mentally defective????

Ok, I see what you're saying. It's basically, being around negative people or elements breeds negativity, and being around positive people or elements breeds positivity. That I fully agree with. Just like success--I believe, if you want to be successful at something, you raise your chances greatly by hanging around others who are successful at what you want to do, and learn from them.

Interesting info on Plato. I'm not that familiar with him; I know who he is and a few facts here and there, but nothing extensive.

I understand what you mean about definitions of different terms and ideas being subject to interpretation, but I think most things do have meaning and solidity. One can look at words, names and other terms and say anything can be anything, but we need definitions and understanding of what things are. It leads to confusion and boredom without meaning.

I've heard deaf people feel they shouldn't have to "assimilate," and I agree. They should have the option to remain deaf, if there's an option for them to be able to hear. They shouldn't be discriminated against for being deaf, or forced to change to fit in with society. But I don't believe we're meant to be born without hearing; it's a mutation or defect, I think.

I think the problem doesn't lie so much with labels, but how people interpret them and classify them. I can think someone has a defect and not see them as beneath me.

One thing I thought of, and I want to ask you is, What about people with "rage disorders" and dangerous minds? Are they just thinking differently? Should they be accepted as they are, and free to roam around in society, even though they harm others (and, in my question, this is to assume they have already shown themselves to be dangerous, having already hurt someone or an animal or exhibited violence in some way, not someone who a psychologist has deemed dangerous without the person having committed any serious actions)?

On the idea of surrounding oneself by people who build you up, rather than break you down, I might have many of my views due to the people who have been around me. My parents, their friends, my friends and others have often said things to me and given me the impressions that I'm bad, have "problems," ridiculous, unreasonable, should be ashamed, etc. And they still do. So, I can see where my views might be skewed.

Also, I admit, many of my views have changed after being exposed to other people and concepts.

In answer to your questions:

1) Yes, I think there are objective facts suggesting that males plus females are the norm. It takes males and females to reproduce and create life. This is the base meaning of our existence. (That said, there was a report I heard that we can create sperm from bone marrow, and this could lead to making babies through artificial means, without men.)

2) Logic is what convinces me. Granted, it's my logic. I don't believe that, because something exists, it's the way it's meant to be, or that nothing is wrong, defective or abnormal. It's not God, although I was raised to believe in a Christian God, because I've been agnostic for many years now. Nevertheless, there are many effects (mostly negative) that remain with me because of that upbringing.

3) I don't choose to adopt any model. It's simply what I'm convinced of, what I believe. I can say I deny it, but if I don't inside, then that's a lie. I can try not to believe it, but if nothing's convinced me otherwise, then I still believe.

I want to mention again, I think the problem lies not with labeling, but how we perceive those we see as different. If people look down on those who are labeled "disabled," "defective," "handicapped," or whatever, then therein lies the problem. People want change the terms: "Mentally challenged," "hearing impaired," "differently abled," etc., and that doesn't work. People that see disabled people as less than, or ridicule them, just turn these new terms into slurs, too. The perceptions of the people and the disability or difference are what need to be changed.

4) Most of my answer is the same as what I've stated above. The harm of a label isn't the problem, but changing the perception. As for if something harms someone, I think, if something is true, it's true. People who are defective, for instance, should be given self-esteem and strength to not let being defective, or different, keep them from what they want in life.

I just heard on the news, somewhere they've changed the laws or something to prevent people with mental problems like Cho, from getting a gun. I don't know if they meant people like Cho, or people with mental problems, in general. It makes me sick, because as I've said, being mentally ill doesn't make me irresponsible or dangerous with a gun. I have always advocated that anyone who gets a gun be trained in its proper use. This won't prevent people from using it to harm others (not in self-defense) if that's their intent, but it will make it less likely there will be accidents or mistakes.

I'm a small woman. I believe, if I want to have a gun for protection, as long as I show myself to be responsible, I should be allowed to have one. I also believe we should be trained in self-defense, and yes, a weapon can be turned against us, but I feel my odds are better with one.

Meaning is tricky. One is of course free to define ones terms however one wants, but that is to miss the point that meaning of terms is to facilitate communication and hence is a social enterprise.

