Criminal courts increasingly treat intoxication as an aggravating rather than a mitigating factor in sentencing. This shift, seen in Australian law and other jurisdictions, raises the prospect of unjust outcomes. We examine this trend through the lens of desert‐based justifications for punishment, setting aside questions of deterrence and public safety. We first argue that intoxication can impair key capacities required for responsibility, suggesting that it should sometimes mitigate blame. We then examine two counter‐arguments. The first takes responsibility to (...) stem from the expression of character (attributability) while the second traces responsibility for intoxicated wrongdoing to an earlier decision to become intoxicated (the tracing principle). We argue that these arguments can only justify treating intoxication as non‐mitigating in specific cases. Drawing on this analysis, we identify conditions under which intoxication might legitimately aggravate culpability, but again find that these conditions are met in only a subset of cases. We conclude that sentencing guidelines which treat intoxication as generally aggravating are likely to increase sentences in many cases where punishment is otherwise appropriate or should even be reduced, leading to systematic injustice in sentencing decisions. (shrink)

I tackle the difficult problem of specifying how voluntary intoxication affects criminal culpability generally and recklessness in particular. I contend that the problem need not be conceptualized as an instance of actio libera in causa, namely the situation in which persons do something at t1 to culpably create the conditions of their own defense at t2. Instead, I argue that we need only consider intoxicated defendants at t2 in order to justify their punishment. In the course of defending my (...) view, I challenge conventional wisdom about both the nature of recklessness and the effects of intoxicants. I conclude by discussing a possible ground on which involuntary intoxication might be treated differently. (shrink)

Doug Husak has argued, persuasively I think, that there is no literal ‘act requirement’ in Anglo-American law. I begin by reviewing Husak’s reasons for rejecting the act requirement, and provide additional reasons to think he is right to do so. But Husak’s alternative, the ‘control condition’, I argue, is inadequate. The control requirement is falsified by the widespread practice of holding extremely intoxicated offenders liable for criminal conduct they engage in even if they lack control over their conduct at the (...) time of the offense, and even if they are acting involuntarily. I provide examples from Canadian, US and German law to flesh out our legal practices with respect to intoxicated offenders. I then argue that, at least with respect to one class of intoxicated offenders–those known as ‘grand schemers’, who plan their criminal offending prior to rendering themselves incapable of voluntary control over their conduct–we are morally justified in imposing liability. I then propose an alternative to both the act and control requirements: what I call the ‘agency requirement’. I argue that our law does and should impose liability for conduct that is expressive of or constitutive of the defendant’s practically rational agency. Adopting an agency view allows us to expand our focus from just the moment of the offense to temporally extended instances of agency, such as is involved in planned offending by grand schemers. (shrink)

This article examines Kant’s overlooked concept of “active play,” as opposed to “free play,” in connection with the influence of the Brunonian system of medicine, both of which, I propose, are central to understanding the broader significance of intoxication in Kant’s post-1795 work. Beginning with a discussion of the late-18th century German reception of Brunonian theory, the idea of vital stimulus, and their importance for Kant, I assess the distinction drawn between gluttony and intoxication in The Metaphysics of (...) Morals and Anthropology from a Practical Point of View. Both are analysed in the context of the Brunonian system of medicine, having establishing Kant’s commitment to the Brunonianism system, as corroborated by Wasianski. What emerges is a novel understanding of intoxication in the work of Immanuel Kant, which brings to light a previously unexamined dynamic between imagination, intoxication, and the aesthetic. (shrink)

The coherence of omniscience is sometimes challenged using self-referential sentences like, “No omniscient entity knows that which this very sentence expresses,” which suggest that there are truths which no omniscient entity knows. In this paper, I consider two strategies for addressing these challenges: The Common Strategy, which dismisses such self-referential sentences as meaningless, and The Conciliatory Strategy, which discounts them as quirky outliers with no impact on one’s status as being omniscient. I argue that neither strategy succeeds. The Common Strategy (...) fails because it is both unmotivated and impotent. The Conciliatory Strategy fails because it leads to embarrassing situations in which omniscient entities are epistemically inferior to non-omniscient entities: we can, for example, devise trivia-based drinking games that force omniscient entities into an intoxicated state; and, given plausible closure principles for belief, such entities are unable to have the sorts of beliefs that give them reason to refuse to play. (shrink)

