But being in a position that you want to kill yourself hurts plenty more than I have ever felt as a reaction to a suicide. Forcing someone to endure what they perceive to unending misery, active, painful, scalding misery is immoral.

It is a lesser of two evils. — AmadeusD

My friend's suicide in high school most likely triggered my brother's schizophrenia, which lead to his addictions, which lead to his OD death, which may have accelerated my mother's decline and death from stage 5 Parkinsons.

Do I condemn him as evil? Hell no. But in terms of total suffering? I have three chronic mental illnesses myself, his death their origin story. It is too complicated a topic to state that suicide is the lesser of two evils. It makes 'sense' sometimes, it doesn't in others, and most fall into the mushy grey moral middle.

I won't condemn the choice and agree with you that forcing a life of suffering is immoral. I am glad you have never felt that extremity of pain following a suicide. But my friend was bipolar - his life was objectively not all 'scalding misery'.

And some suicides are an escape from consequences, or cultural - I lived in Tokyo for years where the 'honourable' suicide tradition has a long history. Jump in front of a subway and your family gets the bill - to the extent that certain 'cheaper' lines were preferred.

If your own son or daughter, then would you let them end their lives? Is it a logically coherent thought process? I find it impossible to understand that claim. — Corvus

I asked my mom's nursing home manager when she reached stage five if we could consider the option. The manager was appalled, despite this having been my mother's stated wish. Had I had the power, I would have made it happen in a second.

And yes, were my own hypothetical child to suffer to such an extent, if I believed this is what they wanted, as I did with my mom, I would reach the same conclusion.

Life itself can be viewed as suffering. — Corvus

I think 'life is suffering' a human universal. But of course, some people suffer dramatically more than others. As one who, hopefully, is not in the latter category, where do you get the certainty to conclude those who are must continue?

Moliere and I were talking about 'better conversations' earlier in the thread. For me, suicide remains perhaps the most powerfully taboo topic we have in Western society, so kudos to you and all for the personal and philosophical contributions both.

Too many deaths of despair these days not to try something different.

Sacks inspires me still, and I loved "The Man Who...".

When I read it for an intro psych course in the 90s, I thought it was 'objective' and recall it being presented as such. I would never conclude that had I just read it now.

My point was that if it was never peer reviewed or tested with repeatable results, it never should have been taken as more than something to look into. — Philosophim

Sure, but this discounts the entire discipline of psychology, with its 'repeatability crisis' only emerging into public discourse recently despite decades of tenuous claims. As a discipline, it is less than 200 years old. It remains, in most cases, a social science, not a hard science.

I don't reject your premise - I think it can be applied more broadly.

The peer review process is, currently, a farce.

There is hard medical documentation that something like Sacks’s awakenings happened. — Joshs

There is. And yet, 'catatonic schizophrenia' is no longer considered 'real'.

Not to detract from your point - just to reassert, this is a social science, that at times crosses into medical science - just, with thousands fewer years of history behind it.

Fascinating thread guys.

Aren't religious concepts of 'omnipotence' or 'omni-benevolence' just as impossible to comprehend as scientific concepts of 'eternity' and 'infinity'?

(Apologies if I make obvious mistakes here, I continue to call myself a 'lay' philosopher due to my lack of experience)

You can’t simultaneously:

affirm omnibenevolence
deny that it prefers maximal flourishing

I am myself am a staunch atheist. But why does omnibenevolence require an end to suffering, or encouraging human happiness? I recently read Thich Nhat Hanh on grief and bereavement, and he states that love itself is impossible without suffering.

Perhaps this omni-benevolent God is suffering right along with us, as did his son in some conceptions, as we as a species struggle through life with a goal of nirvana for all of humanity? This would be a tremendous act of moral agency.

He/she/they may not be concerned about individual flourishing, but overall human flourishing? If his/her/their concept of 'maximal suffering' necessitates free will, does it not also necessitate suffering?

I am not trying to deny the problem of evil. I tend to view philosophical and religious wisdom as comparable, even compatible. I can't conclude that there is a God, nor can I conclude that there is not. To me, this does not entail relativism. I believe in the possibility of an 'objective' truth, I simply assume we will never fully grasp it. This should not stop us from striving for it, by acting both whole-heartedly and half-sure.

Personally, I prefer to believe in free will over divine omnipotence. A determined world with no suffering feels more like hell than heaven to me.

When I run the thought experiment on myself, try as I may, I can't make myself believe that forgotten (and consequence-less) suffering matters. To whom? But then I'm stopping at the subjective, as you clearly are not. I think different people will have different intuitions about this. — J

Modern analysis of trauma often assert that 'trauma is written on the body', or similar propositions. In this conception, 'forgetting' is not even possible?

A counterpoint to consider. I met a gentleman who was deaf from birth, now in his middle years. His parent refused to provide any remediation, including contact with other deaf people, in the belief that this would build his ability to adapt to "normal" hearing society and so position him well for a good life. However the result was that although he could not fit in well with the hearing, he also could not fit in with the deaf community, and so found himself isolated. — Banno

Hello Banno, sorry for the delayed response. The black dog barks loudest this time of the year.

I feel your counterpoint tragic, but I can't tell from this response what your stance is on deaf parents denying an infant cochlear implants? Implants from a young age would avoid some of the concerns with your gentleman. I don't want to overstate things, but it feels, in some ways, different from the idea that even infants can express a gender ideology which trumps parental desires, or on the conservative side, that parents have the right to deny an infant vaccinations, which the child might have wanted?

I recognize that deaf culture is a more substantial form of culture than trans conservatism or 'anti-vax' culture. But it is hard to dispute that this action denies the child opportunities later in life, for the gains of a more substantial connection to the deaf culture of their parents.

Internal coherence is not sufficient for social or communicative normality in the practical sense that matters for care, welfare, and interpersonal life. — Banno

An entirely reasonable stance. But it is precisely this grey area where I feel the 'capabilities' approach runs into challenges? You note:

There are situations that do not have an unambiguously clear response, situations in which we cannot know hat it is best to do and must muddle through. — Banno

but elsewhere in the thread seem to discount Aristotelean ethics, which strike me as superior to deontological or utilitarian ethics in the ability to grapple with said situations? Or did I misread that?

I'll point again to the study that showed a multiplier effect of 2.25 for the NDIS scheme. Having folk with disabilities, indeed all folk, participate as fully as there capabilities will permit has a benefit to us all, even in dry economic terms. — Banno

I take all think tanks with a grain of salt, but I have seen similar work and agree in principle. My problem with such a simple conclusion is that it ignores complexity of blanket accessibility laws. Requiring new corporate businesses, government buildings, transit hubs, etc to be designed and built with ability in mind is different from insisting that all business be retroactively made accessible - a cost that some small businesses simply can't bear. Here in Canada, the deadline for universal accessibility standards came and went without success.

Some accommodations are vastly more expensive than others. A friend of mine who works with DD students talked about the 'million dollar kid' in her class, non-verbal, wheelchair-bound, hugely limited, but the parents and the team wanted the child in 'mainstream' education. My friend could not ascertain what the child wanted. That million dollar cost is not in a vacuum - it reduces the ability to address other social goods.

Last point - 'invisible' disability requires a degree of trust not present in modern society. For example, an individual with PTSD could be triggered by an unfriendly / hostile employee. In such circumstances, it feels unlikely that the sufferer would be able to raise their need for accommodation successfully. You can insist on the 'believe victims' principle, but the disability's invisibility makes this a completely different category from a wheelchair user who has been inconvenienced.

I wasn't really familiar with Nussbaum till reading this thread, but this and some preliminary reading piqued my interest. Any recommendations as to key works appreciated.

Which I think is a danger in philosophizing about mental illness when you're wanting to know about it because it helps you express yourself -- to disappear into the navel and not even enjoy oneself but instead get caught up in a self-feeding circle that just hurts.

I.e. we ought not ruminate. And the way to tell if we're ruminating or not is whether or not we're enjoying ourselves or not -- i.e. am I just wallowing in my sadness in which case, OK, I have to wait it out and can't think myself out of it, or am I actually coming to understand it better such that I know better how to deal with my emotions? — Moliere

I agree with you Moliere. Prior to a string of bereavements and tragedies, I was able to find that balance in life. A functional depressive, if you will.

But to go back to the OP, I found that I no longer had a case to make against my own suicide. My faith in self and humanity both were lost, and I feared my life a sunk cost. Turning to reason when all 'spiritual' value was gone may have saved my life.

Now that I am passed that, I think it's time to try to reconnect to 'spiritual'. My problem has simply been that the loss of the people, and the job, that I lived for opened up too much time for rumination, and closed a lot of doors in the social model.

the guide towards whether a concept is better or worse is whether or not it helps us to talk about our feelings in the pursuit of finding more peace with them. — Moliere

Better 'conversations' stemming from better 'concepts'. How about norms that encourage people to share emotionally difficult subjects? In particular, men? Caught in the vice of 'toxic masculinity' that they embody if they talk about their feelings, but also if they don't? A vice that is tightened by the males and females both in their lives?