Someone or other (I'm really sorry, but I can't remember who) attempted to distinguish between:

- Disorder (malfunction, defect)
- Disease (malfunction, defect, together with a judgement that the malfunction / defect is a *bad* thing)

This was a reccomendation for how we *should* use our terms (according to him). He thought that this distinction would make it clear whether or not we were judging the disordered state to be a *bad* thing or not.

Most people grant that there is a sense of 'disease' where to be diseased does mean that one is in a bad state. There is considerable controversy over whether there is a notion of malfunction / defect that is *not* committed to its being a bad thing, however. So... Most people grant the second distinction (whatever we choose to call it). The controversy is over whether the first distinction can indeed be made to work in a way that it is independent from a value judgement of *bad*.

> But I don't believe we're meant to be born without hearing; it's a mutation or defect, I think.

But who decides what we are or are not *meant* to be born with? If God made the individuals in the world then I suppose it is possible that he could tag aspects of them as 'perfect' or 'defective'. But if God didn't make the world and the individuals in the world then what are the relevant facts that determine that some individuals are defective whereas others aren't? (Even if you do believe in God I'm still not seeing the tags so how do we decide what aspects of individuals God takes to be perfect and which aspects of individuals God takes to be defective?)

> I think the problem doesn't lie so much with labels, but how people interpret them and classify them. I can think someone has a defect and not see them as beneath me.

No. But you do think that there is something *wrong* with them in the sense of their failing to meet some standard where you take that standard to be universally applicable.

> What about people with "rage disorders" and dangerous minds?

I have a view of the legal system that is different from most. Because I believe that ones actions are caused by ones inner states and ones inner states are caused by ones genetic inheritance together with ones social and natural environment... I think that given the genes and environment were what they were... It was inevitable that the person had the mental states (beliefs and desires) that they did (which is to say they couldn't have been otherwise)... And given their mental states (and their bodies and their social circumstances etc) were what they were... They could not have done otherwise from what they did in fact do.

As such, I don't believe in retaliative or retributive justice. IMHO the legal system should be about prevention of future reoffending (by removing the person from society) and rehabilitation (to do with prevention of reoffending). Whether people are mentally disordered or not the aim should be the same: Namedly to prevent the person from harming society. Might make a difference as to the appropriate kind of rehabilitation (medication or psychological intervention or social intervention or job skills training or whatever) but I'm not seeing a radical difference in what the legal and medical institutions should be doing...

1) Yes, I think there are objective facts suggesting that males plus females are the norm. It takes males and females to reproduce and create life.

Would you believe... Your views are tracking the literature quite well! I'm serious... The notion you seem to be getting at is something along the lines of this:

Evolution by natural selection is the relevant process for fixing the functions. (The idea here is that hearts are around in virtue of pumping blood rather than making thumpity thump noises. The evolutionary function of the heart is thus to pump blood. If the heart fails to pump blood then the heart is malfunctioning.

Problems for the evolutionary account of function include:

- Whatever mechanisms subserve reading they certainly weren't selected for that purpose. Hence, dyslexia isn't a failure of evolutionary function (hence cannot be a disorder / disease)
- The status of female orgasm is very controversial. If it doesn't have an evolutionary function then it wouldn't be a disorder / disease, however.
- Being a very anxious person with a trigger startle response would have been adaptive in an environment where loud noises and the like were very real indicators of threat. Take that person (who is evolutionary adaptive for savannah life) and put them in NYC with gunshots and cars backfiring and we seem to want to say they have 'anxiety disorder'. No failure of evolutionary function here.
- Some modelling has been done which shows that a certain number of sociopaths (cheaters and deflectors) is required in order for a population to stabilise on the majority of members having a 'tit for tat' with co-operative bias strategy of social interaction (as most of us do, apparently). As such it is far from clear that the population is worse off for having a certain number of sociopaths in the population. Cheating and deflecting and raping is a viable evolutionary strategy with respect to the evolutionary 'purpose' of replication of genes... As such... It is far from clear that the sociopaths genes arne't actually performing their evolutionary function better than the rest of us...
- Some modelling has been done to show that depression is an adaptive response to failure to challenge an individual higher up on the pecking order. These models are very controversial but they are an attempt to show depression to be an evolutionary adaptive strategy.
- Hysterical / borderline symptoms are also being modelled (by some) as adaptive because of the success in eliciting help from others.

