In this project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, Lisa Bortolotti is exploring the relationship between rationality and sanity in the context of the philosophy of psychiatry.
"Does a diagnosis of mental illness carry a judgement that the person with that mental illness is not rational?
Secondly, I intend to consider some of the ethical implications of judgements of irrationality. Does irrationality entail a failure in the capacity to think and act autonomously and, say, make decisions about one’s own treatment?
For each of these research objectives, I plan to prepare two publications. I will write an entry about the relationship between rationality and sanity for the Oxford Handbook for the Philosophy of Psychiatry, and a chapter of my monograph on “Irrationality” (Polity Press) will be dedicated to this topic.
Moreover, I will prepare one co-authored and one single-authored article on the ethical implications of judgements of irrationality in the context of psychiatry.