Mad, bad, or virtuous? The moral, cultural, and pathologizing features of defiance

Abstract

Defiance is sometimes treated as behavior that needs to be punished or even diagnosed, especially when it is expressed by the subjugated. In contrast to that view, I argue that the readiness to be defiant is a virtue. Drawing upon an Aristotelian framework, updated by an uncompromising challenge to hegemonic power differences, I indicate a way for the subjugated and disenfranchised to recoup self-worth and moral agency. Defiance even may help correct for burdened virtues, as Lisa Tessman analyzes them. Thus, this article falls within the domains of moral psychology and social change. Difficulties in conceptualizing and operationalizing defiance as a virtue, especially since defiance tends to be divisive within society, are discussed in terms of cases. Special attention is paid to medicalizing discourses that take defiance to be a sign of pathology, especially with members of oppressed groups.

Key demographic and mental disorder diagnostic differences between Australian First Nations and non-First Nations clinic-referred children and adolescents assessed in a culturally appropriate and safe way

“…The critique proffered by Potter (2011), Grimmett et al (2016) and Priest et al (2018) is somewhat mitigated by our First Nations young people being assessed carefully and systematically in a culturally valid and reliable manner: impairing patterns of symptoms in the Indigenous group were determined by First Nations mental health staff or Aboriginal Health Liaison Officers ensuring that each carer-identified pattern of symptoms and associated functional impairment was correctly interpreted. Nevertheless, all of our First Nations young people remain immersed in a colonized settler-dominated place, including the school and wider social spaces and places where they live their lives in their family and kinship networks.…”

“…However, increased ODD in First Nations young people can also be understood using a variety of different lenses that focus on the sociocultural context of the clinical interviewer: Potter (2011) presents a cogent philosophical argument that ODD behaviors must be understood from the perspective of which particular group in society the interviewer and interviewee are members of. Specifically, Potter contends that there are substantial ‘hegemonic power differences’ between elite groups (e.g.…”

Social Ecological Resilience and Mental Wellbeing of Irish Emigrant Survivors of Clerical Institutional Childhood Abuse

“…The current study suggests that defiance may be a more accurate construct for survivors who demonstrate resilient trajectories. Defiance is commonly considered a maladaptive attitude or behaviour within traditional psychology (Potter, ). The current study indicates that defiance in the context of ICA is rational and adaptive and can motivate positive rather than destructive behaviour.…”

Acting otherwise: Resistance, agency, and subjectivities in Milgram’s studies of obedience

“…Defiant actions and speech transgress normative conduct and, therefore, often are socially complex, ambivalent, or ambiguous (not always transparent in intention or outcome; Ortner, 1995). Challenges to authority are commonly labeled uncivilized, mad, or morally bad (Potter, 2011). Resistance can take forms beyond the politically obvious and can emerge as “barely recognizable, less-than-conscious mobilization of bodily potentials” (Hynes, 2013, p. 573).…”