what is the effect of addiction on moral culpability for addiction related actions?

[Cosmic Trigger]

Look Addicts are no more morally bankrupt than the rest of the population. People do corrupt shit in the course of making a living every day on large and small scales. They lie steal and cheat at home and abroad. It's fucking human nature. We are corrupt and getting more so IMO.So leave the poor junkie alone. IMO he or she on scale is a generally better human due to the fact that they have not been able to fit into the giant lie of modern culture. Personally I admire many of them.

 

[SKL]

I actually agree with you. 100% on addicts not being worse than many if not most of straight society. The dropping out of the evils of the modern world in favor of a lifestyle that the rest of the world considers degenerate is one that has a lot of precedents in philosophy and spirituality. So really there's nothing in your post, Trigger, that I disagree with me. When you say "leave the poor junkie alone," notwithstanding the fact that I am one myself (albeit maintained on bupe), it is not the junkie I'm attacking per se, it's an abstract concept that's gaining more currency in mainstream addictionology (see: Dr. Valkow) the "disease model" (of which I am a vocal opponent even in professional contexts.) The concept being that when Alice goes into the medicine cabinet of Bob, who's dying of cancer, and takes his meds, that in some sense Alice lacks agency in doing so, "it's not her, it's the disease." That's what I'm arguing against.

Some addicts, of course, latch on to this concept and use it as a cop out. Just as many do feel regret for their wrongdoings. If you're a junkie and you do something bad to get drugs, you should feel bad, and not just bad because you have a "disease," but bad because you did something wrong.

That's all I'm saying. A lot of extraneous stuff is getting pulled in here.

 

[Erikmen]

Look Addicts are no more morally bankrupt than the rest of the population. People do corrupt shit in the course of making a living every day on large and small scales. They lie steal and cheat at home and abroad. It's fucking human nature. We are corrupt and getting more so IMO.So leave the poor junkie alone. IMO he or she on scale is a generally better human due to the fact that they have not been able to fit into the giant lie of modern culture.

This.

 

[polymath]

I personally pretty much agree with the conventional views on what kind of diseases make a person less of a moral agent:

1. If someone is in a state of diminished consciousness that isn't self-inflicted (a diabetic's hypoglycemia, an infection that affects the brain, etc.) and does something violent in that state, they can't be held responsible for it.

2. A person who is psychotic may be able to differentiate right from wrong to some extent, and it has to be evaluated on case-to-case basis.

3. If someone just has a personality disorder or an addiction (or both), they are fully responsible of what they do.

But of course, if you try to help a person who has some addiction and has done some shitty things because of it, moralism doesn't help much.

 

[Cosmic Trigger]

I actually agree with you. 100% on addicts not being worse than many if not most of straight society. The dropping out of the evils of the modern world in favor of a lifestyle that the rest of the world considers degenerate is one that has a lot of precedents in philosophy and spirituality. So really there's nothing in your post, Trigger, that I disagree with me. When you say "leave the poor junkie alone," notwithstanding the fact that I am one myself (albeit maintained on bupe), it is not the junkie I'm attacking per se, it's an abstract concept that's gaining more currency in mainstream addictionology (see: Dr. Valkow) the "disease model" (of which I am a vocal opponent even in professional contexts.) The concept being that when Alice goes into the medicine cabinet of Bob, who's dying of cancer, and takes his meds, that in some sense Alice lacks agency in doing so, "it's not her, it's the disease." That's what I'm arguing against.

Some addicts, of course, latch on to this concept and use it as a cop out. Just as many do feel regret for their wrongdoings. If you're a junkie and you do something bad to get drugs, you should feel bad, and not just bad because you have a "disease," but bad because you did something wrong.

That's all I'm saying. A lot of extraneous stuff is getting pulled in here.

I was never posting at you friend. I was just ranting to the thread in total. I have no objections toward what you have been saying that I recall.

 

[nuttynutskin]

Most Bluelighters are drug addicts.
Most drug addicts are moral failures (meaning, that we have failed morally; so too, by the way, has everyone else, but here I'm talking in a more specific sense)
Thus one reasonably expect many if not most of us are moral failures.

That's just a bunch of assumptions tho, and what exactly makes someone a "moral failure"? Morality is so subjective anyways it could mean practically anything.

 

[SKL]

Morality is so subjective

If you actually believe this then I guess there's not a lot to talk about here.

 

[Cosmic Trigger]

I believe it also. Otherwise everyone would agree on every moral issue.

 

[SKL]

I believe it also. Otherwise everyone would agree on every moral issue.

No, otherwise some of us would be wrong, to varying degeees.

But anyway, it depends I guess on how far one lets one's relativism go. Few of the actions discussed here or in the drug sins thread have much moral wiggle room.

 

[nuttynutskin]

No, otherwise some of us would be wrong, to varying degeees.

But people are wrong to varying degrees lol. I mean do you really think someone who kills or rapes someone is the same as someone who steals something?

But anyway, it depends I guess on how far one lets one's relativism go. Few of the actions discussed here or in the drug sins thread have much moral wiggle room.

I was just commenting on morality in general. You seem to have a pretty black and white way of thinking about things.

