quote:The point isn't whether or not they can think straight. The point is whether or not they're in such intense pain that they would rather die than go on. They may well not be thinking straight. I don't know. It's still their life to end if they choose.
Where is the choice where the mind is broken? Or is this a larger meta discussion about 'who are we to say what's broken or damaged?' More distrust of psychology and psychiatry? The proof is in the pudding-if what you were saying was true about all of this pain being so bad, people who attempt to commit suicide would continue to do so until successful, which is thankfully not the case.
My answer to your original question is to say that I don't know, but probably we should morally respect the right to suicide in some cases. But you've not answered two of mine: one, what is to be done about the problem being not just pain, but irrevocability? And two, what about the fact that help exists for much of this pain we're discussing, but those suffering don't realize it because their minds aren't working properly?
While we're speaking of individual rights, how many people who would if treated for their suicidal desires later reject them and be grateful they hadn't gone through with it-how many of them must be let perish on the altar of individual rights? There are hard questions on all sides of this, and perhaps it's because you've been asking questions so far rather than an indicator of your full thoughts, but you don't appear to recognize that this high minded ideal you've got, that seeks to prevent the real cost of dreadful suffering on one hand, also carries with it a blood price on the other. For that you've your article of faith that it is a very sad thing that some of those who suffer aren't allowed to die, but what of the flip side of that? What of the sadness of all of those who did die, but might have been helped?
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Is there another technique you would suggest (that isn't banning all guns) to help reduce the number of firearm suicides?
The moral question is...tricky, is there anyone who can answer the practical?
To the moral:
If someone is terminal, and suffering, I think we mostly all agree, that suicide is justified.
If someone is mentally unstable, they shouldn't be allowed to kill themselves, as long as what qualifies them as "mentally unstable" ≠ "suicidal". Every attempt to help those in need should be brought to bear. This is a much more difficult road to follow, i.e. should medicine and therapy be forced on to people, should the be held and restrained. Well, in an ideal world, we could objectively know who "needs" our help, and who does not, but it isn't ideal, so which is worse, not forcing help on those who truly need it or effectively incarcerating fully sane people and forcing them into invasive and harmful treatments, like trying to cure homosexuality with electroshock, chemical castration and even lobotomy.
So, to me, morally it becomes a question of what does less harm. Allowing people the "right" of killing themselves would certainly remove the horror of one flew over the cuckoo's nesting sane people. But it allows people who otherwise might have been helped and lived happy and fulfilling lives to die unnecessarily.
There's the rub to the moral question.
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Dan - You're the only one being reasonable in this.
Rakeesh - Their suffering and sadness is over. They're dead, yeah?
A big deal is made about taking away the choice of suicide in order to get someone help. I'm assuming that we should also take away the choice over whether that help is worth the cost of receiving it. How long to tolerate it.
You know, mental illness can be genetic. Prevent one younger person from ending their pain, and maybe she or he pops out three kids. Now you've not only extended the pain of one sentient mind, you've helped to introduce it in up to three brand new ones!
The world is not underpopulated. Let those who want to go, go.
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Boy, you crammed in eugenics and Ebenezer Scrooge (pre-enlightenment) into one post.
I'm getting a strong whiff of 'not worth taking seriously-troll' from you, by this and past posts, so I'll take a crack at it on a provisional basis.
One, by your reasoning anytime anyone is suffering, euthanasia should be considered. Their suffering is over, so the problem is solved, apparently. Two, you do pose a decent question with the 'when and how much' bit. I'm not sure why the answer to a complicated gray area like that should be one extreme end solution, though.
Three, if you're going to advocate eugenics, one: do so under its own banner, don't pretend to he concerned with the chilluns, and two: shall we look at your genetics and see whether you should be sterilized? Thought not.
Oh, and findally: the world ain't underpopulated (supposedly)-by all means, see yourself out then. Or is this one of those good for the goose ideologies? Sounds like it.
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No, anytime someone is suffering, euthanasia should be given if they request it. Not if someone else requests it.
No one should be forcibly sterilized, but you see people all the time who have terrible genetic illnesses have children, and that's just selfish. Educate them on why, and then let them make their own decision. I have no intention of having children, and I would be terribly upset if I were to knock a woman up and she wanted to keep it.
Finally, you can consider me one of the geese. Suicide has been on the list of options since I was a teenager, and it's only climbed up the list since. It annoys me to hear people talk so condescendingly about taking away what may end up being my best option.
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How would you guys feel about something a bit like a living will, in which you can dictate beforehand how it should be handled should you ever become mentally ill and suicidal?
Some people with Dan's take on things could sign under column A and be allowed to take their own lives, while other people with Rakeesh's preferences (mine too) could sign under column B and be forcibly institutionalized and treated, should it come to that.