And so it goes on...

So... Looks like turning to evolution by natural selection isn't the relevant process to fix the objective functions (where we can read deviations from the evolutionary functions as malfunctioning or defective). Wakefield is clinging to this at the moment (he is very influential). There are other processes that might be relevant to fixing the function... But I haven't seen a satisfactory account of why we should accept that there is one and only one objective standard which determines whehter things are functioning or malfunctioning. I can offer arguments as to their being multiple standards (relevant to our interests) but I don't have a knock down formulation as yet...

> If people look down on those who are labeled "disabled," "defective," "handicapped," or whatever, then therein lies the problem.

Yes. Though... Pity can be a bit more insideous. 'Poor them, life must be hard' is equally dehumanising.

The trouble is that 'defective' is often used in ecomomics. Certain goods are 'defective' when they do not perform the function they were advertised to perform. If a good is 'defective' then we return it to get a replacement good or a refund. When we then apply the term 'defective' to people it does indeed have connotations of 'broken' 'damaged' and the like. Connotations of they / we would be better off if they weren't defective.

> People want change the terms: "Mentally challenged," "hearing impaired," "differently abled," etc., and that doesn't work.

They are campaigning mostly for society to change its attitudes. How do you do that? Education. Change in the terms, yeah. Not everyone who uses the neutral terms has had a change in attitude, but people who have had a change in attitude tend to embrace the neutral terms. When people say 'PC rubbish' then that reveals that they don't understand that the real problem lies in the attitudes. But when people use the neutral terms that doesn't mean they have had a change in attitude, to be sure. If a little kid goes home to mummy and says 'one of the kids at school is hearing impaired' and mummy says 'oh that poor dear it must be so hard to cope with being xxx' it doesn't matter whether they say 'deaf' or 'hearing impaired' because their attitude is apparent (and the kid will pick that up unless teachers and the hearing impaired child manage to convey a different view).

> People who are defective, for instance, should be given self-esteem and strength to not let being defective, or different, keep them from what they want in life.

I'm still getting the notion that things are a little like 'oh little Johhny yes you are defective my son but don't worry you can screw lids on screw-top jars just fine and you will be an asset to any factory!'

> I feel my odds are better with one.

Yes. Still... I would like to think that whether you should be allowed one or not depends on whether in fact the odds are better with one...

I can't say if anyone in particular should decide what we should be born with, but I am going along with what makes sense to me, which is that we're meant to hear, see, smell, feel and taste. In that, it would make sense to me that anyone born without these abilities is defective. It may not be someone one wants to feel about him- or herself, but if it's true, it's true. I don't believe we should define things to make ourselves feel good or to make everybody happy. I believe the truth is the truth, and that's what we should follow.

Now, what is the truth, of course, can be defined by anyone, since no one can say for sure what the truth is. We can only say what we believe. If there's a God and any specific religious text is accurate, then that's the truth, but nobody knows for sure. The truth is what it is, yet it's also perception.

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No. But you do think that there is something *wrong* with them in the sense of their failing to meet some standard where you take that standard to be universally applicable.

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Right. I'm not putting down someone; I'm stating what I believe to be fact, yet remain open to being wrong. If a person is defective by not having these qualities, then s/he is defective, like it or not.

Your philosophy of what we call "disorders" and "disease" as evolution is interesting, but I don't think it's right. I think people can be born with a predisposition towards something, but may not become what they're predisposed towards, or it may take another form. I believe things that happen to us, whether by people or events, help form who we become. A child who receives great love, discipline and a healthy environment is more likely to grow up a healthy, well-rounded adult. Likewise, a child who is abused and neglected, is more likely to grow up with problems. However, there are always exceptions.

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. IMHO the legal system should be about prevention of future reoffending (by removing the person from society) and rehabilitation (to do with prevention of reoffending). Whether people are mentally disordered or not the aim should be the same: Namedly to prevent the person from harming society.

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I agree that prevention is important, and so is rehabilitation, when possible and effective. I also think punishment is justified in many cases. For instance, if someone steals from someone, they should have to return or repay the item(s) in question, and receive some kind of sentence to make up for what they did.

