What would you think if someone told you they heard voices when no one was there, or could sense the presence of the dead? In some historical periods and in some societies today these experiences are made sense of positively in religious or spiritual terms, but in modern western societies they tend to be regarded as symptomatic of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. I argue that interpreting these experiences in terms of illness can negatively affect them, turning them into something (...) pathological when they needn't necessarily be so. I also discuss wider issues regarding illness, medicine, authority, interpretation and meaning.Export citation. (shrink)

C. S. Lewis's A Grief Observed remains one of the most popular and highly recommended books on grief for bereaved people, and yet some of the experiences Lewis recounts strike readers as distinctive and unfamiliar. In this paper I draw attention to these distinctive, less familiar experiences, and make sense of them in the light of Lewis's theology. In so doing, I provide one example of how a person's worldview can shape their experience — in this case, how the phenomenology (...) of grief is infused by the person's conceptual world. At the end, I point to some of the practical (pastoral and clinical) implications of my analysis, and also to some implications about our understanding of the nature of grief. (shrink)

Psychiatric literature about when instances of voice hearing should be regarded as religiously inflected psychopathology and when they should be regarded as religious experiences sometimes presupposes that a person’s experience can only be either psychopathological, or else a genuine religious experience. In this paper I will consider an alternative: the possibility of a both–and account. A both–and account might involve the idea that a religious experience causes psychopathology, or is psychopathology, or that people open to religious experiences may also be (...) susceptible to psychopathology. After arguing that these are either problematic or under-evidenced, I will argue for another version of a both–and account: that genuine religious experience can arise out of situations involving psychopathology. I will also point to some of the clinical and pastoral implications of my view. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Deepening and Expanding Both–And ApproachesTasia Scrutton, PhDExcitingly for the topic of religion and mental health, both Gipps’ and Finley’s commentaries point to the emergence of a both-and consensus. Finley does this in a number of ways, for example by pointing to the ways in which her own brilliant research has provided further and more specific support for a “honeysuckle on a broken fence” model, and also inviting a (...) renewed examination of Model 3 in response to studies on absorption, psychosis and religious experience. Gipps does this by putting forward an additional both-and model, according to which a potential or early-stage instance of mental illness, responded to by a grace-ful engagement with psychotherapy, becomes instead an instance of metanoia through which the person’s drives and emotions are integrated into a more rounded adult psyche.As well as pointing to the emergence of a both-and consensus, Finley and Gipps’ commentaries importantly reflect the fact that both-and accounts are likely to be diverse, complex and multi-faceted. As Gipps notes, my account focuses on spiritual guidance and medication, especially psychiatric medication; the therapeutically informed psychological perspective that Gipps provides is a very welcome addition to the discussion. In addition to both-and accounts being diverse, different psychiatric conditions and symptoms may invite different models, and multiple models may be in play in one person’s life at the same time. Finley gives an example of this possibility when she posits that a version of model 3 might fruitfully by understood as part of, or perhaps combined with, Model 4.Hopefully this paper and the two commentaries on it open the door to a deeper account of the “honeysuckle on a broken fence” model and potentially to other both-and models too. I want to see that door open—but perhaps not too open, and I think less open certainly than Finley and perhaps also Gipps would like. This is because of my view of the relationship between suffering and psychopathology, and suffering and evil (or badness), which I want to discuss in more detail below.Suffering, Badness, and PathologyThe first thing I want to say is that I think that suffering is bad, by which I mean that it is undesirable. This is true to the way we talk about suffering (if someone tells us that they are suffering, we express regret, not joy), and it is important [End Page 265] morally to remember that suffering is an evil if we are to work to prevent and overcome it (including in ways relevant to mental illness, such as through social justice, peace-building and medical care). It can be tempting to romanticize suffering and to try to justify its romanticization on the basis that sometimes good things come out of situations of suffering. However, to do this is to conflate what something is with other things it may become intertwined with. It is also to encourage masochistic and socially and politically conservative forms of spirituality that are antithetical to the Christian Gospel, since it baptizes suffering rather than seeing suffering as something people are called to be liberated from.The second thing I want to say is that I think that pathology, including psychopathology, involves suffering, and that if it does not involve suffering (either in a specific moment or over time) then it is not pathology. The centrality of suffering to pathology is indicated by the fact that the term ‘distress,’ which denotes suffering, appears in the DSM-5 618 times. The presence of either distress or impairment in social, occupational or important other areas of functioning (which, over time, is likely to lead to suffering) is a prerequisite of many psychiatric conditions, according to DSM-5. Homosexuality was rightly removed from the DSM and other psychiatric manuals when it became clear that same-sex attraction does not inherently involve distress (and so suffering). Significant for the shift towards demythologizing homosexuality was Evelyn Hooker’s 1957 study, which showed no similarities in the well-being and happiness of 30 homosexual and 30 heterosexual men (Ebacioni, 2014, p. 4). To take another example, hearing voices (with no... (shrink)

