ABSTRACT
To understand how a person could be responsible for mental disorder, it is necessary to describe what is meant by mental disorder. The meta-responsibility theory relies on a level of autonomy, autogeny or advertence in mental disorder to hold an individual responsible for his or her criminal responsibility. Perhaps the major characteristic that has secured mental disorder's inclusion within the liberal-scientific model is its putative organic genesis, affording it the status of disease in the manner of physical disease. There is much good evidence that mental disorders, particularly somatic and functional psychoses, are associated with pathology of the brain. R. M. Veatch delineates four sub-system theories of determinism: organic, psychological, social and cultural sub-systems. Deviant behaviour may be subjected to a freewill/determinism analysis using one of these sub-systems as a primary reference point. The chapter shows that the inclusion of madness within a liberal-scientific framework has been a comparatively recent development.