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Yes. Though... Pity can be a bit more insideous. 'Poor them, life must be hard' is equally dehumanising.

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True. I don't believe that, because someone is in a wheelchair, they deserve special treatment. They shouldn't get to be put ahead in line, and they shouldn't get better seating (in general; there may be exceptions). That's not to say a disabled person shouldn't have equipment to help him or her have a normal life. That's not special treatment; that's equality.

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I'm still getting the notion that things are a little like 'oh little Johhny yes you are defective my son but don't worry you can screw lids on screw-top jars just fine and you will be an asset to any factory!'

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I believe attitudes can and should be changed. Doing that, though, isn't easy. My statements, though, weren't about the attitude you mention above. As I said, they're about "what they want in life." But it's funny you mentioned this. When I was a young adult, around 18-21, my mom tricked me and took me to an Easter Seals building (that was dirty to my OCD, so I ended up losing my purse and stuff in it that day...I'm very bitter about these kinds of tricks that my parents played on me, but that's another topic), where, had I been stronger as I am today, I wouldn't have cooperated with the testing they did of me. They determined I qualified to work in this building with other mentally ill and mentally challenged persons, removing the labels off of glass bottles and preparing them to be recycled. This was in no way tolerable for my OCD, and I refused to do it. But it wasn't just because of my OCD. I found it wrong that they only paid $2-something an hour, not even minimum wage, and I had skills enough to get a simple secretarial job, because I could type. I didn't know everything for a major job, but I knew enough to get a job, if I were able at the time. I'm not putting down those who needed to do that work (except I think they should be paid minimum wage--a job is a job), but I could do better for myself if I could have worked then, so I believed I should. So, yes, I see your point about pity and thinking mentally ill persons have to settle for jobs basically created for "special" people.

hey. i guess the issue comes down to this:

is there one standard whereby anyone who deviates from that standard is 'defective' or 'malfunctioning' or 'disordered' or 'abnormal'?

you think: yes and i think: no.

if there is one standard then i get to ask:

what makes it the case that there is this standard?
or in virtue of what is there this standard?
or what makes it true that there is this standard?

(i'm tempted to say the burden of proof is on you for positing this standard but seeing as most people seem to agree their is one i guess the burden of proof is on me for offering such a counter-intuitive view).

i'll try and sway your intuitions...

wakefield's argument (for evolutionary function / malfunction) goes like this:

1) It is a-priori (true by virtue of the meaning of the term 'mentally disordered') that there is an inner malfunction.
2) A-priori (for all we know from the meaning of the term) the relevant process for fixing the function / malfunction could be god...
3) A-posteriori (scientists discovered) that the relevant process for fixing the function / malfunction is evolution by natural selection...
________
Mental disorders are evolutionary malfunctions.

Murphy has criticised premise 3 by drawing our attention to three different notions of function that are employed by the life sciences. While some theorists have argued that they are just different sorts of the same over-arching thing they appear to be quite different in the sense that they judge different things to be functions and malfunctions. There is nothing in science to show us that we should adopt one of these notions of function over the others... None of them capture our intuitive judgements as to who is and is not mentally disordered.

I'm thinking that 'function' (and malfunction) is a RELATION. If something is malfunctioning we need to ask 'malfunctioning with respect to what'? This is the idea that there needs to be some standard where something either conforms to it (functions) or does not conform to it (malfunctions). I'm not seeing an objective standard here, however...

One could say that the best scientific theory will offer us a model of human biological, psychological, and social functioning. Thus, if people conform to this they are functioning and if they don't conform to this they are malfunctioning. The trouble is determining which of the facts about people get to be represented in the model. Intuitively we don't want to build 'brown hair' into the model (whereby other hair colours are malfunctions). Intuitively... Well... Do we build male or male and female or 10 different sexes into the model... What facts about the world could decide this?

There is a fable about a person who wanted to make the most accurate map he could possibly make. It had a 1:1 ratio and he couldn't roll it out for fear of upsetting the farmers.