Many thanks to Ian Kidd and John Swinton for their most interesting, and extremely different, commentaries on my paper. I agree with the thrust of Kidd’s argument and hope that these possibilities may be explored more fully elsewhere. Swinton’s commentary is far more critical, and raises issues in need of urgent clarification—I therefore focus on these.Swinton begins his critique by saying that, “One of the basic presumptions that underpins the study and its conclusions is that depression is a natural entity (...) that can be clearly identified and responded to.” This perception of my paper confuses and concerns me, because I am not sure what has given this impression. It has thus far proved impossible to... (shrink)

Contemporary debates on God’s emotionality are divided between two extremes. Impassibilists deny God’s emotionality on the basis of God’s omniscience, omnipotence and incorporeality. Passibilists seem to break with tradition by affirming divine emotionality, often focusing on the idea that God suffers with us. Contemporary philosophy of emotion reflects this divide. Some philosophers argue that emotions are voluntary and intelligent mental events, making them potentially compatible with omniscience and omnipotence. Others claim that emotions are involuntary and basically physiological, rendering them inconsistent (...) with traditional divine attributes. Thinking Through Feeling: God, Emotion and Passibility creates a three-way conversation between the debate in theology, contemporary philosophy of emotion, and pre-modern (particularly Augustinian and Thomist) conceptions of human affective experience. It also provides an exploration of the intelligence and value of the emotions of compassion, anger and jealousy. (shrink)

Some recent considerations of religion and psychiatry have drawn a distinction between pathological and spiritual/mystical experiences of mental phenomena typically regarded as within the realm of psychiatry (e.g. depression, hearing voices, seeing visions/hallucinations). Such a distinction has clinical implications, particularly in relation to whether some religious people who suffer from depression, hear voices, or see visions should be biomedically treated. Approaching this question from a theological and philosophical perspective, I draw a distinction between (what I call) ‘spiritual health’ (SH) and (...) ‘potentially transformative’ (PT) theologies, arguing that a PT model is therapeutically and philosophically more sound than a SH one. I then apply this to the clinical debate in critical dialogue with Dein and Durà-Vilà’s 2009 article, ‘The Dark Night of the Soul: spiritual distress and psychiatric implications’. My primary focus is on depression, though the discussion is also relevant to debates about psychosis and schizophrenia. (shrink)

Religion and spirituality are increasingly associated with mental health, yet spirit-related practices, beliefs and experiences (SPBEs) are regarded with more suspicion. This suspicion is misplaced, and worryingly so, since, I argue, it shuts down a potentially therapeutic avenue in relation to anomalous experiences such as hearing voices and sensing the presence of the dead. A presupposition of this argument is that anomalous experiences are not inherently pathological but can become so as a result of the way they are interpreted and (...) reacted to. While this claim is not new in itself, I will provide a philosophical foundation for it by defending a ‘contextualist’ view of pathology in the context of anomalous experiences against ‘inherentist’ alternatives, according to which some or all instances of anomalous experiences are inherently pathological. Keywords: religion, spirituality, auditory hallucinations, psychosis, pathology, mediumship, schizophrenia, hearing voices, mediumship, spirit possession, healing rituals. (shrink)

There are many Christian theologies of depression. Depression is spoken of variously as the result of personal or original sin, as a kind of sin, as a sign of demonic possession or as involving demons, as a test of faith, as a sign of holiness, or as an occasion for spiritual transformation. Although it is difficult to draw any absolute distinctions, we might helpfully split them into the following three categories for the sake of discussion:Spiritual illness SI), in which depression (...) and other forms of mental illness are believed to be a kind of SI. This includes the ideas that depression is caused by sin or demons or both);Spiritual health SH), where depression is viewed as an indication of and... (shrink)

Christian interpretations of what psychiatry terms "depression" vary widely. Although liberal forms of Christianity regard depression as both a form of mental illness and a catalyst for moral and spiritual transformation, some Catholic theology regards some forms depression not as pathological but as a Dark Night of the Soul. Nonliberal Protestant forms of Christianity tend to view depression more as a sign of spiritual illness than spiritual health: an indication of demonic possession in some Charismatic and syncretistic/indigenous forms of Christianity, (...) and a sin or a result of sin, primarily in conservative Evangelical thought.This paper is about the... (shrink)