I would also like to see meaningful conversations around moral accountability for the actions of the mentally ill. And what is the status of addiction?

I also wonder how to bridge the gap between visible disability and 'invisible' disability, such as mental illness. Since, visually, I am 'privileged', it seemed that a significant percentage of people discounted my claims of mental illness in the first place.

Frankly, I think identity politics is driving some of the increases in mental illness, and not just in the sense of overdiagnosis. That was a thesis in Haidt's "The Anxious Generation". But identity politics also gave me concepts and language (say, microaggressions) to explain some of the frustrations of living with depression.

But back to rumination, perhaps I am a Tony Soprano figure, rationalizing his own psychopathy, and in need of a shrink who will call me on it.

BTW, I hope it okay to use so much personal anecdote. I don't do so to find answers or express my own case as much as I find the anecdotal illustrative of broader trends.

Have you read "The Myth of Normal" by Gabor Mate?

The driving force was disabled activists insisting that disability is not a deviation from the normal human body, but the consequence of social design. — Banno

My ex was an audio describer for blind people attending public gatherings, and gradually came into contact with the 'dis-arts' community and various advocates. One loved to point out that, barring catastrophe, we will all experience some form of disability as we age.

Your OP got me thinking of deaf culture. I have met deaf people that would not use cochlear implants if given the option, because they feared it would interfere with their vibrant deaf culture. This is uncomplicated, but some contend that they would not arrange the procedure for any young deaf children they had, which is more complicated.

Talk of 'normal' has to consider degree of impairment, no? I recall my anger as a 21 year old undergrad listening to a sociology professor tell me that schizophrenics were communicating 'normally' given their standpoint and contrasting this with the difficulties of talking to my brother at all because of his debilitating psychosis.

Expanding 'normal' in that case seemed a political project rather than an attempt to improve dignity for the sufferer. My brother's circumstances improved tremendously when he was medicated, as he himself would often say.

Do 'invisible' disabilities differ from the visible in your schema?

Mental illnesses are 'invisible', and is sure seems that social design is making this worse. Should accessibility consider, say, depression?

The goal of accessibility is wonderful, but it seems impossible to achieve without unlimited financial resources or drawing lines somewhere?

I understand greater need and greater suffering. But lesser suffering is still worth talking about and improving. Comparing suffering as if to triage the worthy from the worthless is counter-productive to building bonds between those who suffer. — Moliere

:up:

I've had both bad and good experiences with counselling. I also take medication.

I also try and give comfort to people I see who have the same emotions. In fact I tend to find the more I focus on others' needs the less I notice my depression.

But I don't think that we can just think ourselves to be happy — Moliere

Helping others is as good a practice as there is for people with depression. And I certainly think it is easier to support people when you, too, have suffered.

I agree that one cannot 'think themselves happy'. Is happiness the goal for you? I align more with Buddhist non-attachment, but that too is not available only through rationality.

For many, or at least, certainly for myself, mental illness begins with hypersensitivity and an excess of reflective ruminating. 'Too much thinking' has been precisely my problem.

But I agree we need better conversations -- and would go further there and say we need better concepts.

Where I'm hesitant is in thinking there are problems with overdiagnosis. I'd reach for the opposite -- there are problems with underdiagnosis. People may want a diagnosis, but that doesn't mean it's an accurate one....

I'd rather say it's a medical field with such-and-such degree of confidence in it, which is lower than people often mean by "science" because they have the picture of Newton's physics in their mind. — Moliere

Better concepts such as? I agree with you here, but have not given this specific thought till now.

Perhaps I should say 'problems with overdiagnosis and underdiagnosis'?

There are definitely a lot of students who get medical accommodations in schools these days, although we also see rising rates of diagnosed disorders. There are many situations in which getting a diagnosis brings a person material benefits, in addition to, hopefully, care and support.

Some of this leads to overdiagnosis. Fears of 'safetyism' in parenting, and parents reaching for medical labels to understand their children. The 'romanticization' that Tom Storm raised. Young people who gain identity points for self-diagnosing online. Freddie DeBoer - who publicly talks about his own bipolar disorder - writes very thoughtfully on this subject. Abigail Shrier is also good.

But there are a lot of people walking around with many of the symptoms of depression who would never discuss their mental health, who represent the problem of underdiagnosis.

If you consider addiction a mental illness, how many people do not acknowledge, say, a smart-device addiction?

It's complicated. Better conversations to me means, more honest and informed conversations, not ideologically more correct ones. Too much of mental health is taboo, especially for men. Getting people talking about things they benefit from talking about. Ideally, this improves social science literacy and people can start to appreciate the complexity and nuance of mental health and illness.

For example, how many people do not even make a distinction between those concepts?

How often is psychiatry the tool of oppression and anti-individualism in movies; from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to Girl, Interrupted? — Tom Storm

Interesting point Tom. I give "Cuckoo's Nest" a pass just because of its age (and overall awesomeness) but that stereotype persists today.

I recently rewatched "12 Monkeys" on TMC, and was appalled by the stereotyping of mental illness. Brad Pitt got an Oscar nod for that I believe, all mannerisms and googly eyes, nothing at all like any of the people with bipolar disorder I have known. He's actually 'rational' because the psychiatric 'system' is oppressive.

I loved that movie as a kid. With a 'social justice' perspective, the stereotypes are glaring, and yet when I searched online for commentary, nobody has a problem with it, and Google AI assured me that it was a fair representation.

I continue to think that the reality of severe mental illness makes many people too uncomfortable to face, and instead they turn a blind eye?

To the point that I've come to think that the face-to-face relation is not literal, but that we can have it here even as we only type to one another. — Moliere

I had a great time reading your non-literal face-to-face with Tom Storm. I think it is absolutely possible to have meaningful dialogue online. It's harder, in that a screen is one more barrier to understanding, in general. But the depth of thought I see here on TPF is different than most places.

I definitely benefit from the 'slow thinking' required of me as a lay philosopher to follow and participate on TPF. Like writing pen on paper, the action of participating here requires me to shift out of fast thinking, a shift that benefits my mental health.

I can't recall back to the beginning of this thread, but participating over the past few days, I see a lot of dialogue that belongs to the 'better conversations' category.

So what would you (and other posters) nominate as starting points for 'better conversations'? Where is the need greatest? Where can philosophy best intersect with social science today?

“Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?” — Hurmio

Great quote. I need to read Emil Cioran, where's a good place to start?

I think that if there was total acceptance of the fact that there's nothing out there, one would 'turn inward' so to speak, and disdain the world.

Why would there be any reason to commit suicide then? Except in the most dire circumstances possibly.
Wouldn't the smallest things become a material for inner work, for observation and understanding?

Sounds good in theory! Hence why I try to remember ..

‘But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare’ - Spinoza — Hurmio

A phenomenology of depression?

Interesting idea, but I don't think it inevitable, to 'turn inward'. One can admire or enjoy a world they are unable to join.

That said, 'turning in' is a project that could bring meaning to 'disdain for the world'. Sometimes, my personal writing when at my lowest points emotionally is quite powerfully descriptive, in ways I can't access most of the time.

Thought-provoking post, Hurmio.

Kind of. I would still much prefer my old life back, but it is like my hand has been forced to seek out something else and Buddism has a lot of explanations for the suffering.

I find lots of it ridiculous though — unimportant

Fair enough, and it does. I can't believe in the mystical stuff either, but I do see value in ritual for those that do, or who practice it as ritual.

Meditation has been great for me, although I have fallen out of the practice. I even had my high school students meditating. It was super popular, which surprised me, but it helped that I was actually practicing it myself at the time.

I was flipping through Ligotti again last night and he talks about Buddhism and suffering quite a bit, seeing it as in the pessimist tradition. You should check out "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race". He is a horror writer, primarily, but he wrote this on the philosophy of his writing and his life, which is unsurprisingly bleak if you have read his fiction.

It was a big inspiration on Matthew McConaughey's character in True Detective Season 1, if you've seen that.

The problem of evil is avoided, for one thing.
— Jeremy Murray

Don't know what you mean here — unimportant

It's a challenge against a deity. How can a just God allow such extremes of human suffering? Buddhists don't need to answer this. It's the problem of evil that lead me to finally reject the notion of God entirely.

Not much though I am indulging myself in this thread. — unimportant

Well, I certainly appreciate the conversation. I get real value out of talking about mental illness, even my own personally, with a 'rational frame' as Moliere put it.

Hi Moliere, what a great ritual with Camus.

I was reading "The Outsider" for the first time in the summer when my neighbors little kids came by selling lemonade, right after the murder on the beach. Mom asked what I was reading but I abstained from telling.

The interlude made the experience even more memorable.

I find real solace in darker philosophies sometimes. It helps combat that sense of doom that comes with despair. I flipped through Ligotti again last night after mentioning him here, and when he quotes Mainlander "Life is hell, and the sweet still night of absolute death is the annihilation of hell", I find it comforting to recognize my suffering, at it's worst, so eloquently expressed, and shared by another.