In the period 1819–1920 the ostensibly strict English common law rule that drunkenness was not an excuse to any criminal charge was modified. It was formally recognized that, at least for crimes requiring proof of a specific intention, intoxication could reduce liability. Legal historians have explained this course of development with reference to the establishment of a subjective pattern of criminal responsibility. Conceived as a mental condition excuse, intoxication could only be accommodated in legal doctrine once the defendant’s (...) state of mind became the focus for investigation. This article suggests reasons to revise this account. Drawing extensively on trial reports, it offers an interpretation that attends closely to the relationships between doctrine, policy and contemporary understandings of individual responsibility for drunken violence. It argues that, in an age of temperance, doctrinal development was driven by judicial concern to narrow the scope of the excuse and it was only late in the nineteenth century, as drunkenness became mixed with insanity in legal doctrine, that there was a sustained focus on the defendant’s state of mind. The article ends with a re-evaluation of DPP v Beard [1920] AC 479 (HL), which is still cited as a foundational case for the modern doctrinal approach to the issue. (shrink)

From Plato's Symposium to Hegel's truth as a "Bacchanalian revel," from The Bacchae of Euripedes to Nietzsche, philosophy holds a deeply ambivalent relation to the pleasures of intoxication. At the same time, from Baudelaire to Lowry, from Proust to Dostoyevsky, literature and poetry are also haunted by scenes of intoxication, as if philosophy and literature share a theme that announces and navigates their proximities and differences.

Drawing from Greek and Roman primary sources, Intoxication in the Ancient Greek and Roman World considers the psychotropic plants used in the ancient world—such as hellebore, mandrake, deadly nightshade, thorn apple, opium poppy, cannabis, and wine—and examines ancient attitudes towards intoxication.

I provide a brief history of the common law governing the criminal liability of intoxicated offenders, and the codification and application of the intoxication rules in Canada. I argue that the common law and its statutory application in Canada violate a number of principles of criminal justice. I then argue that the rules cannot be saved by attempts to subsume them under principles of prior fault. I end with a modest proposal for law reform.

This article explores the use of intoxicants by a community of Kulina Indians in western Brazil. I suggest that Kulina intoxication through alcohol, tobacco, and ayahuasca is best understood as a form of semiotic appropriation of the identity of cosmological “others,” including animal spirits, creator beings, other Indian groups, and Brazilians. I consider how embodying practices, such as song and physical movement, enhance the experience of being an “alter,” facilitated by the alterations in consciousness produced by intoxicants.

That alcohol provides a benefit to creative processes has long been assumed by popular culture, but to date has not been tested. The current experiment tested the effects of moderate alcohol intoxication on a common creative problem solving task, the Remote Associates Test . Individuals were brought to a blood alcohol content of approximately .075, and, after reaching peak intoxication, completed a battery of RAT items. Intoxicated individuals solved more RAT items, in less time, and were more likely (...) to perceive their solutions as the result of a sudden insight. Results are interpreted from an attentional control perspective. (shrink)

This paper examines Plato’s conception of shame and the role intoxication plays in cultivating it in the Laws. Ultimately, this paper argues that there are two accounts of shame in the Laws. There is a public sense of shame that is more closely tied to the rational faculties and a private sense of shame that is more closely tied to the non-rational faculties. Understanding this division between public and private shame not only informs our understanding of Plato’s moral psychology, (...) but his political and ethical theory as well. (shrink)

This book has both a philosophic and a practical aim. Its philosophic aim is to understand civil religion. Its practical aim is to help restore confidence in the West by showing the superiority of the American civil religion to that of the Soviet Union. In the first part of the book, Rome is examined to show how the problem of civil religion first arose. In the second, the United States is used both to show how civil religion may develop gradually (...) and to set forward a model of a good—or, at least, potentially good-civil religion. In the final section, several modern political thinkers are discussed in order to trace the steps leading to the civil religion of Marxism. Henry’s thesis is that both the American and Communist civil religions are secularizations of Christianity, but, while the American civil religion lives in tension between a "public philosophy" that judges the United States by universal standards and a "civil theology" that deifies her existence, Communist ideology has no "public philosophy" but only a "civil theology" deifying the power of the state. (shrink)

The Symposium addresses the relation between desire, beauty and the good life, while indicating the fascination that strong teaching arouses in followers. For Plato, unlike for moderns, power, desire and ethics are interrelated. This article takes Socrates as a case study for the Platonic understanding of this interrelation and it will put into play the grounds involved in their modern separation. It focuses on the three speakers in the dialogue who were followers of Socrates as a way of addressing the (...) role of desire in the teacher–student relation. The article demonstrates how the radical interpretive method brings to life the challenges a strong engagement with Eros risks, especially those related to Socrates’ strong and influential teaching, while addressing and exemplifying theorizing’s need for ironic intoxication. (shrink)