A recent paper in this journal argues that some cases of schizophrenia should be seen as cases of demon possession and treated by faith healers. A reply, also published in this journal, responds by raising concerns about the intellectual credibility and potentially harmful practical implications of demon possession beliefs. My paper contributes to the discussion, arguing that a critique of demon possession beliefs in the context of schizophrenia is needed, but suggesting an alternative basis for it. It also reflects on (...) important differences between demonic and other forms of spirit possession, and considers the implications of this for mental health care providers. (shrink)

My thanks go to Marcia Webb and Warren Kinghorn for their thoughtful and stimulating commentaries, one drawing attention to clinical studies of religion and depression and neuroscientific studies of determinism and free will, and the other making a case for a theological rather than philosophical argument against Christian voluntarism. In combination, the commentaries raise an important question about what a philosophical approach might valuably bring to the topics surrounding this paper, Kinghorn's by raising an explicit challenge to this end and (...) Webb's by pointing to the achievements of empirical studies in this field without the aid of philosophical engagement. Unfortunately, there is not space in this response... (shrink)

Anastasia Philippa Scrutton renders helpful service to philosophers and mental health clinicians by highlighting strongly voluntarist approaches to depression within some present-day Christian writers and communities, particularly Pentecostal and Evangelical Christian communities in the United States and the United Kingdom. Drawing on a number of evangelical Christian books and online resources, she argues that these resources are "voluntaristic because they emphasize the role of libertarian free will and choice in the attitudes and behaviors of people with depression, such (...) that depression is seen to be a sin, or the result of sin, because depression sufferers are able to do otherwise." She counters these... (shrink)

Meaning-making plays a central role in how we deal with experiences of suffering, including those due to mental disorder. And for many, religious beliefs, experiences, and practices (hereafter, religious engagement) play a central role in informing this meaning-making. However, a crucial facet of the relationship between experiences of mental disorder and religious engagement remains underexplored—namely the potentially positive effects of mental disorder on religious engagement (e.g. experiences of bipolar disorder increasing sense of God’s presence). In what follows, I will present (...) empirical findings from two recent studies of mine which shed light on the extent to which participants experienced these positive effects, specific components of these effects, and how they fit into their understanding of their mental disorder and its relationship to their religious identity. In doing so, I will draw on and expand Tasia Scrutton’s Potentially Transformative view (2015a, 2015b, 2020) according to which mental disorders may provide opportunities for spiritual growth. My empirical results align with and help deepen an account according to which mental disorders are potentially spiritually transformative by providing further insight into such instances: specifically, which symptoms and internal and external factors are often involved, as well as which religious beliefs, experiences, and/or practices are often affected. After presenting these results and articulating their relevance for a potentially transformative view of mental disorder, I will then address some potential objections to the theoretical account as well as some limitations of the empirical work, before sketching possible promising directions for future research. (shrink)

Many depression-sufferers testify to experiences of goodness that arise from their depression, or ‘goodness because of depression’. These realities often inspire efforts to reconcile suffering and divine benevolence. Yet some sufferers who experience ‘goodness because of depression’ reject theodical thinking and therefore seek other frameworks for reflection on their suffering and its accompanying goods. This essay draws from psychology's notion of epinosic gains to propose an analogous framework that aids sufferers in discussing and interpreting instances of ‘goodness because of depression’ (...) apart from theodical justifications. While the proposed framework is grounded in first-person reflections on depression and is articulated in relation to another Christian framework for depression from Tasia Scrutton, this constructive proposal has the potential to serve theological reflection on a wider range of suffering beyond depression. (shrink)

Meaning-making plays a central role in how we deal with experiences of suffering, including those due to mental disorder. And for many, religious beliefs, experiences, and practices (hereafter, religious engagement) play a central role in informing this meaning-making. However, a crucial facet of the relationship between experiences of mental disorder and religious engagement remains underexplored—namely the potentially positive effects of mental disorder on religious engagement (e.g. experiences of bipolar disorder increasing sense of God’s presence). In what follows, I will present (...) empirical findings from two recent studies of mine which shed light on the extent to which participants experienced these positive effects, specific components of these effects, and how they fit into their understanding of their mental disorder and its relationship to their religious identity. In doing so, I will draw on and expand Tasia Scrutton’s Potentially Transformative view (2015a, 2015b, 2020) according to which mental disorders may provide opportunities for spiritual growth. My empirical results align with and help deepen an account according to which mental disorders are potentially spiritually transformative by providing further insight into such instances: specifically, which symptoms and internal and external factors are often involved, as well as which religious beliefs, experiences, and/or practices are often affected. After presenting these results and articulating their relevance for a potentially transformative view of mental disorder, I will then address some potential objections to the theoretical account as well as some limitations of the empirical work, before sketching possible promising directions for future research. (shrink)