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I agree that Destineer's suggestion could be a decent solution.
To be clear, Destineer, I would probably also sign onto column B. Because me, right now, really doesn't want to die and I'm willing to screw over Theoretical-Suicidal-Me-Of-The-Future in the hopes that one day I'll return and reclaim his body.
But I, similarly, would never sign a DNR and would never preemptively tell someone I wanted someone to pull the plug on me were I a vegetable. Just in case. If cryonics wasn't such a useless crock I'd be in on that, too.
Those are my preferences, though. Many people disagree with me. I don't presume to know better than they do what the best solutions to their problems might be.
Rakeesh, I'll take a look at your questions a bit later.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Fascinating idea Destineer...
How would the system handle if someone hadn't signed at all?
The argument y'all are having would carry over to that sort of case, I'm afraid.
It would be sort of like the situation with organ donorship: does one have an opt-in policy (as in the US) or an opt-out policy (as in some other countries)?
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: But I, similarly, would never sign a DNR and would never preemptively tell someone I wanted someone to pull the plug on me were I a vegetable. Just in case. If cryonics wasn't such a useless crock I'd be in on that, too.
That's funny you mention that, I'm probably going to sign up for cryonics one of these days.
There's probably about a 0.1% chance it'll work, but it seems worth it even for that.
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quote:The point isn't whether or not they can think straight. The point is whether or not they're in such intense pain that they would rather die than go on. They may well not be thinking straight. I don't know. It's still their life to end if they choose.
Where is the choice where the mind is broken? Or is this a larger meta discussion about 'who are we to say what's broken or damaged?' More distrust of psychology and psychiatry? The proof is in the pudding-if what you were saying was true about all of this pain being so bad, people who attempt to commit suicide would continue to do so until successful, which is thankfully not the case.
I don't deny that their mind is damaged... that's what's causing them so much pain in the first place. Whether that damage is sufficient to say that they are incapable of making decisions is another matter, I think.
You still haven't sounded off on whether or not you're comfortable with suicide for people in intense physical pain, Rakeesh. I'm curious where you stand on that.
As to the last quoted bit above... many people in such immense physical pain that they seek suicide do not immediately try again upon failing. Often what drives people to try suicide is a powerful conflux of factors, including things like the pain they are in being particularly horrific at that moment.
Once the failed attempt is over, the pain may also have subsided. The fear of death may have had time to set in further. But that doesn't mean they've stopped suffering, and it doesn't mean they won't hit a level of suffering in the future that once again leads to them wanting to not have to suffer any longer.
Should we forcibly stop all suicides, if we can?
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quote:I don't deny that their mind is damaged... that's what's causing them so much pain in the first place. Whether that damage is sufficient to say that they are incapable of making decisions is another matter, I think.
But if the damage is what is saying to the sufferer 'kill yourself'...you see my point? Imagine...hmmm. Imagine a color blind person asserting their ability to judge for themselves the difference between red and green (is that one of the splits?). Would you really credit them with the capability to do so? I'm not talking about the abstract rights side of this question here, just trying to point out that it seems you're radically overestimating capability here. In many cases it may very well be like someone who is dyslexic to write a book report of a technical manual in a field they're not in.
None of these are precise examples, but we're all pretty much floundering on much of this-except that we do know a few things about attempts, successes, and repeat attempts which point well away from the conclusions you're drawing.
quote:You still haven't sounded off on whether or not you're comfortable with suicide for people in intense physical pain, Rakeesh. I'm curious where you stand on that.
It's the same answer for me as for abstract suffering, mental illness suffering. Well, not quite-I'm not comfortable with suicide for anyone ever. In my opinion it is very often perversely romanticized as this practice that has some sort of platonic ideal. But I also think there are probably extreme outlier situations where it would be acceptable, I just don't know where they are. Future you might very well want to kill himself-he may even have good reasons. But as you admit present you is happy to screw him over, and the only way we get to hear from future you+ six months is if he is allowed to come about.
I'll put it another way: if death is something a rational, committed person can reasonably desire (setting aside physical incapacitation) then they'll be able to execute that plan. There are methods that are as reliable and painless, after all, as anything one might elaborately arrange in a hospital.
quote:Once the failed attempt is over, the pain may also have subsided. The fear of death may have had time to set in further. But that doesn't mean they've stopped suffering, and it doesn't mean they won't hit a level of suffering in the future that once again leads to them wanting to not have to suffer any longer.
I'm a bit surprised to hear you offer this reasoning without at least a nod to its included rebuttal: there's a lot of if and maybe and could potentially in this rhetoric, and yes, they may swing around to a desire for death again. But speaking broadly of suicide, if they actually get help, they usually don't.