Of course I know that my beliefs are symptoms, but the power of philosophy, or dark, emotional art, is one of the few strategies I have to fight the worst of depression.

Interesting, just to notice that now as I write you. This sparked me:

a rational frame in which to reflect upon my horrible feelings — Moliere

Definitely how I ended up experiencing existentialism when I reconnected to philosophy a couple of years ago.

"Depression" has diagnostic criteria for a clinical setting but that doesn't mean it's conceptually clear -- and insofar that we're enjoying ourselves (it is therapeutic rather than harmful) then it's rare for people to even want to talk about the various moods of depression in order to make some kind of sense of it all. — Moliere

Some of the most relatable expressions of depression I've encountered are ancient. This article by a young mental health journalist is fascinating.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-relatable-emotions-of-depressed-people-from-3000-years-ago/

We do not seem to have improved. The idea that mental illness and mental health are best addressed by professionals is part of the problem, but I have had excellent experiences with counselling as well.

Have you? Or other positive interventions / rituals?

I studied psychology in university, taught it in high school for over a decade, and have a long family history of mental illness. I have seen the objectivity of the discipline overstated my entire adult life.

I have seen the unwillingness to talk about the hard topics in psychology - suicide, depression, addiction, psychosis, etc. - just in the people around me since I was young.

And I've been exposed to the best arguments of the anti-psychiatry contingent as well. They lose me when they talk about psychosis.

Long story short, we need much better public conversations about mental health and mental illness? I think this would honestly reduce some of the problems we see with overdiagnosis.

to embrace the absurdity of life through living authentically — unimportant

How does one live authentically with 'injustice'? The 'injustice' of chronic illness you suffer from, the 'injustice' of multiple tragic bereavements in my case? I certainly do not think of Sisyphus as happy.
But I do feel 'condemned to be free', and find that notion empowering. Having rejected religious belief, I was left with rationality or nothing in my quest to find authenticity in the face of suffering. Hence, philosophy and other academic subjects.

But this feels incomplete to me. Do you find satisfaction in Buddhism? As a non-theistic faith, I feel less of a barrier to Buddhism than I do towards faith that requires a deity. The problem of evil is avoided, for one thing.

anyone can be smote at any time.

Most annoying to still watch others enjoy their lives in blissful ignorance.

I know lots of people deal with various chronic illnesses and still enjoy life but for me it has stripped away my ability to engage in what I devoted my life to for about the last 20 years. — unimportant

This is a tough pill to swallow, and a tougher pill at a young age.

I find the invisibility of suffering difficult, so when you talk of blissful ignorance, I think of the privileged woke world in which I have spent most of my adult life. Ironically, the majority of people I encounter in this world are too privileged to have experienced the sort of random tragedies that have affected us both. These tend to be the majority of voices I hear on the subject of MAID.

I am glad you are participating here, on these subjects, which as you noted, are worthy philosophical topics. Do you find any solace in talking about these things?

I always have, personally, but feel the philosophical frame has helped me feel a different form of solace in understanding, or perhaps even wisdom.

trite 'get help'. — unimportant

I struggled with the 'triteness' of a lot of the advice I was given as my bereavements mounted and my mental health and illnesses worsened.

Almost always, I found this comes from a good place ... the sayer doesn't realize that the sufferer has heard it before, and in my case and yours at least, finds it frustrating / meaningless. Ironically, perhaps, the best way I found to view such statements was as a 'micro aggression'. I realized this and tried to express it to people who used the term in other contexts, but, as I am visibly 'privileged', people tend to discount my premise.

If you view mental illness as illness, or disability, clearly individuals with mental 'illness' have an 'invisible disability' and should be treated as 'marginalized'. But we never hear statements like 'believe suicidal men'. This realization was tough on me, as it made me realize how selectively applied 'woke' premises truly were.

This is a fundamental question — unimportant

Suicide is a fundamental question, but didn't Camus argue that one must 'imagine that Sisyphus was happy'? I don't see that conclusion as fundamentally different from 'get help'. Different contingencies, but the premise of assuming agency is similar?

Personally, I found meaning in the existentialists when I had abandoned hope of doing so. And also the pessimists and anti-natalists I encountered in Ligotti's "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race". There I found the best expression of the premise that 'life is meaningless suffering'.

Suicide is a 'taboo' target in too many contexts. I remember replying to a friend that said I shouldn't be talking about suicide on social media, to which I replied, I assume I would not still be here had I not.

We should be talking about suicide philosophically, and we should be talking about it with the people in our lives. I was sixteen when the closest friend I'd ever had killed himself, and I don't recall ANY conversations about his death with the adults in my life. That was 35 years ago, but I don't imagine much has changed. Those who should be talking about it with loved ones don't just ignore the subject today at least, but rather refer it to the suitable experts.

Hehe concept creep is a good way to put it if I am understanding you correctly in it being a slippery slope to normalise suicide for what seems lesser and lesser maladies. — unimportant

I don't know about 'lesser' but certainly fundamentally different. I worry the term 'mental illness' was adopted to give more credibility to the still-nascent discipline of psychology. I find the advice 'get help' problematic if it assumes the medical model 100% - the idea that all you need to do is stop drinking, get some exercise and take the right pill? That's technocratic arrogance.

But the idea that the right counsellor or medical practitioner, even the right diagnosis or prescription, can help you? This is true.

I say that having had two interactions with such 'experts' over the past few months in which, in both cases, I feel they knew less than I did about how to approach the mentally ill. One young doctor was on his smart phone while I explained to him my anxiety problem with screen-based interactions. I assume he was on the clinic network, and taking some notes, but still ...

And a second who flat-out disagreed with my self diagnosis of PTSD, because I had not personally found my brother's dead body - I only heard about his OD death over the phone.

These are just anecdotes, but telling ones I think. If this is the sort of 'help' available, no wonder people are skeptical.

Overall, I still credit counselling. For me, the less 'technocratic' the counsellor, the better.

What I thought 'silly' was how some disabled people were rallying against it, for the future creep idea you propose, envisioning a holocaust type scenario where they will be shuttled off for their lethal injections. — unimportant

The classic argument. I have no problem with disabled people and grassroots groups making this point. I don't love it when 'experts' try to make this point on their behalf. There are legitimate questions about the potential for abuse here. Honest conversations like this one are missing in the mainstream. Surely we can recognize both risks and rewards.

Generally, I feel the cautionary voice dominates, and very rarely are we willing to consider the suffering prolonged.

What if it was instead taken to be super cheap and easy to do with little checks at all, if someone felt like it? — unimportant

Suicidal intent is different from ideation, or a diagnosis of 'suicidal'. Ease of access to methods of suicide make it too easy for people to act in their worst moments, moments that generally do fade over time. Often this is just a few minutes.

I think of my time living in Tokyo, and the ease of people using the subway system to kill themselves. Societal norms around 'honorable' suicides likely worsened this trend.

I would be okay with experimenting with a more liberal policy around MAID as long as the applicant had 'persistent and consistent' expressions of their desire over a period of time. But I certainly do not trust our technocrats to get a process like this correct.

You can call it classic cynicism of aging but most seem quite happy in middle age compared to me now. Maybe it is superficial and they are suffering too — unimportant

It's a trend in the data, but of course, assuming that such data maps onto an individual and their choices and beliefs is to do bad social science.

Frankly, I assume you are right in your statement about things getting worse - I feel the same. But we do know that deaths of despair are particularly acute in middle aged men, for example. Lots of data on that. And lots of frightening data emerging that sees these trends appearing in younger and younger populations.

I am a lay philosopher and don't want to suggest expertise or anything, but have you read Ligotti's book or the pessimists? It's depressing stuff, but I found comfort in it.

I am that strange sort of depressed person who likes to watch a brutal horror movie when at my darkest though ... my psychologist was shocked when I told her that, but, cognitively, dark ideas in a book or movie seemed a 'safer' space for me to process dark feelings than when I was feeling them about my own existence...

In the last few years I feel like the only guarantee is life will get worse and worse so what is the point?

"Just because" is usually the reply or some prettied up version of it.

My parents are elderly and either they or their peers are talking of an ever growing list of health issues. You can do very little of what you used to enjoy so why wait to reach that stage? "Just because".

The live fast die young adage seems better — unimportant

It's a dark thought, 'life will only get worse' but perhaps an accurate prediction, in some cases.

I have read about the classic U-shaped life-long happiness line graph. There does seem to be something consistent around the elderly being happier, or more content, than those at the low point of the U in middle age.

Worryingly, the low point of the U seems to be skewing much younger in the past few years.

it seems like retirement is a scam — unimportant

Hope to be wrong that life will get worse, and plan for that possibility?

Hi Hypercin, thanks for that response.

I was haunted reading case reports from NL of assisted suicide granted to the depressed. Here is one example: — hypericin

Seeing a 29-year old woman in that situation is terribly sad, and yet a part of me feels happy for her, in that she sees an end to a suffering that I personally see no end to, far too often.

