Schizophrenia and Moral Responsibility: A Kantian Essay

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• 作者：Matthé Scholten
• 关键词：Schizophrenia ; Moral responsibility ; Immanuel Kant ; Mental disorder ; Blame ; Psychosis
• 刊名：Philosophia
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：March 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：44
• 期：1
• 页码：205-225
• 全文大小：410 KB
• 刊物主题：Philosophy; Epistemology; Ethics; Philosophy of Language; Philosophy of Mind; Philosophy of Science;
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1574-9274

文摘

In this paper, I give a Kantian answer to the question whether and why it would be inappropriate to blame people suffering from mental disorders that fall within the schizophrenia spectrum. I answer this question by reconstructing Kant’s account of mental disorder, in particular his explanation of psychotic symptoms. Kant explains these symptoms in terms of various types of cognitive impairment. I show that this explanation is plausible and discuss Kant’s claim that the unifying feature of the symptoms is the patient’s inability to enter into an exchange of reasons with others. After developing a Kantian Quality of Will Thesis, I analyze some real life cases. Firstly, I argue that delusional patients who are unable to enter into an exchange of epistemic reasons are exempted from doxastic rather than moral responsibility. They are part of the moral community and exonerated from moral blame only if their actions do not express a lack of good will. Secondly, I argue that disorganized patients who are unable to form intentions and to make plans are exempted from moral responsibility because they do not satisfy the conditions for agency.