Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:41 am
Not to go all geeky here, and certainly not to trivialize anyone's personal experience, but I wanted to point out that some of the back-and-forth on this thread is a little reductive. Let's leave aside the free will versus neurochemical or probability-based outcome debate for moment and think about decision-making, which undoubtedly has to do on some level with the ability to perceive and respond to stimuli. People who suffer from some kinds of depression, e.g. psychotic depression, often suffer from anosognosia or other and even more severe cognitive/neurocognitive disabilities, and in some cases choice, whatever we mean by the term, wouldn't function in a meaningful way. To put it bluntly, in some instances the mental wiring is such that the person's perceptions deviate too significantly from reality to make anything like a self-preserving decision. Anhedonia and other neurocognitive deficits found in people suffering from certain kinds of depression can further restrict or limit a person's relationship to "objective reality" (whatever we mean by that); depending on the extent of limitation, this can also impact the person's decision-making capabilities. Dopamine problems can work all kinds of badness on a body-- and on a mind.
In other words, the more determined and less flexible the person's context, the less the capacity for "independent" decision-making or choice-- in any sense of the term we might be able to agree upon.
Of course, not all depressives suffer from the same kind or degree of depression, so I'm not saying that choice doesn't enter into things in all instances. And I'm not saying that anyone on the board has diminished capacity, in either a legal or ethical sense. Depends upon the nature and severity of the illness.
I'm only mentioning this to suggest that depression covers a wide range of illnesses, some of which imply a broader range of choice than others. (Within a given class of mental illness, there's often enough deviation within the class to make a precise diagnosis difficult, and sometimes symptoms of one class lead to confusion with another class; I've known people who suffered from a specific sort or another of depression but were misdiagnosed as bipolar, and sometimes a full-on psychotic gets misdiagnosed as a psychotic depressive, and vice versa, and so on.)
Ya'll can go back to bickering. Just wanted to throw these things out there.
EDIT: Assuming that a person tries to or succeeds in doing something bad to himself, herself, or others, I wouldn't say that the someone in question can or should use depression or anything else "as an excuse" for bad behavior. That's more of a "social good" issue, if you follow me. Whether or not someone has diminished capacity has little to do with coming up with a way of dealing with what the person did, although it might (or might not, depending on your social views) have to do with the manner in which society deals with the person.
In other words, the more determined and less flexible the person's context, the less the capacity for "independent" decision-making or choice-- in any sense of the term we might be able to agree upon.
Of course, not all depressives suffer from the same kind or degree of depression, so I'm not saying that choice doesn't enter into things in all instances. And I'm not saying that anyone on the board has diminished capacity, in either a legal or ethical sense. Depends upon the nature and severity of the illness.
I'm only mentioning this to suggest that depression covers a wide range of illnesses, some of which imply a broader range of choice than others. (Within a given class of mental illness, there's often enough deviation within the class to make a precise diagnosis difficult, and sometimes symptoms of one class lead to confusion with another class; I've known people who suffered from a specific sort or another of depression but were misdiagnosed as bipolar, and sometimes a full-on psychotic gets misdiagnosed as a psychotic depressive, and vice versa, and so on.)
Ya'll can go back to bickering. Just wanted to throw these things out there.
EDIT: Assuming that a person tries to or succeeds in doing something bad to himself, herself, or others, I wouldn't say that the someone in question can or should use depression or anything else "as an excuse" for bad behavior. That's more of a "social good" issue, if you follow me. Whether or not someone has diminished capacity has little to do with coming up with a way of dealing with what the person did, although it might (or might not, depending on your social views) have to do with the manner in which society deals with the person.
That wasn't very nice of him!
