Lene Bomann-Larsen (Oslo) has asked me to draw your attention to this upcoming conference.
The Atypical Perpetrator
8-9 June 2009
Oslo
Multidisciplinary
seminar on ethics, psychiatry and legal responsibility Registration
deadline: June 2 (for those who want to have lunch; registration is not
required for participation). To registrate your participation please
contact higher executive officer Per Jørgen Ystehede: p.j.ystehede@jus.uio.no
Philosophers,
lawyers, psychiatrists, criminologists and psychologists share an
interest in the human mind and behaviour. Although the perspectives and
approaches vary significantly between the disciplines, there is much to
be learned from a cross-disciplinary dialogue on these matters, not
least with regard to how we should relate to “atypical” agents (agents
who lack moral or rational competence), when it comes to questions of
moral responsibility, liability to be punished and treatment.
These questions will be addressed at a multidisciplinary seminar at the University
of Oslo
on June 8-9, 2009. There will be speakers and commentators representing
the fields of psychiatry, law and philosophy, but also representing the
different legal and psychiatric traditions of different countries.
Among the speakers are:
- Stephen Morse, Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry at the
University
of Pennsylvania
- Matt Matravers, Professor at the Department of Politics, University of
York
- Vidar Halvorsen, Associate Professor at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the
University
of Oslo
- Randi Rosenqvist, psychiatrist, former Head of the Norwegian Forensic Medical Board
- Adina Roskies, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy,
Dartmouth
College
- John Gunn, Emeritus Professor of Forensic Psychiatry,
Institute
of Psychiatry
, King’s College London
About the topic of the seminar:
Most
theories of punishment and moral censorship have a retributive
component; sanctions are justified by reference to some kind of desert. This is true both of purely retributive theories of punishment claiming that criminals ought to be punished because
they deserve punishment, and mixed versions where punishment is
primarily justified as a form of prevention, but where desert operates
as a constraint, so that no one should be punished unless they are at
fault. For an agent to be deserving of desert, he must fulfil certain
criteria of moral and legal competence: it is an empirical question
whether these criteria are met in a concrete case, but it is also a
legal/philosophical question what these criteria should be.
‘Atypical’
perpetrators are persons who in one way or another seem to have a
defect in their moral and/or legal competence, and who, at least prima facie,
are thus not fit for punishment. Psychotics, the mentally disabled,
small children and people who are ‘unconscious’ at the time of the
crime are normally excluded from legal responsibility. Other cases -
paradigmatically presented by the psychopath – are more troubling.
Psychopaths may be defined as people who are rational and thus able to
predict the consequences of their actions and capable of understanding
social rules and the consequences of violating rules; hence they are
often seen as legally responsible. Yet they are assumed not to be
morally competent
because they lack the ability to grasp, apply and be motivated by moral reasons.
Among the questions raised by atypical perpetrators, and which will be discussed at the workshop are:
- Is
there an overlap between legal and moral responsibility, and is the
overlap dependent on which kind of theory one appeals to in justifying
punishment?
- How do we deal with persons who are rationally capable but morally incompetent?
- What
is the significance of underlying neurobiological features for
determining when an agent lacks the capacity for being held
responsible?
- To
which extent does our view on atypical perpetrators affect our views on
typical perpetrators? Can we draw general lessons about responsibility
from such cases? In particular, if we argue that atypical perpetrators
are not legally responsible because of certain neurological defects,
what does this imply for the case of typical perpetrators, whose
actions are also due to their neurological underpinnings?
Philosophers,
lawyers, psychiatrists, criminologists and psychologists share an
interest in the human mind and behaviour. Although the perspectives and
approaches vary significantly between the disciplines, there is much to
be learned from a cross-disciplinary dialogue on these matters, not
least with regard to how we should relate to “atypical” agents (agents
who lack moral or rational competence), when it comes to questions of
moral responsibility, liability to be punished and treatment.
Further details here.
