Wild Beasts and Idle Humors: The Insanity Defense from Antiquity to the Present

Robinson, Daniel N.

ISBN 10: 0674952898 / ISBN 13: 9780674952898

Published by Harvard University Press, 1996

About this Item

This book is in acceptable condition and may have highlighting and or writing throughout. The actual cover image may not match the stock photo, dust jacket may be damaged or missing. Book may show internal and or external wear on spine or cover and may be slightly skewed or have creased pages. This is a used book so codes may be invalid or accompanying media may be missing. May be an Ex library book with stickers and stamps.

Seller Inventory # GBV.0674952898.A

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Wild Beasts and Idle Humors: The Insanity Defense from Antiquity to the Present
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674952898
• ISBN 13: 9780674952898
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: acceptable

About this title

Synopsis

How does the law regard and define mental incompetence, when faced with the problem of meting out justice? To what extent has the law relied on extra-legal authorities--be they religious or scientific--to frame its own categories of mental incompetence and madness? Wild Beasts and Idle Humours takes us on an illuminating journey through the changing historical landscape of human nature and offers an unprecedented look at the legal conceptions of insanity from the pre-classical Greek world to the present. Although actual trial records are either totally lacking or incomplete until the eighteenth century, there are other sources from which the insanity defenses can be constructed.

In this book Daniel Robinson, a distinguished historian of psychology, pores over centuries of written law, statements by legal commentators, summaries of crimes, and punishments, to glean from these sources an understanding of epochal views of responsibility and competence. From the Greek phrenesis to the Roman notions of furiosus and non compos mentis, from the seventeenth-century witch trials to today's interpretation of mens rea, Robinson takes us through history and provides the intricate story of how the insanity defense has been construed as a meeting point of the law and those professions that chart human behavior and conduct: namely religion, medicine, and psychology. The result is a rare historical account of "insanity" within western civilization.

Wild Beasts and Idle Humours will be essential reading for anyone interested in the evolution of thinking not merely about legal insanity but about such core concepts as responsibility, fitness for the rule of law, competence to enter into contracts and covenants, the role of punishments, and the place of experts within the overall juridical context.

About the Author

Daniel N. Robinson is Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, at Georgetown University and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford.