PROFESSOR FINGARETTE replies:
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1975.tb01405.x |
| Published date | 01 January 1975 |
| Date | 01 January 1975 |
120
THE
MODERN
LAW
REVIEW
[Vol.
38
when he talks-as he repeatedly does-of
‘I
rational control
of
conduct
”
what
does he mean by “rational
”?
In what sense could control be irrational?
I
suppose someone who controlled his temper when to lose it would obviously
be
a
better way
of
achieving his aims could be said to be exercising irrational
self-control; but
as
I
have said this is not
a
sense of the word which
Professor Fingarette seenu to recognise. On the whole
I
conclude that this is
simply
a
loose phrase which means “control resulting in conduct which is
rational,” and that
“
rational
”
is being used in the same
‘‘
weak
’’
sense which
I
have already shown to raise difficulties.
King’s College.
NIGEL WALKER.
Cam bridge.
Yours faithfully,
PROFESSOR
FINGARETTE
replies:
Professor Walker’s queries raise central and complex issues that
I
cannot
here treat in the depth they deserve. My remarks here can only be illustrative
and suggestive, having as their aim to place in correct focus the use
I
made
of
“
rational” and “irrational” at pp. 269-270 of the
M.L.R.
article, and
the fuller analyses
I
gave. especially in the neighbourhood
of
p.
210, in
The
Meaning
of
Criminal
Insanity.
It
is
true, in
a
way, that-as Professor Walker says-the paranoid man
who attacks his fancied deadly enemies acts rationally. But in what way is it
true? Professor Walker mentions several ways: Such an attack is
‘I
intelligible,”
“relevant to the situation,” “consistent with
.
. .
the actor’s aims.” My
concern was with none
of
these. The central concern in my analyses was
the fact that it is both obvious and important that, in
a
way, the man and
his conduct are
irrational.
In what way, then, is the paranoid belief irrational? We call it insane
delusion when it dawns
on
us
that evidence and argument have no genuine
force at all for him. He may argue ingeniously and excitedly; this shows
US
we
do
not have to do with error due to inattention. We see that neither is he
being “stubborn”: he does not have to resist the force of the relevant
evidence because (as we come
to
see) it has
no
force for him; he is effectively
blind, impervious to it.
Professor Walker suggests that such
a
person may have
a
large measure
of control
of
his behaviour-but
I
emphasise that, in the respect mentioned
above, it is not rational control. It does not matter-in assessing criminal
irrationality-whether the man’s acts are in some way relevant to the
situation
”
and to his
I‘
aims,” or that the psychiatrist can make
I‘
intelligible
”
to
us
why the man has come to such
a
view and to such aims. Whatever the
reasons
or
causes, the fact
is
that the man’s mind was working in such a way
that, in the upshot, he had become mentally impervious to the force
of
any
evidence relevant to distinguishing friend from deadly foe.
That
is the
irrationality relevant to the criminality of his act.
It
is sensible that the adjective
“
irrational
”
should
be
“
protean,”
as
Professor Walker says my usage
of
it is, and as common usage actually has it.
Not only may we speak
of
persons and their conduct as irrational, but also,
for example, desires and emotions. Thus the schizophrenic’s symptomatic
‘I
flatness
”
or
“
inappropriateness
”
of emotion is
a
clear case
of
his incapacity
to respond to features of his situation that are emotionally relevant. In the
case where what
is
emotionally relevant is
also
relevant to the criminality
of
the conduct-as in some schizophrenic
‘‘
emotionless
”
homicides-the
irrationality is then criminal irrationality.
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