I'm a big fan of free will and individual rights, but I'm also a big fan of not simply washing my hands of my responsibilities to other human beings AS a human being because of a very possibly fleeting illness or suffering that could be alleviated if someone reached out at one of the many cries for help that so often precede suicide in the first place.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Is there another technique you would suggest (that isn't banning all guns) to help reduce the number of firearm suicides?
The moral question is...tricky, is there anyone who can answer the practical?
posted
One of my cOworkers has a friend who had schitsophrenia and refused to get treated because there was nothing wrong with him. Her solution was to not be friends anymore because clearly he didn't care enough to fix himself. I was a bit horrified because if he really was in the midst of a schitsophrenia break, of course he couldn't understand how his mind was damaged. That is one of the great difficulties with mental problems. It is very hard to assess how your brain is distorting your perceptions. Even with my very mild easy to treat post partum depression, my dr seemed more interested in what my mom and husband had to say about where I was than my assessment.
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I don't want (nor has anyone who is taken seriously) to ban all guns. Not sure where that came from, but...universal background checks on all transfers of ownership, basically. Tied in with some form of medical health professional reporting for, say, suicidal thoughts or tendencies.
Yes, there are hazards with these options, and they're very broad strokes. But over half of gun deaths are suicides, and suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in this country. If you strike out physical illness (heart disease, strokes, cancer), it's *second*.
Though actually, the first thing would be to begin, today, many different kinds of studies by as many disinterested (that is, not shills) scientists as we can get interested, and try to discover the actual real-world answers to some of these questions. Because medically, right now, we're permanently stuck at the level of vaccinations causing autism rhetoric because we've permitted a special interest group inhibit us from actually finding root causes.
------
On another topic, I'm interested to hear what anyone thought of the latest NRA ad. I was astounded and depressed to hear it defended seriously by a coworker. My beefs: it's a cheap political ploy, bringing the President's children into the situation; it's a profoundly dishonest argument for two reasons-one, the President's family faces far more danger than an ordinary American family and two, if the NRA were pushing for Secret Service level training for these armed guards they're advocating, it would be a different matter.
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boots is suggesting that (whether or not you take her seriously is not being commented on)...and I just put it in the question for the sake of being specific.
Medical health care pros are already on the hook for reporting plans to commit suicide...and I think anything more (reporting thoughts) would be a major violation of Dr./patient confidentiality. I mean who is going to mention that they had considered killing themselves to their theripist if the next day the PD show up to confiscate their guns?
I'd say that a safe storage requirement might help, as from what I recall, a lot of these deaths are with borrowed guns.
posted
Is she in the conversation? It's a long thread, though. In any event, the idea of banning all guns isn't one seriously proposed anywhere. There's this peculiar victim mentality among many Second Amendment advocates, as though things hadn't been going their way literally for generations. Y'all have the enormous angry gorilla in your corner, not us.
Anyway, as for reporting I was referring to something like a background check database-for future would-be possessions. Not a report to the local cops who bust down the door all SWAT style and snatch up the guns. Though really, if a means could be found of retrieving guns from those who had expressed some (I'm not a professional, doctors would need to establish some standard) suicidal thoughts.
Anyway, others have mentioned other stuff too-such as how gun trafficking laws are absurdly lightly enforced and punished. Drug busts can and very often do get harsher penalties than selling multiple guns. It's of interest to note two things: one, it's not quite as simple for criminals to go out and get a gun as is commonly believed and two, the extent to which it is has much to do with how lightly we land on gun traffickers, as well as how very hard we work (thanks again, NRA) to offer plenty of avenues for criminals to get guns when they want them.
This would be a *great* issue for that old conservative standby 'let's enforce the laws already on the books' to be heard, but strangely it's not.
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Parkour and Tom sincerely want me to address their edge-case hypothetical, so I will. But if they want me to consider it anything but a sort of ridiculous edge case they'd best have a good argument for it. Suicidal, even schizophrenic, people don't usually sound this straightforwardly silly.
quote:Originally posted by Parkour:
quote:But if I ever was in that much pain, mental or physical... I'd want the right to make my own decision. I wouldn't want to be forced by someone else who couldn't imagine what I was going through.
If you knew a person who came up to you and said absolutely seriously, "I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and I have discovered that I can keep the world safe from evil by committing suicide and preventing the return of the antichrist".
Then said they were off to hang themselves in the bathroom of their own house, would you call anyone and tell them to try to stop this person, or not?
Why would I call anyone? The person just came up to me. I'd talk to them. Ask them how they'd figured that out. Ask them why that was a problem that needed solving. Ask them how suicide would solve that problem.
I probably wouldn't handcuff them and hold them until they told me they didn't want to commit suicide anymore, though.
