21 Dec 2016
Professor Robert Schopp’s article Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Coercive Interventions, and Human Dignity was published in the QUT Law Review Special Issue on Current Issues in Therapeutic Jurisprudence.
Therapeutic Jurisprudence pursues the reform of legal rules, procedures, and roles in order to promote the well-being of those affected without violating other important values embodied in law. This paper requires analysis of those relevant values and of the significance of those values for the most justified approach to defining and pursuing individual and public well-being. The analysis presented here provides a preliminary example of such an analysis that addresses human dignity as one value relevant to the most justified application of police power and parens patriae interventions to individuals with mental illness.