Evil or Ill?: Justifying the Insanity Defence (Philosophical Issues in Science) - Hardcover

Reznek, Lawrie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415166993 ISBN 13: 9780415166997

Publisher: Routledge, 1997

Synopsis

Lawrie Reznek addresses these questions and more in his controversial investigation of the insanity defense in Evil or Ill? Drawing from countless intriguing case examples, he aims to understand the concept of an excuse, and explains why the law excuses certain actions and not others. In his easily accessible and elegant style, he explains that in law, there exists two excuses derived from Aristotle: the excuses of ignorance and compulsion. Reznek, however proposes a third excuse - the excuse of character change. In introducing this third excuse, Reznek raises a controversial possibility - the abolition of the insanity defence.

About this title

About the Author:

Lawrie Reznek is a trained psychiatrist and philosopher who teaches psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He is the author of The Philosophical Defence of Psychiatry (Routledge 1991), The Nature of Disease (Routledge 1987) and The Medicine Men (1990).

Review:

...an important contribution to enlightened philosophical anthropology.
–Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Spring 2000

Rezneck covers an impressively broad array of topics in relatively few pages. His presentation is entertaining, relevant, and readable. He shows courage in taking on some of the most difficult issues in forensic psychiatry..
–American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Volume 26, No. 3, 1998

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0415166993
• ISBN 13: 9780415166997
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 342