawn the interest of policy makers and political philosophers – generating new avenues of thought in contemporary democratic theory as well as heate…Read more
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Formal and Informal Models of Deliberative Democracy: A Tension in the Theory of Political DeliberationRepresentation 3 (46): 295-308. 2010.
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5Review of Rational Choice and Democratic Deliberation: A Theory of Discourse Failure (review)Economics and Philosophy 24 (1): 105-111. 2008.
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104Rational choice and democratic deliberation: A theory of discourse failure, by Guido Pincione and Fernando R. Tesón, 2006, XI + 258 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 24 (1): 105-111. 2008.
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98Justifying deliberative democracy: Are two heads always wiser than one?Contemporary Political Theory 10 (1): 78-101. 2011.Democracy is usually justified either on intrinsic or instrumental, particularly epistemic, grounds. Intrinsic justifications stress the values inherent in the democratic process itself, whereas epistemic ones stress that it results in good outcomes. This article examines whether epistemic justifications for deliberative democracy are superior to intrinsic ones. The Condorcet jury theorem is the most common epistemic justification of democracy. I argue that it is not appropriate for deliberative…Read more