Abstract

The topic of coercion has a long and contentious history in both political philosophy and medical ethics. This substantial literature centers on two fundamental questions: What is coercion? And when is it justified? In the context of psychiatry there has been a recent upsurge of interest in coercion, with particular focus on the latter question. For example, a number of research groups have been investigating the relationship between coercion and clinical outcomes. But of course such research relies heavily on assumptions about the former question, that of the concept of coercion. Coercion is often tracked in these studies by various measures of “perceived coercion,” in response to the recognition that involuntary legal status is a poor gauge of the presence of coercion. A result of this approach is that empirical research has started to provide an interesting picture of a variety of coercive pressures and experiences. And these newly emerging findings, in turn, underscore the need for further conceptual analysis. The aim of this paper, then, is to draw out provisional implications for philosophical debates about coercion from recent research in psychiatry.