I am deeply conflicted by my response.

Here in Canada, Sue Rodriguez was an influential right-to-die advocate in the early 90s, who took her own life with a doctor's assistance in 94 after losing a court case in the Supreme court. For a long time, I have supported the concept of MAID as a result of her courageous fight, but that was ALS, a much less contentious condition.

I wish my mother had had access when her Parkinson's reached stage five and she lost all physical autonomy. Again, a much less contentious condition.

It does feel like 'concept creep' has affected this issue in the way it has with many progressive interventions - the safe injection site, or the 'no one is illegal' premise in immigration - leading from a small, promising intervention with a small population to a much more broadly applied intervention affecting a larger population with changing concerns, with consequences beyond those of the initial project.

As such, it was almost inevitable that we would land here, with 'progressive' societies extending MAID eligibility further to the mentally ill. 5% of all deaths in Canada last year involved MAID. I am deeply conflicted again, reading that stat.

The thing the bothers me most about blanket prohibitions on the mentally ill accessing MAID is that most of the conversation around the issue seems to omit the voices of the sufferer, even within 'progressive' media and policy circles. So It's nice to hear the voice of the young woman in your link. So much of this debate hinges on the centrality of agency - choice - for the sufferer.

In an ideal world, people rally around her and she no longer wishes for suicide, or the state has enough supports in place to limit this from happening in the first place. But should her suffering be extended as we wait for an ideal society that will never arise? She can always chose to end her own life, but the arguments against that, in favor of the agency of having a chosen date and effective (hopefully) method, have long been established for those with physical illness.

Obviously, real safeguards need to be in place, and this, too, seems an idealistic and naive expectation.

If the pain of being, say, 'a burden to others' is so great as to warrant a desire for death, is this not a 'good enough' reason for it to be an option, regardless of the risks that an individual might otherwise recover with time?

With the 'trans affirmative' model, a major modern flaw is the decline in psychological screening in the rush to 'affirm'. Earlier iterations of this model required persistent, long-term expressions of distress, in consult with psychological support, before turning to puberty blockers.

Perhaps a 'consistent and persistent' model, with the sufferer expressing their desire over a period of time, with windows of 'relative objectivity', could alleviate some of your concerns around offering MAID to the mentally ill? Along with a requirement that someone with a psychotic illness be medicated at that time of their applying for MAID?

Maybe not a break with a reality. But certainly a break with objectivity is assessments of one's life circumstance. How can a depressive evaluate this with any objectivity?

Like you, I wouldn't be here suicide were an easy option.

For depression, I've wants to say, "but there is always hope". But can we say this with confidence? Despite having crawled out of our own black holes? How do we know that others aren't much, much deeper, so deep they are doomed never to emerge? — hypericin

Those are powerful questions. Believing in hope is almost a necessary condition of returning from severe depression. But hope, itself, can become a contested concept and hope disappointed can make the situation worse.

No easy answers. I don't think absolute binaries can hold in this debate. Suicide is one of the truly taboo subjects facing modern society, at least in the 'western' world. Telling people "I don't want to hear you talk like that" feels a common response, but of course, it limits people from talking about their suicidal state. Is that a good thing? Is normalizing talk about suicide a good thing?

Regardless, I am glad that we are both still here to have this discussion!

Me too. So likely, does everyone — ENOAH

Isn't determinism a fairly common thread in philosophy? I was arguing for the choice to believe among those that have considered the arguments against free will. Without question, the average person believes in free will. The average Christian, for example, believes God has given them free will, which to me seems inconsistent with his omniscience.

Humans in history might be called evil because we despise our own actions, but we are not inherently so. We despise our own actions because they are not our natures. And, therefore, albeit a centuries or millennia long process, history can be constructed differently. — ENOAH

I agree with you here. I can't see our modern concepts of morality without all the historical and biological contingencies. I fear the biological component, our 'nature', has been diminished in our 'constructivist' era, which compromises understanding.

I am new to philosophy, so this is likely naive, but the free will debate strikes me as a false binary. Something about our natures and the environmental factors surrounding our ancestors intersected to the point at which we began to 'despise our own actions'. At what point can this be called free will?

I wasn’t referring to indigenous people living in modern civilisation. — Punshhh

Also a too-broad generalization, also contested by the indigenous people I know. Isn't this stereotype referred to as 'the noble savage'?

Not quite. 'trans' hasn't existed many places at all. Most instances quoted are, in fact, torturous attempts to relitigate instances of historical homophobia. What's happening now isn't too far off, as you've noted elsewhere. Most trans youth resile into being gay at puberty.

What I meant by true is 'verifiable'. Claiming to be trans is nonsense, on it's face. Not that it can't mean anything at all socially, but on it's face, its like claiming to be a rock. Your second point is taken, and the sudden drop in identification in the last 18 months seems to suggest something along those lines. — AmadeusD

I'm not talking about woke types retconning trans identities on famous figures. Historically, anthropologically, there have been people who we would label trans today - although they would most likely have been simply viewed as 'gay'.

There are also some societies that had an identifiable 'third' role, the 'gay uncle' is one example I recall.

This history is fraught. Perhaps some of the examples I've seen have been politicized research? I know that here in Canada some contest the two-spirited designation of indigenous Canadians as a retcon.

There is also the confounding group of those with atypical biology.

None of these groups would have been claiming 'trans' identity though, a modern conceptualization of a human characteristic. And all together, we are still looking at a much smaller percentage of people than those who identify as trans today.

Trans may not be verifiable, but it is arguably universal. Which, to me, is yet another reason to insist on honest, accurate conversations about the topic, as you and others here do - it also helps the 'historically' trans people, those consistent with long-term data about characteristics (early, persistent onset, for one)
highly predictive of 'trans' identity in adulthood.

This seems to me the best benchmark available for judging how 'real' a trans identity might be.

But the more mystical or apophatic your theology is, the less things need to be explained and God remains unknowable. My favourite explanation for the existence of suffering is that because an apophatic God is beyond all attributes, we have no basis to expect the world to lack suffering. — Tom Storm

I had to look up 'apophatic'. I love that about TPF.

I can be an atheist and still respect religious belief, and I agree completely with the way you have expressed the difference between a mystical and a literal God. It is the 'mystical' component of human life that forces me to concede that I might be wrong about God not existing, or even if I am correct, forces me to confront the 'mystical' and the 'spiritual' in a world lacking a meaningful 'purpose' for human life.

it misses that, assuming 'trans' is a "true identity" in the way claimed by the more committed TRAs, then it is imperative that we accept that reality and adjust our priors so as to make room for its truth — AmadeusD

Trans is a 'true' identity, and has existed historically everywhere. It's just that this modern iteration of that identity does not align with how it has existed everywhere else. The simple fact that trans girls and women are more common today than trans boys and men - who, historically, have made up two thirds of trans people, indicates that we are no longer talking about a 'true' trans experience.

Why does moral perfection require eliminating all evil as such? What can we know about moral perfection? — Astorre

Excellent questions.

I am new to philosophy (apologies if this is obvious), and have always thought of the problem of evil in the lay sense - why do bad things happen to good people? I think this a more resonant formulation than 'why does evil exist at all', as expressed in the OP formulation.

It is the distribution of evil - the child born into a short lifetime of extreme pain, for example - that is 'unfair', and thus God is rejected by many atheists, myself included.

And, of course, an omnipotent God who creates a human who will never be exposed to God's word, therefore never saved, therefore condemned to eternal hellfire, is potentially evil himself.

That is, free will too, is a construct, a mechanism in the operation of mind which upon "emerging" (along with the "self") proved to be functional in the operation of mind/history, and so, stuck. — ENOAH

Are you making a deterministic argument here/throughout?

Who was it that argued that they 'prefer' to believe in free will? I find myself aligned with that stance. Even if we likely do not have it, should it not remain a possibility, even if merely for the meaning it might bring to a determined life?

borders themselves are also xenophobic — ProtagoranSocratist

Hello PS,

What we are seeing globally in terms of immigration is vastly different than what was happening even 5-10 years ago. Here in Canada, hundreds of thousands of immigrants whose visas have expired have simply disappeared, expected to self-deport.

Huge processing backlogs are costing governments millions to store newcomers in hotels, worldwide. Certain demographic groups are committing a vastly higher percentage of certain kinds of crimes - witness the decades-long grooming gang scandal in England.

Do you honestly think an open-border policy that is happy to absorb, say, thousands of unattached young men fleeing conflict and war is going to have no negative impacts on a nation?

I agree Trump makes it 'easy' for people to view him as xenophobic, but don't think borders are xenophobic. This stance seems wildly naive, given the increasingly globalized nature of human life, and the pervasiveness of tech which further shrinks the distance from one place to another.

Not to mention the fact that many immigrants who use legal channels find the open-borders stance, or the civil-disobedience stance, noxious.

Euthanasia for the terminally Ill is one thing. For someone who is really depressed, or shaken by a loss that seems irrecoverable, that is quite another. I don't think it is ethical to make suicide a safe, available option for the depressed. If depression is a mental illness, then the person is out of their right mind, and does not have the competency to judge such a momentous decision for themselves. — hypericin

Depression is a 'mental illness' but it is neurotic, rather than psychotic. I think it better to view neurotic 'mental illnesses' as skewing or limiting perspectives on reality, rather than breaking from reality, as with psychosis.

The term 'illness' is highly misleading in the context of neurotic disorders. The relationship between biology, heredity and environment is different with, say, depression than it is with a physical illness - even though depression does manifest physically.

I have long wrestled with responsibility in this context. As a person with long-term depression, I have acted poorly in some cases, and ultimately, I deem myself responsible, but with mental illness a mitigating factor.

When my brother acted violently in the throes of psychosis? This, to me, is someone 'out of their right mind' and not responsible for his actions.

I share your concerns about euthanasia for the mentally ill, but ultimately feel it arbitrary and unfair to limit this option to people who are 'in their right mind'. This would disqualify schizophrenia, which is the cruelest disease I have ever encountered.

I acknowledge in advance that there are many moral problems associated with my stance. Personally, if I had had a gun handy, or ready access to MAID, at a certain point in my life, I would not be here writing this now.

Hi GreekSkeptic,

Sorry to hear of your existential suffering. I share that burden myself, and despite the gap in years between us, found myself relating to your descriptions of that suffering - which is, itself, telling about the universality of suffering.

I have extensive familiarity with counselling, both giving and receiving, and have found the right counsellor to be a wonderful assist. Meds too can play a role. In short-term situations, I have found the emotional 'boost' provided by anti-depressants to open a window of higher functionality, both of which can help a person fight through depression. And of course, this quote of yours, which others have highlighted, is considered one of the best approaches to depression (I'm going to use 'depression' as shorthand to describe your state, not as definitive).

Since I can't help myself, I'll help others. Now I would say for sure that that's something that keeps me here, and for the first time it does not feel superficial or illusionary - at least for now. Maybe that's the kind of hope I hoped for when I was younger. People shouldn't bear the pain of themselves. — GreekSkeptic

Helping others works. Sharing these feelings - as you are doing here, as you might in your philosophy society - helps. Writing, journalling, meditation. Experiencing a state of flow that puts you 'outside' of your thought.

I argued that pain is the primary standard of truth because it is the only thing that feels honest and coherent. — GreekSkeptic

I consider suffering to be the membership card for the human race, and this thought does bring me peace - not in an everyone else is bad off too sort of way, rather, in the Buddhist sense of it as a universal burden, with non-attachment the goal to overcoming this.

I also found a lot of peace in philosophy, even though I'm new to the field (again, apologies if my knowledge of say, Buddhism, is incomplete).

Sarte wrote that 'man is condemned to be free' and then joined the French resistance to fight the Nazis. I concluded after reading some Sarte and other existentialists that I had nothing but choice to bring meaning to my life. Having long-since affirmed my atheism due to the problem of evil, this idea started me on my path back from the void of despair.

I even found solace in some of the more extreme, negative philosophies. Ligotti's book on pessimism and anti-natalism covers a lot of suicidal-seeming philosophers. I no longer wish to end my own life. In reading of the struggles that others had, and the conclusions they had come to about the meaninglessness of life, Ligotti helped me with this. I do not recommend "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race" to many people, and I am not sure if it would help or hurt your mental state. But I personally felt less alone, and more comfortable choosing to live a 'meaningless' existence, after reading it. It is very dark, though.

To me, the only meaning is the choice we make, and that is enough for me to choose to keep on choosing.

You seem like you are walking the right path. Good luck to you, Greek Skeptic.

The cat is a sadistic creature — ENOAH

Not so, if it occupies the world pre-judgement, which I believe is what you are illustrating when you say the cat and mouse are not 'selves'? Is it not fair to attribute your shift from 'human nature' to judgement the emergence of 'free will' in humanity? Very interesting OP/thread, btw!

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." ~Steven Weinberg
— 180 Proof

Not quite. All it takes is making someone believe something—anything—that results in dehumanization — Outlander

:up:

Wherever we encounter indigenous peoples they all say the same thing, They revere their environment and seek to live in harmony with it. They respect their environment and natural balance and inherent wisdom of the animals and plants they live alongside — Punshhh

This is a pretty broad generalization when talking about a diverse population. I know indigenous people personally who would disagree with your statement, along with those who would agree.

Would you also love to hear how anthropological and biological takes on gender are grounded in philosophical presuppositions? For instance, did you know that Queer theory originated in the genealogical-ethnographic-historical studies of Foucault? — Joshs

Sorry for the late response Joshs, but to answer your questions,

Sure I would.

And yes-ish? I am a lay philosopher, recently interested, but I have come across lots of Foucault in my studies, usually in the field of education. I'm going to go ahead and assume that you have a much more detailed impression of the man and his work. Feel free to help me fill out gaps in knowledge!

But to my understanding, Foucault's was not a complementary approach, but rather a critical stance?

The first time I recall Foucault was in my undergrad sociology of deviance course. I recall strongly objecting to the idea that schizophrenia was a form of 'meaningful discourse' given that my brother had recently been compelled to take his anti-psychotics and had dramatically recovered from his own schizophrenia. He later said that compelled medication 'saved his life'.

Foucault always felt detached from reality to me after that. And he's certainly not 'modern'.

My initial comment, what I would 'love' to see, is modern philosophy interacting with modern evolutionary psychology (among other possibly fruitful academic intersections) to grow new understandings, rather than constant deconstruction and critique.

I guess I feel philosophy is weirdly absent from shaping the discourse today?

And thank you for questioning in high school. I taught high school math for five years before the attempt to puberty block and transition kids. I never bought the, "We have to let them do this or they'll kill themselves" line, and after doing research on the subject, it truly is tragic. I never would have gone along with it either. Adults can do what they want, but I will never stand by and let a kid be harmed. — Philosophim

Thanks! And sorry for the delayed response, I continue to battle the black dog.

Did you leave teaching due to the turning tides? I'm not sure I could ever return to the classroom, there is just so much pervasive dogma in schools. It's the taboo around discussion and pushback that I find worst, I can handle bad ideas.

It is tragic, how these often well-intentioned actions amplify falsehoods. Chase Strangio in US vs. Skrmetti acknowledged that there simply is no evidence that puberty blockers reduce suicide, and yet the 'living son / dead daughter' argument persists, badly skewing decision-making. Strangio is a big deal in the movement, so this is a major admission.

Its the insistence of tying my speech and the denial of sex supremecy over gender that trigger every red flag and emotion I had against religion. It is not only wrong to question if a trans woman "is a woman", it is immoral and blasphemous. Thankfully the trans inquisition has passed but there are still people suffering from the after effects of it today. — Philosophim

Interesting take from someone raised religious. Wokeness as religion is one of those ideas so compelling it seems to rise up in a variety of ways. BTW, where are you writing from where the inquisition has passed? Here in Canada we just had another academic controversy when the 'father' of evidence based medicine, Dr. Gordon Guyatt, retracted his own paper under pressure from the lobby.

Philosophy in its increasing irrelevance did not try to expand to become relevant, but retreated to the comfortable re-examination of its old and failed philosophies. — Philosophim

I know some object to statements like that, but it sure resonates with me. I am a lay philosopher, but proud possessor of three 'woke' degrees (English, Social sciences, Education). What pains me about this is that philosophy could perhaps best resist dogma. Certainly, my areas of study are nearly completely ideologically captured.

Glad you found a better personal path!

"Thinking in the face of the pressure not to." P — Philosophim

Going back to your OP, I increasingly like this definition of the 'purpose' of philosophy.

Early on, you could not even question the issue in many places on the internet. You would be banned for even saying something like, "I don't believe a trans woman is a woman." It was a secular religion and saying anything against it was blasphemy. The life of a philosopher in modern day is hard. Underpaid, untenured, and immense competition for positions as there are far more students than teaching positions. Why risk your livelihood on debating the issue? — Philosophim

Why indeed. I should frame my questioning to reflect just how hard it is to challenge orthodoxy. Personally, I was cancelled for questioning woke dogma, and I was super naive to have failed to recognize my precarity. That was in high school, so the pressure in a university faculty, where the divide between workers with 'institutional power' (tenure, visible woke status) and those just embarking on their careers is much worse.

What is the history of your calling woke a 'secular religion'? I started hearing it referred to that way maybe 3-5 years ago, and the idea has spread - because it is compelling. I certainly agree, after having thought it a superficial take when I first heard it. "Woke Racism" by John McWhorter is the best articulation of this I've found. I've used his term 'the elect' to describe the priestly class since reading him.