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Dan, we're rather in edge-case and ambiguous (particularly in the questions you're asking) territory here.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Parkour and Tom sincerely want me to address their edge-case hypothetical, so I will. But if they want me to consider it anything but a sort of ridiculous edge case they'd best have a good argument for it. Suicidal, even schizophrenic, people don't usually sound this straightforwardly silly.
Okay, fine. I will make a new question. Let's say it is not just someone who walked up to you, it is a long time friend or a family member. And instead of saying they were the reincarnation of jesus christ, how about something more plausible. They tell you that on September 11, 2001, the United States government committed a false flag attack that would be used in order to explain the existence of a psycho-surveillance infrastructure, utilizing quantum mind control which had been globally in place for at least a decade prior. Your brain doesn't understand that because of mind control. Anyway they have figured out a way to download their consciousness onto a passing spaceship and they wanted to say goodbye to you before they kill themselves to free themselves from their body and get on board the spacecraft. They have a container of antifreeze with them. When you inquire about it they say they have spiked it with rat poison to make sure that it kills them at the right time, which is swiftly approaching.
Sure enough 4:40 PM comes about. That's the time. They bid you a fond farewell and begin unscrewing the cap. In the time you have been having this conversation with them you are aware that they completely believe everything that they are saying, which was hard to really get for sure because they were acting very flaky and disconnected and hard to follow, and that they are very intent on actually killing themselves and that the spiked antifreeze is spiked antifreeze. They will not be convinced otherwise, it's going to happen in about thirty minutes. Are you going to stand there and talk to them and otherwise not in any way intervene when they start to kill themselves, or are you going to do something else, like possibly call the cops or a hospital or even physically intervene if they start to drink?
If this still sounds outlandish even though it is a combination of a delusion you got to see right here on this forum alongside a life or death situation involving a catatonic individual that I went through, then you could cut it down to "A person you know is completely irrational and delusional and is getting ready to kill themselves because of a complete delusion. Do you stop them? Would you call the police or the paramedics on them if you had to in order to stop them"?
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Will such a person's life be improved by imprisoning them? Or will it continue to be a miserable disconnected hopeless nightmare from which they can't escape?
For what it's worth (not much), Parkour, I've plenty of personal experience with the schizophrenic. Ostensibly, it runs in my family.
I'm not too interested in either of us making this into a big personal/anecdotal thing though. If it's too difficult for you to discuss this issue impersonally and hypothetically, I totally understand. No worries.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Will such a person's life be improved by imprisoning them? Or will it continue to be a miserable disconnected hopeless nightmare from which they can't escape?
You don't know. You just know that if you do nothing, this person kills themselves right on the spot in front of you because they think they're Jesus Christ or because they think they are uploading themselves into the comet matrix or whatever is the result of what is obviously complete delusion. You might have some knowledge about which psychiatric care unit they will end up based on where you live, but it is not like you can diagnose them and figure out what would be done.
So do you respect some sort of a right of theirs to be suicidal for any reason, or do you intervene in some way?
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quote:Suicidal, even schizophrenic, people don't usually sound this straightforwardly silly.
Ten years ago, I called police to have my brother committed because he believed angels on the radio were telling him to kill himself. He is now, many years later, a moderately successful composer and professor of music -- but at the time I made the call, there was certainly no basis for any surety that his life would improve. I only knew that if I did not, there was a significant chance that he'd be dead.
Your response suggests that you believe the relevant question to be how SILLY an individual's justification for suicide to be. That I should not have had him committed if he told me that his next-door neighbor had talked him into killing himself seems, frankly, rather appalling.
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quote:Will such a person's life be improved by imprisoning them? Or will it continue to be a miserable disconnected hopeless nightmare from which they can't escape?
Why on Earth do you think this is a decision you should be or are qualified to make? I ask because you pose the question as though it should be something a layman human being should ask before intervening to stop someone with this sort of illness from killing themselves.
It's actually quite simple. If you are deeply concerned with an individual right to choose, someone who is psychotic or deeply depressed or schizophrenic is perhaps not making the same kinds of individual choices a healthy, sane person is.
The idea that someone should really ask themselves, "Well how do I know it would help?" when posed with that scenario is a scary, appalling devotion to ideology over people.
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What I read here is a lack of knowledge about the causes of the majority of suicides. Depression is a sickness. It is not a fault of character, or a rational response to physical, emotional, or mental pain. It is a sickness caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain.
Thoughts of Suicide is a symptom of that disease.
People commit suicide not because the pain is so bad, but because the brains, due to a shortage of some chemical or overabundance of another, has started a negative feedback loop.
They can not comprehend that things can and will ever get better.
The disease is almost completely treatable, and often curable. It can be short lived or it can be enduring.
When you say, "If a person thinks they should die, we should let them." you assume the person is thinking. They can not think clearly. The hardware for them to process the data has been altered so that rational thought is not possible.
