Crime, punishment, and disease / Antony Flew ; with a new introduction by the author.
- Title
- Crime, punishment, and disease / Antony Flew ; with a new introduction by the author.
- Published by
- New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Publishers, c2002.
- Author
Items in the library and off-site
Displaying 1 item
Status | Format | Access | Call number | Item location |
---|---|---|---|---|
Status Not available - Please for assistance. | FormatText | AccessUse in library | Call numberRC454.4 .F583 2001 | Item locationOff-site |
Details
- Description
- xxviii, 139 p.; 23 cm.
- Summary
- "In Crime, Punishment and Disease, Antony Flew makes clear both the meaning and the implications carried by the application of the expression "mental disease." He aims to discourage its use in conditions that provide the victims of such diseases with an excuse for failing to perform what would have been their imperative duties had they enjoyed good mental health. Flew attacks the gross over-extensions of the notion of mental disease on both sides of the Atlantic. He defends human dignity and responsibility against the suggestion that we are all, or most of us, "sick, sick, sick." In particular, he challenges the paternalist pretensions of people who claim a right to control and manipulate others because they are allegedly sick, and consequently not responsible for what they do." "In a typical ordinary disease, Flew notes, it is the patient who complains of the disease rather than someone else who complains about the patient. But those who claim that some crime or all crime is symptomatic of mental disease and those who identify disorders such as attention/deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as conditions requiring psychiatric attention are taking the disfavored behavior rather than the distress of their patients as the warrant for supposedly medical interventions. They should instead first consider how what they propose to call mental disease does, and does not, resemble syphilis, measles, and other communicable diseases." "Flew sees his work as complementary to Thomas Szasz's. He applies a philosophical perspective to problems Szasz discusses as a psychiatrist. Crime, Punishment and Disease will be of particular interest to students of philosophy, social welfare, education, and new developments in psychiatry, and will be of direct relevance to criminologists."--Jacket.
- Uniform title
- Crime or disease?
- Alternative title
- Crime or disease?
- Subject
- Contents
- I. A Survey of the Logical Geography -- II. Disease and Mental Disease -- III. Determinist Presuppositions Cannot Disprove.
- Owning institution
- Harvard Library
- Note
- Originally published: Crime or disease? London : Macmillan, 1973. (New studies in practical philosophy).
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [133]-136) and index.
- Processing action (note)
- committed to retain