The bait-and-switch that allowed the trans movement to claim the same moral status as MLK and early gay rights activists and others seems tactically brilliant, but maybe reflects no 'tactic' at all, rather a natural evolution of thinking in a belief system shared across wealthy campuses and woke institutions globally. McWhorter talks at length about firm wokists that he is friends with, or admires - many people operating in this sphere are true believers, or (more often) moral relativists happy to defer to standpoint epistemology. Their intentions are generally good (if naive, or self-serving, or willfully blind).

I'm much more interested in the scientists doing the work and the psychologists doing the analyzing. — Philosophim

Me too. The divide between disciplines strikes me as another part of the problem though. In our complex world, 'expertise' is in the hands of the specialist, rather than the polymath. I see so many fertile fields left untended. I would love to read philosophical takes on morality, or gender, or liberty that are grounded in anthropology and evolutionary biology, for example.

And philosophy would be a good tonic for some of the ill-considered orthodoxy you often
encounter in the social sciences.

The model of affirmation is profitable. Clients will come see you to be told the things they want to hear, — Philosophim

Absolutely part of the problem, but this doesn't explain why, say, community-based 'safe consumption sites' for addicts still operate with outdated models based on different drugs? (assuming my premise that there may have been an ideological 'freezing' into place once smart phones became ubiquitous)?

I’ve never found a book of philosophy that’s assisted me with any real-world issue, to be honest. — Tom Storm

That, alone, is interesting. I have no formal philosophy background, but perhaps naively came here looking for a new way of looking at current events. "After Virtue" is the one recommendation here that has shaped my understanding of real-world issues today.

I think once people become radicalised by their social media bubble, it’s probably all over. — Tom Storm

I'm with you here, and like you, I avoid social media. I don't even have a cell phone. Nice list of novelists, BTW!

I know you didn't ask me — AmadeusD

I always enjoy your comments Amadeus, and welcome input from all. So thanks!

Stock I know from her (excellent) writing at Spiked and Quillette, so not the actual philosophy papers. This may be a dumb question, but can you recommend places to access these without a student / educator membership?

It certainly seems like other countries are ahead of mine, Canada, on critically addressing the radical affirmation approach.

Lawford-Smith has her own website with writings posted, so I'll start there with her.

No comment on merits, but illustrating that its hard to find one side - but not hard to find the other. — AmadeusD

Telling ....

Philosophy will always be needed to dive into linguistic assumptions. Good, evil, God, knowledge, etc. As for the modern day, I see a few. Granted, I could be completely wrong as assessing the important things of today is notoriously difficult, while hindsight is usually 20/20.

Trans gender issues. This was literally made for philosophers to tackle. What are male and female is science, but cultural associations with sex, aka gender, is a goldmine of philosophical discussion.

AI 'life' and mind. AI is going to challenge us to start thinking what a life and a mind are. As it continues to evolve, we're going to find AI that will be remarkably intelligent. Of course, it won't have feelings. Does that mean we treat it as a life, or do are things that cannot feel exempt from fair treatment?

Interpersonal connections in an internet world. We still have much to discuss and think about in regards to internet behavior and human evolution. — Philosophim

Thanks for the reply Philosophim. Three points that all seem "made for philosophers to tackle". Am I correct in thinking that philosophers are generally 'sitting trans out' due to the fraught nature of the conversation in universities and other institutions?

The AI issue was a landmark for my personal interest in philosophy. Can you point to anyone doing good work here that I may not know?

Interpersonal connections in an internet world. We still have much to discuss and think about in regards to internet behavior and human evolution. — Philosophim

To me this is the top underdiscussed issue. It certainly feels like online norms have been downloaded IRL. That the 'medium is the message' means that this medium (smart tech+social media) spreads a message of 'cognitive dissonance'. That we all live a panopticon, or a "village" with its "cage of norms" as Yascha Mounk put it recently - a village without the "genuine sense of community" brought about by daily face-to-face contact.

https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/we-all-live-in-a-village-now

I think the medium is the screen, and that each screen makes the view slightly more opaque.

The screen can serve to 'freeze' one image or concept as well. I think the trans issue is an ideal example - it seems to me as if 'best practice' sort of froze around trans affirmation and care around concepts of best practice common in, say, 2012 or whenever the smart phone first became ubiquitous.

The Dutch Model of affirmative care dates back to the 80s, and had some small-scale successes behind it when applied to the most highly motivated trans population seeking out such care in the 80s, 90s and 2000s.

But as the client population changed rapidly over the next decade, the model of care seemed to solidify in place? This is just an idea I've been considering, but it also seems to apply to other progressive concepts (like safe-injection sites when the real crisis is largely pill-based, or broad, open-door attitudes towards refugees in an era when the demographic reality of this is much different than originally conceptualized).

(I am not trying to pick on the left - I am simply more familiar with examples in the left-wing context I have long lived in).

How do you see tech impacting social connection?

I'm a big fan of sitting out controversies and pseudo problems. — Tom Storm

Sorry for the delayed reply!

Yours is a personal choice I can get behind.

Collectively, though, it strikes me that philosophy is MIA in some areas that philosophy seems uniquely suited to address? It certainly feels that philosophy might have more resilience than other disciplines to withstand the sort of attacks we see from the left on social scientists who differ from progressive orthodoxy?

I don't think philosophical thinking can limit the Trump attacks on universities though.

Issue-wise, I am most worried about free speech, as we see both the left and the right using the topic politically, while refusing to commit to principles, and with social media and AI further muddying the waters. Do you or others have recommendations for philosophers on the subject of free speech, in particular that can shed light on free speech in our online world?

And I wonder if philosophy can point to ethical approaches that are more agile and less calculated than consequentialism, yet less rigid than deontology?

It feels to me that there is a growing interest in issues such as these among younger people than there was in my gen X youth. Who should younger, early-interest-in-philosophy types be reading today?

Lots of good articulations of the 'purpose' of philosophy.

I came to TPF as a lay philosopher, rediscovering interests I had set aside due to no longer teaching a high school intro to philosophy class.

When I taught said class, I needed to connect to a discipline I had little experience with. So I read a lot - including back issues of "Philosophy Now". Some of it was beyond me, but I found myself drawn to discussions of AI. Fifteen years later, I find so much of that reading validated by what is happening with AI, and how those readings help me understand the issues today.

Which leads me to ask - what questions of an urgent / topical nature today can be best addressed, or perhaps just effectively addressed, with philosophy? Are there discussions on subjects now that will seem just as urgent in 15 years as discussions of AI have proven to be? I would love to hear some predictions, or be pointed towards urgent current topics in philosophy.

Canadian philosopher Joseph Heath noted on his substack that many of his colleagues seem to be 'sitting out' many fraught contemporary subjects. I imagine a lot of TPFers are closer to Heath than myself in terms of contact with this academic world - is he correct about this?

Hi Philosophism, thanks for the reply.

Religions are a great example of group think because most people are not in the religion for clear and rational language. They are there for moral guidance, group and cultural cohesion, and internal desires of how they want the world to be. Rational language alone will not persuade most people out of a religion because they lose so much more than they think they would gain. Usually if you want someone to leave an ideology, its a multi-pronged approach. — Philosophim

Is this form of religion really groupthink? I am a staunch atheist, so I have no skin in this game, but it feels an act of faith differs from groupthink.

Of course, elements of religion are clearly groupthink. But like you said yourself, most people aren't members of religions for 'clear and rational language'.

And most people would see arguing against someone's act of faith as bad form. In situations where it can harm others, sure. On national policy levels, I believe in the separation of church and state. But in private practice?

A clear and rational argument that demonstrates one is not immoral for leaving is very powerful. — Philosophim

I read "Infidel" by Ayan Hirsi Ali in the summer, and she articulates this process powerfully. Although, interestingly, I read she recently converted to Christianity, after a decade and a half of atheism.

Trans ideology has been so effective because it has set itself as a moral one without truly justifying that it is actually moral. — Philosophim

That is not to say that some aspects of transgender ideology are not actually moral. Any good measure of control and manipulation understands that there should be some truth to what one is pushing. Should an adult have the bodily autonomy and right to transition? Absolutely. Just like there are usually good things taken in isolation in any ideology. But what is important is to analyze what an ideology is saying rationally as much as possible without appeal to emotions to be free from the manipulative and prosthelytizing pressures that ideologies put forth. — Philosophim

Right. I think you have a nuanced take on this issue. As far as adults go, I too think 'absolutely', assuming they have been informed of the risks and not pressured or rushed through the process.

With the trans issue, I think we might have a better example of cognitive dissonance in action than we do in the context of religion, or at least the religious beliefs that we generally encounter in WEIRD countries; although the Islam Ali renounced is present in some communities within the WEIRD world, and that produces genuine dissonance as they stakes are so high. And there are similarly fundamentalist communities in other religions.

There is an argument made that 'wokeness' is similar, functionally, to religion. But whatever one makes of this argument, 'woke' certainly doesn't have the centuries of tradition and ritual and shared cultural experiences which may be so much more valuable to the believer than any 'rationality' of belief.