When you say, "The pain they are feeling will go away once they die, so let them die" you do not understand that with a little medication, the pain they are feeling will go away as well, and no one has to die. However, until they get the medication they can not think clearly enough to take the medication. They think clearly enough to create false logic to stop them from taking the medication, and clearly enough to seem reasonable--except for their depression.
When you say, "Its genetic. If they live they will pass it on to their children, so kill them now to save the children" you assume that it is 100% transferable. Sure, 1 of 4 children may develop severe depression in their lives, but you are denying 3 of 4 their normal lives.
Depression, and suicide, is a disease. We should help with the cure, not write off the patient. You start by no longer blaming that patient for the disease, no longer pitying their suffering, but sympathize with the disease, no longer blaming the patient, but help them to a doctor, no longer assuming they are weak, unworthy, or pathetic, but seeing them for what they are--worthy people with a treatable illness.
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posted
Unless I had reason to believe that they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol or something, I'd let them drink the antifreeze.
Every sentient mind being allowed to follow it's own course is more important then some mystical reverance for life.
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We're hardwired to avoid death. It's been part of the genome probably since life first began. I'd say that this hardwiring combined with empathy makes it difficult for people to accept that sometimes, yeah, other people just want to die.
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I hope I don't come off as condescending when I say, well done to Parkour for engaging in conversation in such a meaningful way. Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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You absolutely came off as being completely condescending, even more so because you stated that you hoped you didn't.
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quote:Unless I had reason to believe that they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol or something, I'd let them drink the antifreeze.
Every sentient mind being allowed to follow it's own course is more important then some mystical reverance for life.
To say you would let someone who is obviously insane drink the spiked antifreeze without a murmur is a terribly cruel and callous thing to believe, under the guise of high-minded idealism.
You reject the 'mystical' reverence for life, and in its place substitute...what, the decidedly non-abstract, absolute 'fact' (in truth it is no less 'mystical' than this reverence for life you disdain) that every sentient mind has a right to follow its own course.
That's before we even get into whether or not an insane mind truly *is* sentient, and what we do about the bits of the person who *aren't* insane, that wish they were well but cannot (because, surprise, it's tough to think with a mind that is ill) see a way to health.
The good news is that you likely wouldn't actually do that, if it was a person you knew and cared for, and it was just the two of you, and they actually had the jug of spiked antifreeze a foot from their hand and had just begun moving their arm towards it. Not many people can really muster that amount of cruel indifference to both life *and* sentience, though there are ideologies which teach that it would be desirable to do so.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Will such a person's life be improved by imprisoning them? Or will it continue to be a miserable disconnected hopeless nightmare from which they can't escape?
You don't know. You just know that if you do nothing, this person kills themselves right on the spot in front of you because they think they're Jesus Christ or because they think they are uploading themselves into the comet matrix or whatever is the result of what is obviously complete delusion. You might have some knowledge about which psychiatric care unit they will end up based on where you live, but it is not like you can diagnose them and figure out what would be done.
Right. So I can lock them up where they may well be kept locked up and miserable for the rest of their life... or I can "let" them do what they think is best for them. Since it's their life...
quote:Originally posted by Parkour: So do you respect some sort of a right of theirs to be suicidal for any reason, or do you intervene in some way?
The fact that you dismissively refer to the last bastion of personal autonomy as "some sort of a right" is pretty terrible, I think.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Suicidal, even schizophrenic, people don't usually sound this straightforwardly silly.
Ten years ago, I called police to have my brother committed because he believed angels on the radio were telling him to kill himself. He is now, many years later, a moderately successful composer and professor of music -- but at the time I made the call, there was certainly no basis for any surety that his life would improve. I only knew that if I did not, there was a significant chance that he'd be dead.
Right. Sometimes when we force things on people, it "works out" in the sense that we think things have gotten better for them (and perhaps they think so too!)
Part of respecting someone's autonomy is letting them make irrational decisions unless those decisions are violating someone else's autonomy (and even then we have a high tolerance threshold).
Is your point that there should be a limit to how irrational they're allowed to be? I'm open to the possibility, but I wonder how that would be determined, and by who. I'm pretty sure I don't think shrugging and leaving it in the hands of an institution with a track record of horrific mistreatment is the way to go.
And again, for the record, I think it's not a good idea to discuss personal experience in this sort of discussion. It increases the likelihood emotions will run high.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Your response suggests that you believe the relevant question to be how SILLY an individual's justification for suicide to be. That I should not have had him committed if he told me that his next-door neighbor had talked him into killing himself seems, frankly, rather appalling.
No. My comments in that regard mostly pertain to the fact that the hypothetical situations you and Parkour are offering are extreme (and in his case, yes, silly) edge cases. You keep asking that I address those instead of, e.g. of people who want to kill themselves because they feel sad all the time, or because nobody will ever love them, or because school is unbearable, or because they hate their job and have no friends, etc.
