If Forensic Psychiatry is the Science, What is its Object of Study? If it is a Branch of Medicine, What is the Disease? If it is a Specialty, What is its Topic of Expertise?

• This paper analyses, from a normative and taxonomical standpoint, the apparent fact that what forensic psychiatry (FP) as a science or a branch of medicine focus on is necessarily socially constructed in a specific way relating to positive law. FP busies itself with conditions which are (a) mental health problems (in itself partly socially determined) and (b) linked to criminality – especially severe criminality – in turn a concept determined by actual legal statutes in a given society. This notion of what FP ”is about" has to be held distinct from the idea of FP researching the possible causal connection between mental health factors and specific crimes of behaviour types, or that of FP employing mental health care interventions to influence the tendency of criminal or other sort of behaviour. While FP may certainly (attempt to) do these things (implying an interest in specific parts of nature, specific expertise, etc), the issue of how to characterize its generic object of study, interest or action is more profoundly conceptual in that it may inform us about what FP is and what object may or may not be properly studied or intervened upon based on FP. This, in turn, will also provide an answer to what exactly the expertise of an FP specialist is supposed to be about, as well as pertain to disputes over the proper social authority and impact of knowledge coming out of the FP area. The paper will explore and compare three distinct strategies for providing an answer to this question, which are both criticised from a normative and philosophical perspective. First, FP might try to characterise its object of interest by embracing the socio-political relativity implied by the fact that criminal law, implying that the object of FP changes with every difference between jurisdiction across countries as well as over time. This seems to imply that there is no such thing as one object of FP, no specific FP expertise, and so on and thus undermines the idea of FP as a science, specific health care speciality or expertise. Second, FP may adopt a very abstract definition of its object, possible to include all jurisdictional variations one might imagine. This, however, seems to imply a problematic boundlessness: the idea that practically any behaviour or human condition is a proper concern of FP (since any such may be criminalized in some jurisdiction). This, in turn implies normative problems both with regard to the claims about a particular FP expertise and with regard to the ethical integrity of FP as a scientific and medical field.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Filosofi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- Philosophy (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Hälso- och sjukvårdsorganisation, hälsopolitik och hälsoekonomi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Juridik -- Juridik och samhälle (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Law -- Law and Society (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Medicinsk etik (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Medical Ethics (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Psykiatri (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Psychiatry (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Etik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- Ethics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

psychiatry

forensic psychiatry

mental health

crime

expertise

science

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)