Memory conformity may occur when a person’s belief in another’s memory report outweighs their belief in their own. Witnesses might be less likely to believe and therefore take on false information from intoxicated co-witnesses, due to the common belief that alcohol impairs memory performance. This paper presents an online study in which participants watched a video of a mock crime taking place outside a pub that included a witness either visibly consuming wine or a soft drink. Participants then read a (...) statement from the witness that varied in the number of false details it contained before being asked to recall the crime. We found that the intoxicated witness was regarded as significantly less credible, but participants were not less likely to report misinformation from them. This suggests that intoxication status impacts one’s perception of how credible a source is, but not one’s ability to reject false suggestions from this source. Our findings reinforce the importance of minimizing co-witness discussion prior to interview, and not to assume that people automatically discount information provided by intoxicated co-witnesses. (shrink)

Focusing on Kittler’s reading of Goethe’s ‘Wanderer’s Nightsong’ and Pink Floyd’s ‘Brain Damage’, the article traces Kittler’s development from discourse analysis to media theory. Where more traditional approaches would stress notions of self-reflexivity (both the poem and the song elaborate on their effects and foreground their own construction), Kittler performs, in his own words, a kind of ‘implosion’: The words of Goethe’s poem collapse back into the discursive order they evoke, and Pink Floyd’s song performs its own technology. But it (...) is precisely this implosion that has an intoxicating effect, which paves the way for a more political, or at least politicized, reading of Kittler’s work that highlights his indebtedness to the cultural transgressions of the 1960s. (shrink)

This paper seeks to challenge principles of culpability transfer as they appear in both criminal law and moral philosophy. I begin by discussing the legal doctrine of substituted mens rea, focusing on Section 33.1 of Canada’s Criminal Code. I argue that this doctrine violates the principle of contemporaneity, which there are sound philosophical reasons to accept. I then argue that the same reasons apply to tracing accounts of moral responsibility. Finally, drawing on the moral luck literature, I argue that cases (...) of extreme intoxication are better analyzed in terms of harm-causation than culpability-transfer. (shrink)

Our study explores the relationships between psychological and driving-related personality traits, fluid intelligence and cognitive abilities for drivers whose driving licence has been revoked due to intoxicated driving (alcohol and/or drugs). We were able to show that highly significant impacts on cognitive functions derive from the participants’ age and fluid intelligence. In addition, driving-related personality traits such as emotional instability, a sense of responsibility and self-control contributed significantly to some of the cognitive abilities that are important for fitness to drive. (...) Additionally, the mediating effects of fluid intelligence in the model are discussed. Traffic psychologists can use this knowledge in their assessment of drivers, mainly regarding the possible compensation of cognitive deficits regarding the fitness to drive. (shrink)

In an attempt to discover new possibilities for advertising in uncluttered environments marketers have recently begun using ambient advertising in, for instance, bars and pubs. However, advertising in such licensed premises have to deal with the fact that many consumers are under the influence of alcohol while viewing the ad. This paper examines the effect of alcohol intoxication on attention to and memory for advertisements in two experiments. Study 1 used a forced exposure manipulation and revealed increased attention to (...) logos under alcohol intoxication consistent with the psychopharmacological prediction that alcohol intoxication narrows attention to the more salient features in the visual environment. Study 2 used a voluntary exposure manipulation in which ads were embedded in a magazine. The experiment revealed that alcohol intoxication reduces voluntary attention to ads and leads to a significant reduction in memory for the viewed ads. In popular terms consuming one or two beers reduces brand recall from 40 % to 36 % while being heavily intoxicated further reduces brand recall to 17 %. (shrink)

This article presents a sobering view of the discipline of cognitive neuropsychology as practiced over the last three or four decades. Our judgment is that, although the study of abnormal cognition resulting from brain injury or disease in previously normal adults has produced a catalogue of fascinating and highly selective deficits, it has yielded relatively little advance in understanding how the brain accomplishes its cognitive business. We question the wisdom of the following three “choices” in mainstream cognitive neuropsychology: (a) single‐case (...) methodology, (b) dissociation between functions as the most important source of evidence, and (c) a central goal of diagramming the functional architecture of cognition rather than specifying how its components work. These choices may all stem from an excessive commitment to strict and fine‐grained modularity. Although different brain regions are undoubtedly specialized for different functions, we argue that parallel and interactive processing is a better assumption about cognitive processing. The essential goal of specifying representations and processes can, we claim, be significantly assisted by computational modeling which, by its very nature, requires such specification. (shrink)

Saturation, intoxication to the medias of realization and porsuit of happyness.