Not quite sure how that relates... I guess I think that looking at the world... it is far from obvious whether something constitutes a function or a malfunction. People have their intuitions and those intuitions seem to be built into the scientific models. Science does this when it attempts to model normal functioning (in some respect) then explain mental disorder as a breakdown in the model. Seems to me that one could alternatively begin by attempting to model mental disorder (in some respect) then explain normal human functioning as a breakdown in the model. Which choice we make seems arbitrary...

Of course we are most interested in majorities (women successfully campaigned to get F regarded as an alternative way of being whereas other sexes most probably won't be successful because there are so few of them). But surely the majority can be diseased (e.g., infected with parasites) and surely the majority can malfunction too...

I guess I just fail to see what facts about the world make it the case that there is a 'right' and a 'wrong' way to model the world with respect to whether somthing is a function (built into the model) or a malfunction (a deviation from it). We have a variety of models... And their determinations about the world often disagree quite severely (hence controversy over whether addiction is rational or irrational where the determination is dependent on the assumptions of the model).

depending on the assumptions of the model. in other words... depending on the intuitive judgements that people made BEFORE doing science... in other words... judgements formed by social convention (the way social practices currently are) rather than scientific considerations (where their judgements are informed by society-independent facts about the world).

Alexandra, if I could get off the subject for just a second, is you avatar a woman petting a horse or a woman holding a gun? Or is it something completely different?
I can't really see it.

yeah it distorted a bit. its trinity from the matrix with a gun. i'll change it soon (over the nxt few days) to something not distorted...

That's funny. Today I just notice she's holding a gun. I always thought she was petting a horse. Thanks.

lol. no, its a gun. i was a little concerned some people might feel a bit disturbed by it (my mother had this thing about guns being pointed at her on tv) but if people think its a horse...

;-)

with respect to my last rant... sigh... i am starting to struggle with the arguments.

i guess it is just that i don't see what facts about the world could determine which things are functioning and which things aren't.

we construct models of the world (in order to model phenomena that we find interesting). notions like 'function' (and 'malfunction') 'rational' (and 'irrational') are built into the model in virtue of our interests.

there are facts about our interests.
there are facts about the models we construct in virtue of our interests.
there are facts about whether things in the world are functioning or malfunctioning relative to (or compared to) the models we have constructed in virtue of our interests.

so i think that the facts about function / malfunction are determined crucially by our interests (together with the world to be sure). there is no human interest independent (objective) fact of the matter as to whether something is functioning or not.

the world doesn't care. the world doesn't have interests. it just is. just like it is a mistake to look for meaning in the mind independent world it is a mistake to look for function in the mind independent world.

if there is a god to bestow meaning and function then things are of course different...

but then the issue arises whether human interests are similar enough in relevant respects such that we can construct a single model of psychological, social, and biological function.

i guess i think that our interests diverge enough that... there always will be controversy.

maybe that just means that there always will be funny borderline cases where it is indeterminate whether there is malfunction or not.

sigh.

i'm giving myself a headache...

i just get pissed off that the issue seems to be determined (in practice) by lobby groups and political pressures and the interests of the pharmacutical industry and the health insurance system. the US health insurance system is such a force behind the DSM and the DSM is adopted by other countries (where there simply aren't comperable forces). the science is being comprimised :-( scientists don't need the malfunction assumption in order to discover inner causes. but they might well need it in order to obtain research funds :-(

and people are encouraged to adopt the malfunction assumtion so as to obtain health insurance funding. they are encouraged to adopt the malfunction assumption so as to not blame themselves for their condition (where you don't need the malfunction assumption to be absolved from blame). the importance of the malfunction assumption as a causal mechanism for people REMAINING UNWELL is downplayed considerably. the importance of the malfunction assumption for the expectations (or lack thereof) that psychiatrists and the media and the government and the family and the individuals have of the individuals behaviour that actually CAUSES the individual to come into line... grr... grr... grr... (end rant)

LOL! I thought it was a horse, too!

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is there one standard whereby anyone who deviates from that standard is 'defective' or 'malfunctioning' or 'disordered' or 'abnormal'?

you think: yes and i think: no.

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Actually, I think Maybe.

Here's the thing: I don't have an interest in thinking this deeply about life. I have so many other things of interest, I'm happy to accept what makes sense to me, and while things will change, I don't care to go to an extent where there is no real answer. There has to be something accepted as a standard, even though I don't think any person or group of person should be "the one" to decide. If we don't have standards, then anything can be acceptable, and that just doesn't work for me.

