Psychological disorder and moral harm : conceptions of the victims of rape

This essay examines two perspectives from which to consider rape victims. The first perspective is adopted by psychologists and other professionals who treat rape victims. The second perspective is a moral framework that draws on fundamental Kantian insights into moral agency. Chapter One offers the theoretical basis of the first framework. Particular attention is paid to the diagnosis of rape victims as suffering from a specific disorder, rape trauma syndrome. Chapter Two further elaborates this framework. It considers the connection between rape trauma syndrome and an official mental disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder. I note some stresses induced in the notion of disorder by this assimilation. I also offer concerns about seeing both rape victims and rapists as suffering from mental disorders. Chapter Three draws on the philosophical literature, especially the work of Peter Strawson and other Kantian moral philosophers, as well as my own experiences as an advocate in a rape crisis center, to offer an alternative perspective. This framework asks us to see rape victims not as suffering a particular sort of mental disorder, but as needing to recover their sense of moral agency and worth in response to horrific evil.Arts, Faculty ofPhilosophy, Department ofGraduat