In terms of hormone blockers and gender reassignment surgery, the stakes are pretty high, which seems likely to drive dissonance. Dissonance theory potentially explains the rejection of major challenges to trans orthodoxy - I think of Chase Strangio's war against Abigail Shrier, for example, or dr. Olson-Kennedy suppressing the release of research conducted by her own organization.

I do not believe this is a liberal vs conservative issue. This is a people issue. Politics on either side effectively use what they can to manipulate and convince people that 'their' side is the correct one. The question really is whether it also happens to be that it is more rational to pick one side or the other. — Philosophim

Oh I agree completely. I am just more familiar with progressive examples given that I live in a largely progressive world here in Toronto. I imagine plenty of Republicans, for example, felt cognitive dissonance on January 6th, or when Trump pardoned even the violent protestors from that day. I just didn't really see it.

But in my progressive world, talking to a friend who ran the gay-straight alliance at my last school about the first Muslim-majority city in the US banning pride, I get to see dissonance first hand. As a former progressive myself, I certainly experienced profound dissonance when I started to see some of the sloppy conceptual choices and language you described in your post in the schools I taught at.

I describe myself as a 'conscientious objector' to the culture war, echoing Richard Reeves, and increasingly think a path through the culture war is issue by issue, focusing on the most principled, informed beliefs of both sides of the debate.

Certainly, there are trans people who lost, greatly, personally, from the backlash against certain more extreme ideological stances. I see common ground between the left and right here, (despite being much happier having personally renounced both). Conceptual precision can only help this project.

gender is a personality type of an individual that a person subjectively expects a member of that particular sex to have — Philosophim

A nice, succinct take on the subject.

But once someone has had their eyes cleared and has a way out of cognitive dissonance that does put their moral viewpoint at risk, the clear and definitive language gives them the off ramp that they need. — Philosophim

Do you think the Doomsday cult scenario in which cultists simply 'double down' on a reinterpretation of their initial beliefs is avoidable simply with greater clarity of thought and language? how does one reach a point at which they perceive their moral viewpoint to be 'at risk'?

Have you or anyone read "Mistakes Were Made, but Not by Me"? Truly a book that lived up to the hype.

I am more familiar with progressive rather than conservative thought, given that I live in downtown Toronto and taught high school, but reading "Mistakes" helped me understand why progressive people continue to insist on arguments that appear to be suffering from credibility issues.

I am sure there are equivalent conservative examples, I am just less familiar with them. I feel like I observe, or discuss, 'cognitive dissonance' more in person than I do in consuming media.

Your perspective on social change is insightful, — Athena

Thank you for saying that!

How do we feel at ease with who we are, when our understanding of reality is all messed up? — Athena

This question, or versions of it, seems central to many western conceptions of mental health and mental illness.

I describe the quality of living in our era as 'chaotic' and the experience of it as 'fragmented'. Even relatively agreed upon notions of 'reality' are in retreat. A lack of 'objectivity' or shared 'reality' is part of the declining mental health around us.

I have pessimistic views - there is no meaning in the universe, or my existence - but those are liberating views for me, personally, when I am able to pair them with the choice to continue to exist, despite this meaninglessness. I certainly do not think my views make sense to most others, but it is the clarity of having views again that I so appreciate, a quality shared by those with different, even religious, beliefs.

As we can lack information about how we come to have PTSD, so can we lack the memories that can help us. While replying to you, an important memory that has improved my life for the last 20 years came to my awareness. Maybe we all focus too much on the negative. Does counseling ever encourage good memories? Most of my I have felt love and I think the source of that was my father — Athena

I appreciate you asking me that question. I have long struggled to balance emotional / spiritual / human considerations with reason.

I know humans are predisposed to overly focus on the negative. And yet I do it constantly :(

Being 'present', engaging with 'slow' thinking and relating, can allow space for positive memories to return, when in the past, I have avoided them as triggering.

Over and over again, I come back to the idea of practicing wellness. I have been on long-term disability, and tried treating my days at home as work days, working to confront my mental illnesses and towards better mental health.

But recently I've been trying to think of this practice as practicing virtues. 'Presence' is a virtue that I struggle with, and perhaps the best means I have to combat that overly negative focus.

Committing to this practice of 'mental wellness' virtues every day until 420 pm has been huge for me, after being largely non-functional for years.

I chose to commit to '420' a year ago, as a result of reading philosophy, but reason has to be but one part of restoring balance to my relationship with the world. (Yes, the name 420 started out as a joke, but I am sincere about it now).

Do you or others have 'mental wellness' routines or habits that have surprised or transformed?

It is sadly funny that I am only able to reply infrequently to this thread addressing mental illness due to ... mental illness, but I appreciate the interaction!

This is something necessarily very different from "medical practice", simply because the science deals with generalities and statistics, whereas practice consists of individual relationships. — unenlightened

Hello unenlightened, I agree with you here. I think it entirely worthwhile to keep the limitations of science generally and brain science specifically in clear view. I find the skeptical stance empowering. It is far too easy to differ to external expertise as a person with depression, which can worsen the embodiment of 'learned helplessness'.

I face this problem myself but if I refer to anecdote, I only do so as they are illustrative of a larger population facing the same problems. Being depressed does give me a 'unique' perspective but it by no means makes me an expert. Social media is certainly empowering people to self-identify as experts, based simply on their 'lived-experience' which further complicates the role of 'experts'.

But I do think there are 'experts', as long as we acknowledge that this is a highly speculative discipline, a good portion of which is social science. In the medical context, these 'experts' are confronting issues that are, in addition to biology and heredity, socially and culturally embedded, factors literally beyond their control to address.

But if we overstate the insights 'experts' such as these can offer, we do run real risks, as you outline. And I do think we overstate these insights.

One of the things that often happens in these situations is that the individual in question is so agitated that they hardly sleep for days or weeks, and as a result, the people around them cannot sleep properly either. And so many of the crisis interventions basically address this problem by various tranquillising and soporific drugs. Sometimes one cannot persuade the person to take the drugs, and involuntary treatment occurs. It should though be troubling to all concerned at least — unenlightened

Good point, irregular sleep and other habits are further fuel on the fire of psychosis.

Involuntary treatment is deeply concerning, but I believe it has an obvious role to play in highly specific situations.

In many cases, a forced treatment of anti-psychotics will alleviate the psychotic state. The argument here is that this window provides the opportunity for 'informed consent', and there are plenty of people with schizophrenia who identify this as a positive event for them. This was the case with my brother, but his experiences also involved my family in the schizophrenic community in my hometown. My father ran a support group for family members. My brother had friends with schizophrenia. A lot of people want to try anything to get better. Psychosis can be terrifying.

My brother was violent with my father twice, the first time, we called the police hoping for an involuntary committal and he was able to convince the doctor that he was rational - not uncommon for certain schizophrenics, to be able to produce short windows of rationality during psychosis. He was violent again, committed and then, better, a couple of weeks later.

But he battled side-effects from these drugs the rest of his life. People reporting that they are 'not themselves' when medicated is an enormous concern. Again, just using anecdote to illustrate common issues.

Certainly, you can at least argue that people who have never been medicated are incapable of informed consent?

Also, I think it is impossible to deny that certain mentally ill individuals pose a threat to themselves, and most importantly, to others, and we therefore have a responsibility to involuntarily commit and treat them. The fentanyl crisis and the pandemic have dramatically worsened problems of homelessness, addiction and mental illness in marginalized (and mainstream). I fear a traditional 'due process' approach that made sense prior to the explosion of these problems, and the skyrocketing strain on existing systems, no longer does. There needs to be stronger mechanisms for identifying high-risk individuals and mitigating that risk.

That said, I'd be happy to hear critiques or disagreements!

I have a friend who has been on various psychiatric medications for years, and hasn't been able to get off of them. It seems these medications, from my point of view (and i don't lecture him on it, even though i've gently criticized some of his other drug use) have been assisting in physical degeneration for him, even though he's a very coherent person for me to talk to. — ProtagoranSocratist

There are definitely negative consequences for some psychiatric meds. Weight gain is obvious, but the worst outcomes I've heard described are from people on anti-psychotics who say they 'no longer feel like themselves'.

Johann Hari's "Stolen Connections" talks about the consequences of indefinitely taking meds that were designed as short or medium term, along with the dangers of 'medical-only' interventions. He positions mental illness as tripartite, with heredity, biology and social factors all critical components of mental illness. I agree with Hari here, and think his model points to realms that meds can, perhaps, assist with.

Obviously, plenty of things matter that are outside the realm of medication. It would be insane to argue that a pill can cure trauma, bereavement, alienation.

Does your friend wish to quit meds? Do you see the meds as the cause of his 'degeneration' or are they more a part of a causal whole?

A disability for whom? Where and how do we draw the line between disability defined in terms of the hardships it causes for those surrounding the allegedly disabled person ( as so often happens with ADHD) and their own sense of being disabled? And even with regard to the person’s self assessment, what percentage of it is made on the basis of non-conformity with the dominant culture and what part of it is truly a self-assessment? Would you agree there is a difference between someone born deaf or sightless and someone who develops such conditions as a result of injury or illness? Do you think the former consider themselves disabled in the same way as the latter? — Joshs

Key questions. I think psychosis is a fairly clear dividing line - when an individual is interacting with an environment different from physical reality, responding to stimuli not 'seen' or 'heard' physically, they can become a threat to themselves and others. And this is a 'visible' benchmark, in most cases, at least over time.