A collection, edited by David Bain, Michael Brady, and Jennifer Corns, originating in our Value of Suffering Project. Table of Contents: Michael Wheeler - ‘How should affective phenomena be studied?’; Julien Deonna & Fabrice Teroni – ‘Pleasures, unpleasures, and emotions’; Hilla Jacobson – ‘The attitudinal representational theory of painfulness fleshed out’; Tim Schroeder – ‘What we represent when we represent the badness of getting hurt’; Hagit Benbaji – ‘A defence of the inner view of pain’; Olivier Massin – ‘Suffering pain’; (...) Frederique de Vignemont – ‘The value of threat’; Colin Leach – ‘Bad feelings can be good and good feelings can be bad’; Tasia Scrutton – ‘Mental suffering and the experience of beauty’; Brock Bastian – ‘From suffering to satisfaction: why we need pain to feel pleasure’; Marilyn McCord Adams – ‘Pain and moral agency’; Jennifer Corns – ‘Hedonic rationality’; Jonathan Cohen & Matthew Fulkerson – ‘Suffering and rationality’; Tom McClelland – ‘Suffering invites understanding’; Michael Brady – ‘Suffering as a virtue’; Glen Pettigrove TBA. Further authors TBA. (shrink)

Timely and immersive, Metaphysical Animals tells the unlikely story of four young women philosophers. Mary Midgley (neé Scrutton), Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Philippa Foot (neé Bosanquet...

While the impassibility debate has traditionally been construed in terms of whether God suffers, recent philosophy of religion has interpreted it in terms of whether God has emotions more generally. This article surveys the philosophical literature on divine im/passibility over the last 25 years, outlining major arguments for and against the idea that God has emotions. It argues that questions about the nature and value of emotions are at the heart of the im/passibility debate. More specifically, it suggests that presuppositions (...) about the dichotomy between emotions and reason (or the ‘heart and the head’) have negatively impacted the debate. It contends that the debate can only move forward in response to serious reflection on our affects as we experience them, aided by historical and anthropological as well as contemporary philosophical perspectives. (shrink)

Philippa Foot has for many years been one of the most distinctive and influential thinkers in moral philosophy. Long dissatisfied with the moral theories of her contemporaries, she has gradually evolved a theory of her own that is radically opposed not only to emotivism and prescriptivism but also to the whole subjectivist, anti-naturalist movement deriving from David Hume. Dissatisfied with both Kantian and utilitarian ethics, she claims to have isolated a special form of evaluation that predicates goodness and defect (...) only to living things considered as such; she finds this form of evaluation in moral judgements. Her vivid discussion covers topics such as practical rationality, erring conscience, and the relation between virtue and happiness, ending with a critique of Nietzsche's immoralism. This long-awaited book exposes a highly original approach to moral philosophy and represents a fundamental break from the assumptions of recent debates. Foot challenges many prominent philosophical arguments and attitudes; but hers is a work full of life and feeling, written for anyone intrigued by the deepest questions about goodness and human. (shrink)

Moral Dilemmas is the second volume of collected essays by the eminent moral philosopher Philippa Foot, gathering the best of her work from the late 1970s to the 1990s. It fills the gap between her famous 1978 collection Virtues and Vices and her acclaimed monograph Natural Goodness, published in 2001. In this new collection Professor Foot develops further her critique of the dominant ethical theories of the last fifty years, and discusses such topics as the nature of moral judgement, (...) practical rationality, and the conflict of virtue with desire and self-interest. Moral Dilemmas, alongside her other two books, completes the summation of her distinctive and lasting contribution to twentieth-century moral philosophy. (shrink)

One of the reasons why most of us feel puzzled about the problem of abortion is that we want, and do not want, to allow to the unborn child the rights that belong to adults and children. When we think of a baby about to be born it seems absurd to think that the next few minutes or even hours could make so radical a difference to its status; yet as we go back in the life of the fetus we (...) are more and more reluctant to say that this is a human being and must be treated as such. No doubt this is the deepest source of our dilemma, but it is not the only one. For we are also confused about the general question of what we may and may not do where the interests of human beings conflict. We have strong intuitions about certain cases; saying, for instance, that it is all right to raise the level of education in our country, though statistics allow us to predict that a rise in the suicide rate will follow, while it is not all right to kill the feeble-minded to aid cancer research. It is not easy, however, to see the principles involved, and one way of throwing light on the abortion issue will be by setting up parallels involving adults or children once born. So we will be able to isolate the “equal rights” issue and should be able to make some advance... (shrink)