These are common reasons for suicide. They are generally the ones Darth is alluding to, as well.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:Will such a person's life be improved by imprisoning them? Or will it continue to be a miserable disconnected hopeless nightmare from which they can't escape?
Why on Earth do you think this is a decision you should be or are qualified to make? I ask because you pose the question as though it should be something a layman human being should ask before intervening to stop someone with this sort of illness from killing themselves.
Well, if we can't answer that question (and I agree, we can't! In point of fact, I don't think it's a decision I'm qualified to make) then how can we justify imprisoning them? They aren't hurting anyone else, they aren't trying to infringe on anyone else's autonomy. Why are we infringing on theirs?
I mean, you don't think we have the right to imprison anyone for any reason at any time, right? So you think there are specific circumstances that then allow us to imprison people. So, clearly you already have asked yourself whether or not that's a decision you're qualified to make, and you decided it was, and you decided it was okay to imprison people who want to kill themselves.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: It's actually quite simple. If you are deeply concerned with an individual right to choose, someone who is psychotic or deeply depressed or schizophrenic is perhaps not making the same kinds of individual choices a healthy, sane person is.
People often don't make the same kinds of choices. All the time. Every day. They're constantly choosing things someone else might have chosen differently. And many of these choices are irrational. They often cause harm to themselves, and even people who choose to be close to them (or their children, who don't get a choice in the matter).
Obese people are allowed to make their own choices, right? And religious people (but not too religious)? But sad people can't make their own choices.
Or is it just that all of those people can make all of their own choices... unless their obesity, religion, or sadness leads them to want to commit suicide?
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posted
You keep referring to imprisonment, but society doesn't just throw people who it considers insane in jail forever. And while you do have a fair point that psychiatric institutions do not have a historical good record, that does not actually reflect at all on the current state of affairs.
If we did just lock people away, then I'd agree with you.
But we don't. And that's the point. We make every effort to help them get better, and while I don't know the success rate, I'm sure it's quite a bit better then it was throughout the less then sterling history you refer to.
On principal I agree that society should allow people's autonomy, but legally, if someone is not in their right mind and signs a contract or kills someone else, we take that into consideration. So, why have less of that standard just because it is their own life at risk and not someone else's?
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posted
Acftually, they do lock you up forever. Unless you convince them that you're no longer suicidal.
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Psychiatric institutions generally lock you up until you convince them you're no longer X, where X is whatever they locked you up for in the first place. So, if X is "suicidal," then Tittles is exactly right.
In practice, depending on X, they may also let you out if funding or whatever runs out, but this is seen by most as a failure of the system. They're supposed to keep you imprisoned until you convince them you're not X.
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posted
The major cause of suicide is a disease called depression.
Depression can be treated and cured.
Depression makes it impossible for a person to make rational decisions.
How can a person unable to make rational decisions be condemned to die because they didn't make a rational decision.
Its as if the antidote to a poison is sitting on the table. You are arguing that the person poisoned should be able to drink the antidote. We are arguing that the person poisoned can't move their arms to grab the antidote. We should give it to them.
I've had friends who became suicidal after taking certain medications. Should I let them kill themselves, or make sure they change medications. They thanked me for changing the medication, and one was thrilled that he was in the hospital at the time, and not home with his gun collection.
Suicide is not the sad but romantically tragic end of some great story involving too much pain to endure.
It is a disease, like the flu or appendicitis. We no longer lock up lepers, plague victims, or suicidal patients for their lives. We cure them.
Sentience does not equal rational thought. A child is sentient, but still will grab a hot pot or jump off of garage roof. Should we let them?
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quote:My comments in that regard mostly pertain to the fact that the hypothetical situations you and Parkour are offering are extreme (and in his case, yes, silly) edge cases. You keep asking that I address those instead of, e.g. of people who want to kill themselves because they feel sad all the time, or because nobody will ever love them, or because school is unbearable, or because they hate their job and have no friends, etc.
The reason I suggested that you address Parkour's hypothetical is not that it clouds the issue, but that it actually makes the issue clearer. In his hypothetical (and in his from-life example, as in my own) we clearly see that someone's wish to kill himself is rooted in an irrational, incorrect assessment of reality. With the greyer issues above -- "I should kill myself because school is unbearable" or "I should kill myself because I hate my job and have no friends" -- it is less immediately obvious (although remains strongly likely) that this motivation is highly foolish.
I submit that maintaining that someone should be permitted to kill himself because he finds school unbearable is yet another example of why dogmatic libertarianism is absolutely insupportable in any viable social framework.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Tittles: Acftually, they do lock you up forever. Unless you convince them that you're no longer suicidal.
