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Philosophical Perspectives on ‘antisocial personality disorder’ (Workshop, 20 January 2015, London)

posted on February 19, 2025

  • Philosophical Perspectives on ‘antisocial personality disorder’

    Tuesday January 20th,2015 (9-30-5.00pm)

    Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London, NW1 2BJ

    The diagnosis of ‘antisocial personality disorder’ has a long and controversial history in various guises such as moral insanity, feeblemindedness and psychopathy. One of the important continuities between these has been the association with crime and other ‘antisocial’ behaviour.

    Throughout this history a number of challenging philosophical questions have been raised:

    * What implications does the identification of such disorders have for notions of individual responsibility and criminal culpability?
    * Does the identification of such disorders absolve the individual of guilt, or imply a more indelible sense of ‘dangerousness’?
    * Are such disorders understood as residing within individuals as a disease like lesion, or a state of being?
    * Are they better understood as consistent aspects of the personality, identity, or even biological condition of the individual, or as temporary states?
    * Are such disorders better understood as not residing within individuals at all, but as disorders of social relationships?

    Papers from:

  • Dr Edward Harcourt (Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, Keble College, Oxford)
  • Dr Gwen Adshead (Locum Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, formerly Forensic Psychotherapist at Broadmoor High Security Hospital)
  • Katariina Parhi (University of Oulu, Finland)
  • Anja Berninger (University of Stuttgart)
  • Anneli Jefferson (Kings College London)
  • Marion Godman (University of Cambridge)
  • Chris Millard (Queen Mary London)

    This is part of an ESRC funded seminar series.

If you are interested in attending this event you will need to book a place.

Filed Under: Workshops

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