Article ID: CBB001252836

Badness, Madness and the Brain---The Late 19th-Century Controversy on Immoral Persons and Their Malfunctioning Brains (2013)

unapi

In the second half of the 19th-century, a group of psychiatric experts discussed the relation between brain malfunction and moral misconduct. In the ensuing debates, scientific discourses on immorality merged with those on insanity and the brain. This yielded a specific definition of what it means to be immoral: immoral and insane due to a disordered brain. In this context, diverse neurobiological explanations for immoral mind and behavior existed at the time. This article elucidates these different brain-based explanations via five historical cases of immoral persons. In addition, the article analyses the associated controversies in the context of the period's psychiatric thinking. The rendering of the immoral person as brain-disordered is scrutinized in terms of changes in moral agency. Furthermore, a present immoral person is discussed to highlight commonalities and differences in past and present reasoning.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001252836/

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Authors & Contributors
Stahnisch, Frank W.
Klee, Astrid
Jefferson, Anneli
Luca Frigerio
Heckers, Stephan
Kendler, Kenneth S
Concepts
Neurosciences
Psychiatry
Mental disorders and diseases
Psychology
Neurosurgery; psychosurgery
Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
21st century
20th century, late
18th century
Places
Italy
France
Great Britain
Strasbourg (France)
Milan (Italy)
United States
Institutions
Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946)
Reichsuniversität Strassburg
Académie des Sciences, Paris
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