I'm participating in this discussion in large part as a way to externalize my own thoughts on the matter and expose myself to multiple points of view so that I can determine what my position should actually be.
Roger.
So tie this all back to the topic: If a man suffers from BIID and loathes his left arm and wishes it removed, is he crazy?
Are you trying to question whether or nor a man who wants to cut his arm off is
sane?
But the line between disorder and an incredible personal choice (in the literal sense - a choice one cannot understand or comprehend) is not drawn by identifying what we would choose. Down that road lies classifying all minority positions as mental illness.
But regardless of the slipery slope, whether or not you're sane does have a definition.
The lines may get blurred in some cases, but we can get the jist of it... And I doubt the patient has a good feel for that.
In my opinion, that's where the definition of sanity comes into play.
Should amputation be considered a viable treatment, or should it not be an option at all?
Its only a viable treatment when all the other options have failed.
How do the concepts of "harm," life expectancy, self-harming choices, personal choice, self-determination, and quality of life align in such a case?
Maybe they don't, maybe the results
are inconsistant.
But the line between disorder and an incredible personal choice (in the literal sense - a choice one cannot understand or comprehend) is not drawn by identifying what we would choose. Down that road lies classifying all minority positions as mental illness.
But, the line between disorder and an incredible personal choice
does lie between what we
think we should choose. How could it be any other way? We can't enter their mind and determine if they're sane. We have to relate.
And there lies the crux of whether or not its a "disorder". Its about rationality. We have to rely on out own intuition for that, we cannot rely on their's. They're the ones in question.
and yet we would not say that his decision to smoke was borne of mental illness.
That gets into drug addiction, and I think we could count that as a form of
induced insanity.