Naturalism.org

Letter to Reason

4/15/03

Reason Magazine 

To the Editor:

Quoted in Jacob Sullum’s review of Pharmacracy: Medicine and Politics in America, Thomas Szasz writes that “Attributing mental illnesses, such as addiction and panic disorder, to biological alterations occurring at a ‘subcellular level’ is a parody of the denial of free will, choice, and responsibility".

Psychiatry’s dark secret

 by Sheldon Richman

 2/28/03, Manchester Times

Time magazine recently published its annual cover story on health, focusing on the relationship between mind and body. To its credit, it contains some rarely heard criticisms of the mental-health laws, which nearly everyone accepts as appropriate in the land of the free.

Using the causal story behind addiction to combat stigma and discrimination

Join Together is to be congratulated for convening a national policy panel on discrimination and addiction, and for the resulting report, which highlights important changes that should be made in policies involving those in recovery. 

“You sound to me as though you don’t believe in free will,” said Billy Pilgrim.

“If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings,” said the Tralfamadorian, “I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by free will.  I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more.  Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.”  

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse–Five

More Than Good Intentions: Holding Fast to Faith in Free Will

by John Horgan, New York Times, December 31, 2002

When I woke this morning, I stared at the ceiling above my bed and wondered: to what extent will my rising really be an exercise of my free will? Let's say I got up right . . . now. Would my subjective decision be the cause? Or would computations unfolding in a subconscious neural netherworld actually set off the muscular twitches that slide me out of the bed, quietly, so as not to wake my wife, and propel me toward the door?

In what sense do people deserve to suffer once we see that their character and behavior are entirely the result of genetic and environmental factors that they didn’t choose? Why shouldn’t we, instead of relentlessly and punitively imposing “just deserts,” address these factors, and so make criminality less likely without unnecessary suffering?

Despite concerted efforts by treatment professionals to change public perceptions of drug addiction, stigma against addicts remains widespread. According to the National Treatment Plan Initiative recently released by the U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), stigma can "cause ostracism, shame, and even denial of life’s necessities – such as employment and a place to live – for which the person in recovery is fully deserving."