Meynen G
Faculteit Wijsbegeerte vu, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam.
Tijdschr Psychiatr. 2009;51(12):873-81.
There is a lack of clarity and some concern about the role that the concept of 'free will' plays in the assessment of legal accountability in forensic psychiatry. People are particularly concerned that the 'free will' concept might embroil psychiatrists in difficult philosophical problems. Recently it has been suggested that in order to avoid confusion it would be better if forensic psychiatrists ignored the free will concept completely.
To analyse the problem of free will in forensic psychiatry and to investigate how psychiatry can deal with it.
Discussions took place about recent forensic psychiatric and philosophical literature of free will and legal accountability, particularly in the Netherlands.
Free will is a serious philosophical problem and no solution is yet in sight. Psychiatrists, however, should not let themselves be distracted by metaphysical problems. The problem of free will points to a significant lack of clarity concerning the nature of the assessment of legal accountability itself. The matter needs to be researched and empirical ethics seems to be a possible way of approaching the problem.
The problem of free will demonstrates the importance of doing (interdisciplinary) research into the assessment of legal accountability, for instance, via empirical ethics.
关于“自由意志”概念在法医精神病学中法律责任评估中所起的作用，存在着不明确之处且引发了一些担忧。人们尤其担心“自由意志”概念可能会使精神科医生陷入棘手的哲学问题之中。最近有人提出，为避免混淆，法医精神病医生最好完全忽略自由意志概念。
分析法医精神病学中自由意志问题，并探究精神病学如何应对这一问题。
针对近期有关自由意志与法律责任的法医精神病学和哲学文献展开讨论，尤其聚焦于荷兰的相关文献。
自由意志是一个严峻的哲学问题，目前尚无解决方案。然而，精神科医生不应让自己被形而上学问题分散注意力。自由意志问题表明，在法律责任评估的本质方面存在明显的不明确之处。此事需要进行研究，实证伦理学似乎是解决该问题的一种可行途径。
自由意志问题凸显了对法律责任评估进行（跨学科）研究的重要性，例如通过实证伦理学进行研究。