That depends on state law and procedures, and very very few states go that far with Suicide attempts. Even in states that do have such statutes in place, doctors will often choose to release patients after a prescribed period of time regardless of their history.
For instance, my sister, who has severe frontal lobe damage and epilepsy, has attempted suicide several dozen times (she enjoys the attention she gets from people after attempting suicide, and does so mostly for that attention). In order to even be committed to the state mental institution, my mother had to swear out an arrest warrant for her stating that she was a danger (she was, she often threatened to kill the rest of the kids in my family) and then relinquish her parental rights to the state. My sister escaped the institution about 3 months alter and lived with my grandparents for the next several years, who put up with her constant suicide attempts and random acts of violence for reasons I cannot comprehend.
Once my grandmother developed Alzheimer's, they couldn't care for my sister anymore and she moved to North Carolina to live in government housing. For the next 5 years she was moved into and out of the state mental institution every 90 days because the doctors would determine that she was no longer a danger to anyone and release her. Shortly after being released, she would live in halfway houses, government housing facilities, or on the street until she got caught committing some small act of lawlessness (shoplifting, drug use, a public suicide attempt, etc). Once the police caught her and all the charges were filed, she would be carted back to the mental health facility to spend another 90 days, when she would be released because she was declared no longer a danger to herself or others. This continued even after she jumped off a bridge in the middle of town, which pulverized all but the major bones in her legs, and the major bones were broken in multiple places. She was stuck in a wheel-chair after that event and could no longer walk, but the mental institution released her after her recovery period was done. She was a bag lady after that for quite some time, with a typical 90 day stint in the mental health facility.
After about 3-4 more years of this back and forth, she was finally permanently admitted to the mental health facility. It took at least a dozen re-admissions in half as many years to convince the state of North Carolina that she was a continuing danger to herself and others.
A few years ago, the state health department decided to start moving a number of the non-violent mental patients to community care housing. My sister was one of those, primarily because (we assume) the doctors at the state facility did not want to deal with her.
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quote:My comments in that regard mostly pertain to the fact that the hypothetical situations you and Parkour are offering are extreme (and in his case, yes, silly) edge cases. You keep asking that I address those instead of, e.g. of people who want to kill themselves because they feel sad all the time, or because nobody will ever love them, or because school is unbearable, or because they hate their job and have no friends, etc.
The reason I suggested that you address Parkour's hypothetical is not that it clouds the issue, but that it actually makes the issue clearer. In his hypothetical (and in his from-life example, as in my own) we clearly see that someone's wish to kill himself is rooted in an irrational, incorrect assessment of reality. With the greyer issues above -- "I should kill myself because school is unbearable" or "I should kill myself because I hate my job and have no friends" -- it is less immediately obvious (although remains strongly likely) that this motivation is highly foolish.
I submit that maintaining that someone should be permitted to kill himself because he finds school unbearable is yet another example of why dogmatic libertarianism is absolutely insupportable in any viable social framework.
Right. Because you're arrogant enough that you think it's easy for you (or many other Smart People) to know better than other people what's best for them.
I get that.
But lots of your decisions are also rooted in an irrational, incorrect assessment of reality. Is this the criteria for imprisonment?
As I said earlier, I suspect you have a high threshold for irrational (or deviant) behavior. But once someone is sufficiently irrational or deviant, then it's okay to imprison them. Sufficient as decided by... you? A psychiatrist? Who?
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Right. Because you're arrogant enough that you think it's easy for you (or many other Smart People) to know better than other people what's best for them....But once someone is sufficiently irrational or deviant, then it's okay to imprison them. Sufficient as decided by... you? A psychiatrist? Who?
Believe it or not, there are actually already laws about this. And I think you would be very hard-pressed to make a successful moral, ethical, or legal argument that advocates for the freedom of people to intentionally do themselves mortal self-harm that does not posit freedom as pretty much the only virtue -- which is, as any first-year philosophy student can tell you, a pretty insupportable claim in itself.
For my part, I think locking people up when they're actively suicidal is a pretty decent response. If it is necessary to then conclude that some people should be permitted to end their lives, I'd have no problem with letting them argue that case to a board of psychologists, in the absence of a previously written and notarized living will.
quote:But lots of your decisions are also rooted in an irrational, incorrect assessment of reality.
I dispute that, of course. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Right. Because you're arrogant enough that you think it's easy for you (or many other Smart People) to know better than other people what's best for them....But once someone is sufficiently irrational or deviant, then it's okay to imprison them. Sufficient as decided by... you? A psychiatrist? Who?