Moralising accounts of depression include the idea that depression is a sin or the result of sin, and/or that it is the result of demonic possession which has occurred because of moral or spiritual failure. Increasingly some Christian communities, understandably concerned about the debilitating effects these views have on people with depression, have adopted secular folk psychiatry’s ‘medicalising’ campaign, emphasising that depression is an illness for which, like (so-called) physical illnesses, experients should not be held responsible. This paper argues that (...) both moralising and medicalising models of depression are intellectually and practically (pastorally and therapeutically) problematic, gesturing towards more promising emphases. (shrink)

En reseña de:MULCAHY, Linda, Legal architecture. Justice, due process and the place of law. Editorial Routledge. Londres, 2011.

This paper explores the perennial objection to passibilism (conceived as susceptibility to or capacity for emotion) that an omnipotent being could not experience emotions because emotions are essentially passive and outside the subject's control. Examining this claim through the lens of some recent philosophy of emotion, I highlight some of the ways in which emotions can be chosen and cultivated, suggesting that emotions are not incompatible with divine omnipotence. Having concluded that divine omnipotence does not exclude emotional experience in general, (...) I go on to address an objection to the idea that God experiences the emotions involved in suffering in particular, suggesting one possible way of arguing that God's suffering is chosen while also maintaining the authenticity of divine suffering. (shrink)

En reseña de:Costa Wegsman, Malena, Feminismos Jurídicos, Ediciones Didot, Argentina, 2016.

Kantian moral concepts concerning respect for human dignity have played a central role in articulating ethical guidelines for medical practice and research, and for articulating some central positions within bioethical debates more generally. The most common of these Kantian moral concepts is the obligation to respect the dignity of patients and of human research subjects as autonomous, self-determining individuals. This article describes Kant’s conceptual distinction between dignity and autonomy as values, and draws on the work of several contemporary Kantian philosophers (...) who employ the distinction to make sense of some common moral intuitions, feelings, and norms. Drawing on this work, the article argues that the conceptual distinction between dignity and autonomy as values is indispensable in the context of considering our obligations to those who are dependent and vulnerable. (shrink)

Moral Dilemmas is the second volume of collected essays by the eminent moral philosopher Philippa Foot, gathering the best of her work from the late 1970s to the 1990s. It fills the gap between her famous 1978 collection Virtues and Vices and her acclaimed monograph Natural Goodness, published in 2001. In this new collection Professor Foot develops further her critique of the dominant ethical theories of the last fifty years, and discusses such topics as the nature of moral judgement, (...) practical rationality, and the conflict of virtue with desire and self-interest. Moral Dilemmas, alongside her other two books, completes the summation of her distinctive and lasting contribution to twentieth-century moral philosophy. (shrink)

'Foot stands out among contemporary ethical theorists because of her conviction that virtues and vices are more central ethical notions than rights, duties, justice, or consequences - the primary focus of most other contemporary theorists. This volume brings together a dozen essays published between 1957 and 1977, and includes two new ones as well. In the first, Foot argues explicitly for an ethic of virtue, and in the next five discusses abortion, euthanasia, free will/determination, and the ethics of Hume and (...) Nietzsche. The final eight essays chart her growing disenchantment with emotivism and prescriptivism and their account of moral arguments. All the essays embody to some extent her commitment to an ethics of virtue... Foot's style is straightforward and readable, her arguments subtle, ingenious, and some of them important.' Choice. (shrink)

In this book Philippa Hoskin offers an account of the pastoral theory and practice of Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln 1235-1253, within his diocese. Grosseteste has been considered as an eminent medieval philosopher and theologian, and as a bishop focused on pastoral care, but there has been no attempt to consider how his scholarship influenced his pastoral practice. Making use of Grosseteste's own writings - philosophical and theological as well as pastoral and administrative - Hoskin demonstrates how Grosseteste's famous (...) interventions in his diocese grew from his own theory of personal obligation in pastoral care as well as how his personal involvement in his diocese could threaten well-developed clerical and lay networks. (shrink)

Philippa Foot; V—Moral Beliefs, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 59, Issue 1, 1 June 1959, Pages 83–104, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/59.