So psychosis sets aside issues of, say, non-conformity to me.

I do think there is a difference being born and becoming sightless, and that those groups would, and do, view their disabilities differently. My ex was an 'audio-describer' for the visually impaired, and also worked with some in the deaf community on film projects. She often talked about these identities as 'different' rather than impaired, as do some within those communities - people born deaf who refuse cochlear implants, for example.

But neurodivergence is not a morbidity in a typical sense, so it is unclear what “health” means in this context.

This is entirely fair, I just don't think it captures a full enough picture. Neurodiversity is simply too
broad a category. There is not enough commonality between severe schizophrenia and mild to moderate autism, for example.

I draw a hard line between psychotic and neurotic illnesses myself on these sorts of issues, and think neurodiversity a more valuable concept in the neurotic realm.

Trying to “treat” neurodivergent people by making them respectable citizens who are palatable within neurotypical productivity culture is usually likely to backfire; typically bad for their own well-being, and a social loss. — Joshs

I agree that this can be problematic, but that doesn't mean that some neurodivergent people don't want or need treatment.

I oppose insisting on it. The only 'forced' medication I feel comfortable with is psychotics who pose a danger to self or others.

And possibly addicts deemed threatening, although addiction is a different can of worms.

Can you provide a link to something from DeBoer on this? I'd be interested in reading more. — wonderer1

Hello wonderer,

From DeBoer's Substack. The first is on bipolar disorder, which DeBoer himself battles. He has talked elsewhere quite candidly about the devastating impact his disorder has had on his life and career. The second is more on the media coverage, the issue of 'learning to live' with the voices and such. Number three talks to the pain of those whose debilitating disorders are 'left out' of some conversations.

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/perhaps-you-would-be-a-little-touchy

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-new-york-times-remains-utterly

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/who-neurodiversity-left-behind

DeBoer has tons of other great stuff free on his Substack - on Kanye and his bipolar disorder, for example. Given DeBoer's personal connection to mental illness, I think DeBoer on mental illness is maybe DeBoer at his best, although I believe he is more known for his writing on education.

There are obvious "documented positive effects" for alcohol, heroin, and tabacco as well. — ProtagoranSocratist

Are you arguing that anti-depressants have no positive effects? Alcohol and heroin are demonstrably bad for one's mental health. Anti-depressants are not so even if associated benefits are a placebo, is there a problem with taking / proscribing them?

Tobacco is interesting - I've seen studies that suggest smoking is beneficial for the mental health of schizophrenics.

Talk of 'chemical imbalances' is perhaps outdated? I don't think knowledgeable proponents of medication use such language anymore?

the 10,000 foot takeaway there is that there are major risks/issues if psychology and the language of health/wellness come to define ethics and the philosophy of "living a good life" and "being a good person." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Is this not already happening? I see some conflation between "living a good life" and "being a good person" already in wellness circles?

Lo' and behold, programs when curricula loaded with texts that claimed that the illusory nature of the individual must be overcome also discovered that it the individual was illusory. And yet, this area later became ground zero for much of the replication crisis, and some of the claims it made for things like "priming" are, in retrospect, the sort of thing that should have rung alarm bells in the same way claims of psychokinesis do. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Very interesting. Jessie Signal's "The Quick Fix" looks at a lot of the issues you are outlining here. Certainly, the idea (as argued in a rather infamous study) that mere exposure to the concept of aging would 'prime' study participants into walking more slowly in a hallway reads closer to psychokinesis than science.

A criticism I'd like to point out here is that psychology, like economics, is not metaphysically neutral. Aside from empirical work, it provides an interpretive lens for how data is interpreted, which is based on ideals dominant in the field. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Greg Lukianoff and Riki Schlott describe a scenario in which male teens seeking counselling were instead provided lessons on 'toxic masculinity', which seems in danger of violating the 'first, do no harm' principle.

I share your skepticism of a philosophical 'gloss' being placed on concepts of wellness. But can you see a role for a robust philosophy helping to 'reign in' the excesses of psychiatry, or other social sciences? In Oliver Keenan's book on Aquinas, I recall him insisting on the value of discrete disciplines, and that if theology is going to offer anything to the other disciplines, it will do so through theology first? Can philosophy take on this role?

Nobody must question the medical model, because it is a scientific model. Scientists are objective and therefore mentally healthy. — unenlightened

This does seem to be a problem, despite psychiatry being in its infancy as a discipline when compared to medical science, or other sciences. Does recognizing the limitations of the medical model address this problem, or do you see the model itself as the problem?

He also appreciated Laing’s insistence that psychosis could be understood as a meaningful experience, rather than simply as a disease process. — Joshs

There are certainly some people who have 'learned to live' with their voices. But generally, when I hear this idea, I am left assuming that proponents don't actually know a lot of people living with psychosis. Not that my experience of friends and family with psychosis is anything more than anecdote, but even if the communication I experienced with my brother was 'meaningful', it was certainly degraded and impoverished when he was psychotic.

I don't think this concept needs to be discarded - I certainly did see 'meaning' in some of my brother's obsessions and paranoid ramblings.

Freddie DeBoer often writes well on this subject. He fears that too often people amplifying 'learn to live with your voices' and other such messages are the most functional representatives of the disability, which can drown out those for whom their autism, for example, is not a 'superpower' but a crippling disability.

I'd have to say that psychiatry is very limited: it's basically just something people use in desperation, and i can't comment on how to properly administer it. You have to get a referral to see a psychiatrist, because MH proffesionals know that talk based therapy is more effective than medicating for a wide range of issues. — ProtagoranSocratist

Talk therapy in conjunction with medication is best practice for neurotic disorders, I believe?

But I'm not sure how quantifiable the benefits of, say, anti-depressants are. There is no causation established, but despite not knowing why, exactly, anti-depressants help, there are clearly documented positive effects. One of the best arguments for an anti-depressant is that it can provide a 'window' of improved functionality. Timed correctly, ideally supported with counselling, a depressed individual can take actions during this window to improve their mental health that would otherwise be unavailable.

But when it comes to psychotic disorders? Medication is hugely important. We have a controversy here in Canada regarded a schizophrenic man, high risk to self and others, paranoid delusions, who was not forced to take his meds (as he had been, previously) and who later killed a number of festival goers with his vehicle while in a psychotic state.

I know that as a population, mentally ill people are at a higher risk of being victims than perpetrators, but that generalization does miss high-risk populations.

Personally, mandated medication saved my schizophrenic brother's life. Obviously, this is a morally complex subject. And the side-effects that Jack references are pretty severe with anti-psychotics, which is another disincentive for high-risk individuals.

Is it morally justifiable to compel psychotics to take their medication? To what degree is a psychotic individual responsible for their actions?

To what extent is psychiatry able to look at subjective experiences of suffering and how does philosophy come into the picture of such understanding? — Jack Cummins

Great question Jack, I have been wondering this for some time. I studied psychology at uni and taught it in high school for years, but have only recently begun to explore philosophy.

I was reading Oliver Keenan's "Why Aquinas Matters Now" this afternoon and started to think that cultivating 'virtues' like prudence, fortitude and temperance in a therapeutic / clinical setting was sensible. There seem countless fruitful applications, to be honest. Any that spring to mind as most obvious to you?

I can't help but thinking that a 'philosophical' approach to counselling might feel more substantial or accessible to a certain subset of people who might need / want counselling but who are suspicious of the affirmative, empathetic approaches most associated with counselling?

I've always felt that my psychiatrists were on the same treadmill that my internist, orthopedists, or dermatologist were on. — BC

Well put. This certainly characterizes my experience with a psychiatrist over a year's worth of counselling at CAMH here in Toronto. Appointments with him were less frequent than those with my psychologist, but my psychologist was the one who benefitted me, likely due to the time constraints on him but less so upon her.

It seems like we tend to talk about "mental health" as an absence. I haven't heard people say "she is really mentally healthy" — BC

Good point. There is conflation with poor mental health and mental illness as well. For the concept of 'mental health' to be effective, it seems it would have to shine light on both ends of the spectrum. It's almost as if good mental health is considered the default, which is clearly not the case.

Philosophy comes in handy here to explain some of the glaring contradictions humans exhibit, and for generalizing about how contradictory we are as a species, with our often uncoordinated and/or contradictory cognitive and emotional traits constantly screwing things up for ourselves. — BC

It feels to me as if that 'handiness' isn't being deployed as much on the subjects of mental health and mental illness? Or am I missing something?

I see references to 'philosophical counselling' in therapeutic fields, but I am not sure if this is psychology with a philosophical gloss or a substantial philosophical project?

Does anyone know more about 'philosophical counselling'?