Mental+Pathology,+Free+Will+and+Moral+Responsibility

Gordon Tait


__On Self Governance__ Tait defines self-governance as being founded within, "... the belief that we all have the capacity to make free choices, and that we can be held accountable for those choices" (352). This brings about issues concerning what defines the normal capacity for free choice and the judicial action taken on those without such capacity.

He then delineates two case stories of adolescents diagnosed with ADHD to highlight the issues at hand. The first student he describes was suspended from school for three days for kicking a water pipe in a bathroom, until it burst. Charges were dropped due to the students disability. Another student caused $40,000 worth of damage to his school in Wisconsin. Again, the charges were dropped due to his ADHD, only this time the diagnosis was made after the charges were pressed. These two cases set up Tait's essay by suggesting the question: How do these cases affect our understanding of free will and responsibility?

The philosophical debate:
__Libertarianism__ Definition-- All of our decisions are originated within our own being. Although external forces influence us, our own decisions are ultimately the only factors guiding us. Without Libertarianism, according to Aquinas, there is no possibility for virtue. An omnipotent God has allowed us to choose between right and wrong, therefore creating virtue. If we have no free will then virtue is not an issue. Coming from an Atheist viewpoint, Sartre suggests that since God does not exist we are responsible for our actions.

__Determinism__ Definition-- Decisions come from an agent outside of our being. Olen (1983) suggests that we are like God's billiards. With the right mathematics, it is possible to predict every move that we will make. Every wall we will bounce off, or hole we land in can be predicted through mathematical equations. This idea is supported by the materialist view of the universe, in that every situation is caused by a preceding event. This view fails, however, based on the Hesenberg uncertainty principle. This principle states, "that there is a fundamental indeterminacy at the level of subatomic physics--demonstrates that not all events in the universe appear to be caused by other preceding events, and that provides a loophole for believing that the brain may be able to generate its own first causes: i.e. free will" (356). At the same time, however this view has been debunked by Honderich (2002) by suggesting that quantum level physics "exist far below the threshold of significance to issues such as human choices and decisions, and also that such microevents are really not events at all" (356).

Within determinism there is a split over the topic of moral responsibility. Hard Determinists such as John Hospers believe that we are incapable of being held morally responsible for our own actions. The likes of David Hume and the Compatibilists, however suggest that we can be held morally responsible under the scope of determinism. Hume believes that we can be held responsible based on the idea that we can make decisions within the scope of our determined wills.

Alan Watts with an Eastern Perspective on the Debate
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Implications on Disciplinary Action:
"the act does not constitute guilt unless the mind is guilt, still drives much of the reasoning behind the legal approach to responsibility" (361).

The new hard determinism of psychology and pathology is taking over our judicial system. In this way only a perfectly normal mind is fully responsible for it's body's actions. Any person with mental pathology has some room for claiming "mitigating circumstances" or even insanity. The number of "mechanisms which can attenuate, restrict, modify or even negate responsibility" are growing as diagnoses within the psychology text books (362). These include a wide range of enviromental factors, social factors and genetic predispositions.

From this it follows for Tait to apply these ideas to the ADHD cases. An ADHD diagnosis seems to become an instant pass from full responsibility because its wide range of symptoms from fidgeting and impulsivity to larger social issues. Conversely, teachers now are //expected// to be capable of meeting the needs of both ADHA children and the other children at the same time. Schools have been given almost full responsibility for caring for these children's need and yet are not give the ability to punish them as they see fit. For instance in the first case he gives, the school decided that the punishment they gave did fall under proper disciplinary lines, but was then called under question and brought to trial. In the same way in the second case the school psychologist's refusal to diagnose the boy with ADHD was second guessed by the mother who sought out a private psychologist to make a //better// diagnosis.

There seems to be some call here to help school systems in their struggle dealing with these issues. The //fault// cannot be fully placed at their door, just as much as it shouldn't be given fully to a child with ADHD. At the end of the article Tait specifically advises to be careful in relieving people from their responsibility, mental pathology or no. It seems to be leading to a slippery slope of over diagnosis. If a proper line is not drawn soon huge consequences could follow.

Ferdinand Schoeman
Schoeman wrestles with the same sort of issues in his paper "Alcohol Addiction and Responsibility Attributions." Here the lines of responsibility get fuzzier however because it is supposed that alcohol addicts and abusors initiate and allow the continuation of their mental pathology. On the other hand, recent evidence has shown that alcoholism has other leading "determinants" both genetic and psycho-social that could mitigate an alcoholic's responsibility.

"I challenge a range of hard-line views about alcohol abuse, views that suggest that because there is no credible evidence of adequate single-factor causal accounts of alcohol abuse, patterns of alcohol abuse need not be seens as undermining or mitigating the abuser's responsibility for his or her behavior" (373).

Traynor and McKelvey V. Turnage
Here it was debated whether alcoholism is a disease, but also as "a willfully incurred disability" that therefore deserved some internal responsibility (374).

Schoeman uses this as a jumping point to bring to light some new evidence that challenge the reasoning this case exemplifies. First he shows that the development of lots of diseases seem to be in more of our control than once acknowledged. For instance heart disease is now shown to be relatively preventable with certain lifestyle changes in diet and exercise. "accordingly, we tend to show less compassion for the condition we regard as controllable" (376).

Secondly, he indicates that "a body's reaction still turns out to be mediated by character, directly or indirectly" (377). At the same time people's personality and character seem to be extremely plastic and unpredictable, especially when factors like drugs (prescribed and otherwise) play a role.

He concludes these points in saying "then many of the things we regard as unattributable to agents may strictly be so attributable" (378). He is completely bashing the credibility of the new determinism that Tait introduces and acknowledging a deeper complexity at work, that needs to be addressed. Ultimately he wishes to show that "disease and support on the one hand and health and condemnation on the other" shouldn't be our only options (381).

An Explanation of the Genetics of Alcoholism:
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