Clean Hands

People with Scrupulosity have rigorous, obsessive moral beliefs that lead to extreme and compulsive moral acts. These fascinating outliers raise profound questions about human nature, mental illness, moral belief, responsibility, and psychiatric treatment. Clean Hands? Uses a range of case studies to examine this condition and its philosophical implications.

Jesse S. Summers is an Academic Dean in Trinity College of Arts & Sciences; Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department; and Kenan Fellow in the Kenan Institute for Ethics, at Duke University. His research focuses on philosophical issues surrounding irrationality, including rationalization, anxiety and anxiety disorders, addiction, and compulsions. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics at Duke University in the Philosophy Department, the Kenan Institute for Ethics, the Duke Institute for Brain Science, and the Law School. He publishes widely in moral psychology and neuroscience, ethics, epistemology, argument analysis, and philosophy of religion, law, and psychiatry