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This paper clarifies the conceptual space of discussion of legal insanity by considering the virtues of the 'medical model' model that has been used in Norway for almost a century. The medical model identifies insanity exclusively with mental disorder, and especially with psychosis, without any requirement that the disorder causally influenced the commission of the crime. We explore the medical model from a transdisciplinary perspective and show how it can be utilised to systematise and reconsider the central philosophical, legal and medical premises involved in the insanity debate. A key concern is how recent transdiagnostic and dimensional approaches to psychosis can illuminate the law's understanding of insanity and its relation to mental disorder. The authors eventually raise the question whether the medical model can be reconstructed into a unified insanity model that is valid across the related disciplinary perspectives, and that moves beyond current insanity models., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

This essay considers the foundational rationale for why the law treats at least some mentally disordered people specially in a wide array of civil and criminal contexts. It suggests that non-responsible incapacity for rational behavior in specific contexts is the primary principle that warrants special legal treatment. It also considers the major distractions and confusions about why such special treatment is sometimes justifiable. It concludes with the reductionist challenge to conceptions of mental disorder and more broadly to the law that some advocate, usually based on the new neuroscience of brain imaging.

This article addresses why mental disorder is relevant to criminal responsibility. It begins by considering the meaning of criminal responsibility because it is impossible to understand the relevance of mental disorder unless one understands responsibility clearly. The next section provides a theoretical account of responsibility and excuse in general and addresses common misconceptions about these topics. The third section examines in detail why mental disorder can sometimes produce either a complete or partial excusing condition, such as legal insanity or "partial responsibility," and whether the U.S. Constitution requires the provision of an excuse based on mental disorder. The section proposes that mental disorder should produce an excusing condition in appropriate cases. The next section considers the relation of mental disorder to mens rea, the mental state "element" that is a definitional criterion of most crimes, and whether the U.S. Constitution requires that defendants be permitted to use evidence of mental disorder to negate mental state elements of the crime charged. This section argues that mental disorder rarely negates mens rea, but in those cases in which a plausible claim for negation could be made, defendants should be allowed to make this claim., (Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)