By your logic, who gets to decide that rapists and murderers are abnormal? Maybe they're here to weed out the weak? There are all kinds of ways to look at it.

I do think we need to fight against some of these definitions and labels, especially when it leads to injustice (although, that, too, can be disputed sometimes), but I don't think there's any way of finding an answer when anything can be anything.

hey. yeah, i'm seeing the horse! i'm even seeing a bridle or halter on the horse. horse has a ewe neck though...

> Actually, I think Maybe.

:-)
cool.

> Here's the thing: I don't have an interest in thinking this deeply about life.

i've been known to say something similar. by supervisor back home used to say 'i feel your pain'. sometimes i hear arguments back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and eventually i'm thinking 'whooooooo caaaaaares' and whatever was originally interesting about it seems to have been lost.

i'm feeling that at the moment. sigh. unfortunately... its what i do so i have to persist. (you, on the other hand, have the rather enviable luxury of not having to bother once it gets too boring). sigh.

the DSM never used to even bother defining mental disorder. thats not uncommon for a system of classification. biological classifications of flora don't typically start with a definition of flora they just do the stupid classification already. the trouble was that homosexuality was down in the DSM as a mental disorder and there was considerable pressure from the lobby groups for the DSM people to JUSTIFY how they determined that some conditions were mental disorders whereas others were not. there was a requirement for a definition of mental disorder that captured the cases we wanted to capture and... ruled out homosexuality, basically. this was the DSM III. first time a definition appeared. upshot was the harm requirement so if someone felt harmed by being homosexual then that counts as some kind of gender disorder (still is in the DSM i believe) but if they are happy with being homosexual then it does not. pedophilia, likewise is considered to be a mental disorder when the individual is severely distressed about their thoughts / feelings / actions. if they are not distressed about it then it is not a mental disorder (though of course to act on it constitutes a criminal activity).

because the DSM was silly enough to offer a definition theorists from all over have jumped on board. psychologists (campaigned successfully for the definition of disorder to not exclusively mention biological malfunction or that the disorder was to be treated by doctors - they were concerned they would no longer receive insurance reimbursement if this was part of the definition of mental disorder).

there is quite a debate currently... and next edition of DSM is due out in... 2011 i believe (or close to that). so i guess there will be a bit of a spate of definitions and counter-examples and amended definitions and counter-examples and so on and so forth. yawn. sigh.

what i'm kinda interested in is what we are doing (or what we jolly well *should* be doing) when we are attempting to define mental disorder. people seem to be trying to figure out an appropriate elucidation of the concept. but surely the NATURE of mental disorder is more important to us than the CONCEPT of mental disorder. I guess I want to step back and say 'hey! stop stipulating necessary and sufficient conditions from the armchairs people. too easy for the world to not cooperate and then you are left in the unfortunate position of having to conclude that there isn't any such thing as mental disorder. instead... we agree on central cases... let the scientists see what (if anything they have in common)... feed that back into the definition... and so forth.'

i don't know.

i've clearly drunk too much tonight (this isn't going well right now).

how are you supposed to argue against such a grin?

http://www.nyu.edu/socialwork/our.fa...wakefield.html

and how the hell does he manage to be so %#@&#! productive??? type A thing do you think???

sigh.

> If we don't have standards, then anything can be acceptable, and that just doesn't work for me.

well... i'm not arguing against standards in general... just an objective standard of what people are supposed to be doing.

> By your logic, who gets to decide that rapists and murderers are abnormal? Maybe they're here to weed out the weak? There are all kinds of ways to look at it.

their behaviour results in harm to society. so... we prevent their harming society like that by keeping them from society and rehabilitating them if possible. skinner talks about how we can have legal responsibility in the absence of free will (but i grant we have free will though i probably mean something a bit different by free will than the majority of people in the world).

> I don't think there's any way of finding an answer when anything can be anything.