_Provocative reinterpretation of Plato's Symposium._.

Generally, the testimony of intoxicated witnesses has been considered relatively unreliable, but recent research has nuanced the knowledge base regarding these vulnerable witnesses.PurposeTo demonstrate the application of recent research findings regarding intoxicated witnesses to the statements made by a key witness to the murder of Olof Palme, Sweden's prime minister, in 1986. An additional purpose was to illustrate the use of a nuanced calculation of blood alcohol concentration for researchers.MethodsThe Palme murder has been debated since the crime was committed and (...) no one has yet been sentenced. One of the witnesses was intoxicated and to estimate a range for his BAC at the time, a comprehensive BAC calculation was conducted in this study to illustrate important factors to consider in these types of cases.ResultsThrough the demonstration of the use of a nuanced BAC formula and by applying recent research results from studies on intoxicated witnesses, it was estimated that the possible BAC of the witness in the Palme-case at the time of the witnessed crime ranged between BAC = 0 to BAC = 0.13, depending on the type of alcoholic beverage consumed and whether the witness was a social or heavy drinker. This puts the witness either well within the span of maintained completeness as well as maintained accuracy rate, or slightly exceeding this span into the BAC-range of reduced completeness but maintained accuracy rate. He was questioned immediately, and thereafter repeatedly, and he reported similar information throughout the interviews, which is in line with previous results on information maintenance over repeated interviews among intoxicated witnesses.ConclusionThe current case example shows how recent research on intoxicated witnesses can be applied in praxis, illustrating important factors for legal practitioners to consider when interpreting information from intoxicated witnesses. It also provides legal practitioners and researchers with an example of a structured approach to more nuanced BAC-calculations. (shrink)

If we follow the motif of intoxication in philosophical reflection, we cannot overlook its role in the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. Here, attention is usually focused on the Dionysian motif, leaving aside both the concrete, bodily function of intoxication and its broader meaning with its implications for human self-understanding and understanding of the world. Therefore, this study is concerned with the question of how the motifs of intoxication and Nietzsche’s philosophy relate to each other. If for Nietzsche (...) the intensification of philosophical life is guided by the idea of _amor fati_, then the question can be formulated more precisely as follows: How do the motifs of intoxication and _amor fati_ relate to each other? This seemingly marginal question gains urgency when we consider the paradox that Nietzsche, on the one hand, advocates the Dionysian ideal, which carries within it the meaning of intoxication, and, on the other hand, seems to stand in sharp opposition to intoxication, as evident in his _Ecce Homo_ and its assertion that “Water is enough.” The answer to this paradox lies in the development of the motif of “bodily virtue,” which disposes a person for an affirmative attitude towards the world and prevents the threat of “odium fati.”. (shrink)

Regarding police procedures with alcohol-intoxicated witnesses, Swedish police officers have previously reported inconsistent and subjective decisions when interviewing these potentially vulnerable witnesses. Most officers have also highlighted the need for national policy guidelines aiding in conducting investigative interviews with intoxicated witnesses. The aims of the two studies presented here were to investigate whether police officers’ inconsistent interview decisions are attributable to a lack of research-based knowledge; their decision to interview, as well as their perceptions of the witnesses’ credibility could be (...) influenced by scientific research; and police officers decision-making and perceptions of witness credibility are biased by pre-existing social norms. In two separate randomized online experiments, police professionals and recruits watched a recorded fictive witness interview to which they were asked to rate the probability of interviewing the witness, the witness’ credibility, and to estimate the witness’ level of intoxication. Results showed that interview probability and perceived witness credibility were affected by witness intoxication level. While it cannot be stated definitely from the present research, these findings provided indications that police officers and recruits lacked research-based knowledge. Results also showed that interview probability, but not perceptions of credibility, was influenced by a research-based message. In line with research, interview probability for the most intoxicated witness increased after reading the message. Unexpectedly, neither interview probability nor witness credibility was affected by social norms. The current findings added to the legal psychology literature by showing that a breath alcohol concentration as low as.04% was enough for police officers and recruits to consider intoxicated witnesses less credible than sober witnesses. Findings also indicated that, despite the lower credibility assessment, police may have some understanding that these witnesses can be interviewed at low intoxication levels. However, this willingness to interview intoxicated witnesses ceased at a BrAC lower than the levels where research has found intoxicated witnesses as reliable as sober witnesses. Future directions for research and policy development as well as theoretical and practical implications of the present findings are discussed. (shrink)