Believe it or not, there are actually already laws about this. And I think you would be very hard-pressed to make a successful moral, ethical, or legal argument that advocates for the freedom of people to intentionally do themselves mortal self-harm that does not posit freedom as pretty much the only virtue
It certainly requires that you think personal autonomy is valuable and important. Very much so! Not sure why you think it requires the position that such autonomy is the only thing that's important, though. Especially since you've summed up personal autonomy as a generic "freedom," here.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:But lots of your decisions are also rooted in an irrational, incorrect assessment of reality.
I dispute that, of course.
Do you? I'm sure you disagree if I'm saying that, e.g. your political opinions are irrational or whatever. But this wasn't meant as an underhanded dig at you or anything like that. It wasn't even an attempt to say you're being irrational in this discussion.
It was a much broader statement than that. Irrational behavior, and incorrect assessments of reality, happen to almost everyone almost every day.
You have no flaws you'd like to improve on, and yet haven't successfully improved yet? No irrational fears? You're not too fat, or too under-muscled, or too over-muscled? You don't lose your temper at your spouse, or your kids? You don't get irritated at minor stuff that, in hindsight, wasn't worth your irritation? You don't overreact to anything? You don't have good or bad moods?
Etc. Insert whatever ridiculously common problems you actually have, as you like.
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posted
So how many suicides are acceptable in the name of pursuing this ideal of pristine personal choice?
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: So how many suicides are acceptable in the name of pursuing this ideal of pristine personal choice?
This is actually a really good, relevant question. Part of what it does is point out how moral value is contingent on our natural makeup.
For example: if brief periods of temporary suicidal urges were extremely common, this would not be just an issue of freedom. We would have to do something about it, to protect civilization itself as well as our fellow people.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Right. Because you're arrogant enough that you think it's easy for you (or many other Smart People) to know better than other people what's best for them.
I get that.
No, that's how you interpret it. It is just as easy or perhaps more so to interpret "Dan is arrogant enough to assume he understands the mind better than psychology and neuroscience, and has ideologically concluded that X"
Sometimes it is easy and better and ultimately necessary that certain people know better for you than what you do. If you are brought into the ER, it is the doctors who decide your care for you. Are they arrogant? Is it the height of autonomy-murdering hubris that they would put you under the knife without your consent? Since, much like acute physical trauma, mental disorder, dementia, and catatonic states are an inconvenient biological reality for our species (which cannot be handwaved away with bad interpretations of mental states), this often happens to people who are otherwise "conscious" but must still be "imprisoned" for care or personal management.
You were once having a productive conversation about this with Mucus and others where they were very clearly and comprehensively laying out the extent of your ignorance about mental illness and related issues of personal self agency and it is not entirely surprising that your misguided view of mental agency has continued unabated and extends to issues of suicide on the part of people suffering any type of mental illness and you effectively holding the view you do involving intervention.
It is time for that discussion to continue.
quote: But once someone is sufficiently irrational or deviant, then it's okay to imprison them. Sufficient as decided by... you? A psychiatrist? Who?
A related question. Do you think that anyone should ever be considered and ruled unfit to stand trial due to mental disorder?
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Right. Because you're arrogant enough that you think it's easy for you (or many other Smart People) to know better than other people what's best for them.
I get that.
No, that's how you interpret it. It is just as easy or perhaps more so to interpret "Dan is arrogant enough to assume he understands the mind better than psychology and neuroscience, and has ideologically concluded that X"
Sometimes it is easy and better and ultimately necessary that certain people know better for you than what you do. If you are brought into the ER, it is the doctors who decide your care for you. Are they arrogant? Is it the height of autonomy-murdering hubris that they would put you under the knife without your consent? Since, much like acute physical trauma, mental disorder, dementia, and catatonic states are an inconvenient biological reality for our species (which cannot be handwaved away with bad interpretations of mental states), this often happens to people who are otherwise "conscious" but must still be "imprisoned" for care or personal management.
So you're indicating that insane people are effectively unconscious, and so it's okay to treat them without consent?
Except they're not. They're literally conscious. So I guess this is a metaphor?
quote:Originally posted by Parkour: You were once having a productive conversation about this with Mucus and others where they were very clearly and comprehensively laying out the extent of your ignorance about mental illness and related issues of personal self agency and it is not entirely surprising that your misguided view of mental agency has continued unabated and extends to issues of suicide on the part of people suffering any type of mental illness and you effectively holding the view you do involving intervention.
It is time for that discussion to continue.
If you like.
Parkour, you didn't answer my earlier question for Rakeesh, right? Do you think all forms of suicide should be illegal/prohibited? Including, e.g. someone with an illness that causes crippling, agonizing physical pain?
quote:Originally posted by Parkour:
quote: But once someone is sufficiently irrational or deviant, then it's okay to imprison them. Sufficient as decided by... you? A psychiatrist? Who?
A related question. Do you think that anyone should ever be considered and ruled unfit to stand trial due to mental disorder?
I don't see the point, no. Either they did the crime in question or not.
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