(((maven))) (if safe)

i feel your pain. i really really do.

found some stuff...

where the rubber hits the road:

the 'naturalisation project' is an attempt to characterise whether someone is mentally disordered or not by showing mental disorder can be reduced to physical disorder.

but it doesn't stop there. there is controversy over whether medicine is objective or whether values are an important part of it. so the naturalisation project continues with the attempt to characterise whether someone is physically disordered or not by showing physical disorder can be reduced to biological malfunction.

but it doesn't stop there. there is controversy over whether biology is objective or whether values are an important part of it. so the naturalisation project continues with the attempt to characterise whether something is biologically malfunctioning or not by showing biological malfunction can be reduced to purely causal processes (e.g., evolution by natural selection).

basically... the last step can't be carried through. whether there is a function, malfunction, diffunction (two distinctly different ways of being), superfunction (a better way of being) cannot simply be read off from the causal facts. there is something missing. we need to plug the gap with something... IMHO we need to plug the gap with our attributing a 'goal' or 'good' to the system. e.g., evolution by natural selection (a purely causal process) together with an attribution of a 'goal' or 'good' (survival and reproduction) deliver a verdict as to whether there is function, malfunction, diffuntion, or superfunction.

this shows that the naturalisation project can't work because value judgement (attribution of a 'goal' or a 'good' to the system) is necessary for function and malfunction hence necessary for physical disease / disorder hence necessary for mental disease / disorder.

there is fairly much unanimous consensus that 'survival and reproduction' is a worthwhile good to attribute to a biological system. (not a physical system e.g., a rock or a mountain range or a planet though which is why 'functions' seem to be reserved for living things and for artifacts - where artifacts are designed for a purpose / goal / good). the consensus in biology has resulted in people mistaking the attribution of good for the discovery of good. though there is some controversy about the good this is typically cast as controversy over the unit of natural selection. e.g., the individual, the group, the genes etc. i think this can be cast as controversy over the good e.g., whether the relevant good is the good of the individual, the group, the genes etc. there is no further fact of the matter...

the problem percolates up in medicine where we have even less consensus on the good.

the problem percolates up still further in psychiatry where we have EVEN LESS consensus on the good.

the naturalisation project won't work, however.

what this means... is that we need to be more explicit about the value judgements that are involved in attributing the good. the DSM makes some noises about 'disruption to social and occupational functioning'. here the notion seems to be that social and occupational functioning is part of the good (purpose, function) of a person. that seems fairly uncontroversial... there are problem cases, however.

but the upshot of all this...

i think there is a difference in degree between mental disorder and non mental disorder. there is no difference in kind. i'm not sure if this falls out of the above analysis as a matter of logical necessity but i think it is fair to say that the above analysis does seem to suggest such an approach. it also means that the behavioural criteria is crucial. the causes of mental disorder are only of interest to us because we have decided (from our values) that a certain class of people deviate from our evaluation of 'the good'.

blah.

it is true that sometimes the debate seems to be a back and forth... back and forth... progress is made, however. though sometimes it is hard to keep a site of the shape of the forest over time instead of getting lost in the individual trees.

though... progress... according to whose values???

blah.

just think without us these idiots wouldn't have a job

lol. maybe they would have gone into neurology ;-)

the concept of mental disorder certainly seems to have changed some since the days when the mentally disordered were kept in custodial institutional care.

now prevalence of depression is mean to be... can't quite remember... somewhere round abouts a quarter of the population. one in 4 are meant to have had some experience of mental illness at some point in their lives.

so is it that prevalance of mental illness has gone up (and we were failing to identify people before) or is it that we are pathologising people who traditionally wouldn't have been regarded as pathological? the latter...

people used to go to church leaders and the like and then 'nerve disorders' became a fashionable / culturally accepted way of expressing distress and there was prescription to go visit a spa, and now there is prescription of SSRI's.

interesting...

and the drug companies get richer...

prevalance rates vary considerably with respect to how severe one needs to be to be diagnosed. inter-rater reliability is poor even under conditions when clinicians know inter-rater reliability is being assessed (how much poorer when it comes to dx for the old insurance forms???)

medicalisation of normality it is called. how did doctors get to be involved in treating the mentally ill and how successfully do they treat them compared with how well they could do simply left to their own devices or with a bit more social support? not very successfully (with respect to efficacy beyond a placebo effect) but shhh if people know this then the placebo effect will work no longer...

it is kinda disturbing actually.