Abstract
Abstract In November of 1993 the British Journal of Psychiatry published an article, ‘Brain, Mind and Behaviour’ (hereafter BMB) by Peter Fenwick. This contained an analysis of mens rea and an assertion that the recognition of an organic basis for schizophrenia would, logically, allow violent sufferers to walk free from court. The article also argued that recent advances in neuropsychiatry and, in particular, in neuroimaging, would render obsolete much of the criminal law: as the author put it, ‘the concept of a guilty mind belongs to a non-scientific era’. Descriptions of brain pathology, provided by using ‘brain words’, would enable the courts to apportion blame in a more precise manner than has heretofore been possible. It will be argued here that these views are mistaken.
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