In this ‘in conversation with,’ I talk to Professor Tony David about his new paper, Insight, the law and psychiatry: Going round in circles or playing nice?. We talk about what ‘insight’ means clinically, and how law and medicine can have a more productive discussion about applying the concept in a way which better secures the interests of those whose capacity to make relevant decisions may be under examination.

For the original video, see here.

In this ‘in conversation’ with Dr Joe Gough, we discuss some of the fruits of his British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Oxford looking at legal and medical assessments of decision-making capacity, how they misfire for the neurodivergent and cognitively disabled, and how this should inform philosophical accounts of agency and autonomy. In this conversation, we look in particular at the assessment of capacity in the context of anorexia, the challenges that anorexia poses to the very concept of capacity, and how to think about justifications for intervention without falling into ‘outcome’ based assessments of capacity.

The papers we refer to in the discussion are.

Affect, Autonomy, Authenticity, and the Assessment of Decision‐Making Capacity: The Problem of Tyrannical Coherence

Decisional capacity, Cartesianism, the CRPD and obfuscating paternalism: substituting ‘supported’ for ‘substitute’

Race and mental capacity: no panacea

Best interest and family compromise

Joe also has a book forthcoming from Oxford University Press, After Mind: Myths of Mind and Mechanism in Philosophy, Science, Medicine, and Law, developing these arguments in a broader context.

For the original video, see here.

In this ‘in conversation with,’ I talk to Nick Robinson, Professor Judy Laing, and Dr Jeremy Dixon about the website that they have recently been involved in setting up providing resources for nearest relatives under the Mental Health Act 1983. Nick gives the perspective of a nearest relative, Jeremy explains the research underpinning the project, Judy explains the resources available, and all three reflect on the difference between the law and legal literacy / legal confidence, and also give some thoughts about the move to ‘nominated persons’ to be brought in by the Mental Health Act 2025.

For the original video, see here.