Alcohol use has long been assumed to alter cognition via attentional processes. To better understand the cognitive consequences of intoxication, the present study tested the effects of moderate intoxication on attentional processing using complex working memory capacity span tasks and a change blindness task. Intoxicated and sober participants were matched on baseline WMC performance, and intoxication significantly decreased performance on the complex span tasks. Surprisingly, intoxication improved performance on the change blindness task. The results are interpreted (...) as evidence that intoxication decreases attentional control, causing either a shift towards more passive processing and/or a more diffuse attentional state. This may result in decreased performance on tasks where attentional control or focus are required, but may actually facilitate performance in some contexts. (shrink)

Through a reading of Nietzsche's texts, primarily of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, this article develops a phenomenological description of the variety of intoxication exemplified in conditions of drunkenness, or in states of emotional excess. It treats Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a literary expression of such intoxication, arguing against attempts to find a coherent narrative structure and clear authorial voice behind this text's apparent disorder. Having isolated the intoxicated characteristics of Thus Spoke Zarathustra - its hyperbolic rhetoric and emotions, its (...) lack of balance, its injustice, its shifting and conflicting moods, and its self-contradictions - I then offer an interpretation of the work, and by extension of intoxication itself, in terms of Nietzsche's model of the self as a dynamic multiplicity of forces. At the same time, I argue for a multiple and dynamic conception of personality in general. (shrink)

Our actions, if we care about them positively, assume judgments of worthwhileness that have been made or could be made in their favor. But a huge proportion of humanity makes a point of engaging in two kinds of action that are (are are meant to be) specially difficult to justify as worthwhile: getting intoxicated and worshiping. Drawing comparisons with worth forms associated with play and work, I ask how intoxication and worship can be seen as worthwhile and conclude that (...) each involves a deeply encouraging critique of ordinary forms of personal identity. (shrink)

In this first of two articles on chanting and enchantment we introduce the problem of mass synchronisation via collective communicative action that works to eliminate or lessen independent and critical assessment. Chanting forges a singular ‘collective’ identity with little to no structure that would allow for logical tests such as falsifiability. We argue that this problem can be a fundamental threat to democratic polity, and we offer the Neo-Kantian theory of dimensional accrual and dissociation as an explanation. In Part 2, (...) we will continue with examples and a discussion of the confluence of philosophical examination and social scientific explanations. (shrink)

Does this Bonnes-Mares really have notes of chocolate, truffle, violets, and merde de cheval? Can wines really be feminine, profound, pretentious, or cheeky? Can they express emotion or terroir? Do the judgements of 'experts' have any objective validity? Is a great wine a work of art? Questions like these will have been entertained by anyone who has ever puzzled over the tasting notes of a wine writer, or been baffled by the response of a sommelier to an innocent question. Only (...) recently, however, have they received the serious philosophical attention they deserve. Touching on issues in metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and aesthetics, this book provides a clear and engaging discussion of the philosophical significance of wine that will be accessible to all wine lovers, specialists and non-specialists alike. The author offers throughout a sustained defence of the objectivity of wine judgements, a demystification of the nature of expertise, and a theory of the aesthetic value of wine and its appreciation. (shrink)

This chapter probes some instances of the phenomena of what can broadly be called “divine states” as discussed in Nietzsche’s works. The chapter presents the two sides of the monotheistic-subjectivist coin: the singular, unitary God as ens realissimum and the singular, self-identical subject, mutually reinforcing each other. Beneath this identitarian conception of God and ‘man’, Nietzsche excavates another, less constrained, less restrictive sense of the divine that reveals itself in the titular liminal states in which a supposedly self-identical subject loses (...) itself and in which it finds itself dispersed. These liminal states Nietzsche finds to be the objects of much asceticism and mysticism, even where they are wedded to orthodox monotheism. Concretely, Nietzsche finds instances of religious ‘intoxication’ (Rausch) and ecstasy in 1) Dionysian maenads or Bacchae; 2) medieval choreomaniacs; and 3) medieval saints. In this context, I also discuss the role of the ascetic priest and Nietzsche’s transvaluation of this figure. The chapter also considers ‘death’ as liminal state and how it features in ascetic practices, for example, the death-like swoon as the aim of such practices in the case of St. Theresa of Avila. (shrink)