What Might Considering the Criminalization of Emotional Abuse Teach Us About Defining It?

Abstract

Although the issue has been discussed for decades, the field of intimate partner violence struggles with the lack of a consensus definition for emotional abuse. In this article, it is suggested that differences in definition are caused by everyday variation in value judgment among researchers. To address this, it is argued that investigating emotional abuse should be acknowledged as an exercise in moral thought as much as it is in scientific rigor. Looking at the philosophy of criminalization, such as the work of Joel Feinberg or Douglas Husak, it is proposed that criminalization theory may serve to guide research on emotional abuse, reduce or overcome the definitional issue, and reveal problematic gaps in understanding. This article will present a general description of the philosophical and legal questions involved in the hypothetical criminalization of emotional abuse, evaluate existing research from that perspective, and propose a minimalist rather than comprehensive approach to definition, an approach involving either focusing only on those behaviors judged to meet the standards for potential criminalization or conceptualizing the range of emotionally abusive behaviors as distinct phenomena to be studied independently.