 

[SKL]

But people are wrong to varying degrees lol. I mean do you really think someone who kills or rapes someone is the same as someone who steals something?

I meant "wrong," in context, in the sense of "incorrect," in response to the (seriously ill considered) proposition that objective morality would mean that we all agree on moral issues. Off course some immoral actions are more immoral than others.

I was just commenting on morality in general. You seem to have a pretty black and white way of thinking about things.

This thread isn't really about black and white. There are of course degrees, but in context of this thread, no junkie supporting a habit by theft is Jean Valjean, nor is he an insane person with diminished capacity. If he steals, he's a thief and junkiedom doesn't push the gray any closer towards white.

 

[Nixiam]

Morals are subective, in a sense that universal moral absolutes remain untouched by us.

 

[SKL]

Morals are subective, in a sense that universal moral absolutes remain untouched by us.

That's a very good formulation, actually; not relativism, vut rather an admission, which I wholeheartedly agree with, that in our present state we can only see moral absolutes, or any absolutes at all, really, "but through a glass darkly." We can only do so much in terms of trying to access moral absolutes. Furthermore though creating too many qualifications (thus approaching relativism) is a step in the wrong direction (and the sort of thing I opened this thread criticising.)

 

[nuttynutskin]

I meant "wrong," in context, in the sense of "incorrect," in response to the (seriously ill considered) proposition that objective morality would mean that we all agree on moral issues. Off course some immoral actions are more immoral than others.



This thread isn't really about black and white. There are of course degrees, but in context of this thread, no junkie supporting a habit by theft is Jean Valjean, nor is he an insane person with diminished capacity. If he steals, he's a thief and junkiedom doesn't push the gray any closer towards white.

Well in that case EVERYONE is wrong... No one's perfect. Everyone does things they shouldn't at times. If you wanna see that as we're all sinners and need to repent that's fine, but don't think that everyone is going to share that view or that you're some sort of authority on moral superiority.

 

[SKL]

You're really missing my point, to the point that I am honestly having trouble determining whether your doing so deliberately, or if you just shut off listening to me entirely as soon as I brought up religion (I get that quite a bit.) I'm a degenerate junkie and alcoholic. I've done a lot of fucked up shit. What bothers me is not so much the fucked up shit that other people are doing it or have done but that they place the blame on drug addiction or whatever else rather than themselves.

 

[Cosmic Trigger]

And why should they blame themselves? Did they ask to be born? Did they ask for their family and environment? Did they ask for the world to be like this? What good does blaming yourself do? Religion is so good at the blame game. It sucks and I'm glad I got out of it.

 

[Cosmic Trigger]

No, otherwise some of us would be wrong, to varying degeees.

But anyway, it depends I guess on how far one lets one's relativism go. Few of the actions discussed here or in the drug sins thread have much moral wiggle room.

Disagree. I think circumstance creates tons of moral wiggle room. The junkie that steals because he's been made a pariah and can't get decent help or a job is different than the junkie who doesn't give a shit who he harms just so long as he gets his fix.

 

[nuttynutskin]

You're really missing my point, to the point that I am honestly having trouble determining whether your doing so deliberately, or if you just shut off listening to me entirely as soon as I brought up religion (I get that quite a bit.) I'm a degenerate junkie and alcoholic. I've done a lot of fucked up shit. What bothers me is not so much the fucked up shit that other people are doing it or have done but that they place the blame on drug addiction or whatever else rather than themselves.

Well that at least makes more sense that I can understand... I think its a more complicated problem tho than just a drug user saying that it's the drug addiction and not themselves to blame. No one probably envisions themselves homeless, addicted to crack and giving blowjobs for 10 bucks and committing petty theft to feed their habit. At that point they likely aren't even thinking about who's to blame. That might be an extreme example but my point is I think it's more complicated than you're making it out to be.

 

[RDP89]

If you actually believe this then I guess there's not a lot to talk about here.

I don't see how one could possibly argue that morality isn't subjective. It is, by it's very definition.

 

[drug_mentor]

We shouldn't be referring to them as 'sins'. Believe me I understand the essence of the thread, but almost all of the 'sinful' behavior we have engaged in during addiction was/is a by-product of living in societies' which tell us drugs are 'bad', that we are 'weak' and essentially 'wrong'.

I agree you shouldn't refer to them as sins, but only because of the religious connotations of the word. You should acknowledge that an immoral act is immoral whether it was done in the throes of addiction or not.

I can't agree with that. If we're talking about "sins" such as stealing (or anything of the sort) in order to feed a habit, then it's not a moral failure. It is, as willy33 said, a result of the War on (some) Drugs. I'm sure you know very well how hard it is to resist doing something that hurts somebody else when you're in hellish withdrawals and your only hope is that dose which you can't afford. Had the drugs been cheaper, or drug-replacement maintenance services more available, a big portion of addicts wouldn't have to resort to crime to avoid withdrawal.

Do you think an addict has a right not to be in withdrawal? If so, is it a positive right or a negative right? If it is a positive right, from whom does the addict claim this right?

I am not so sure that addicts have such a right, and even if they do, I fail to see how this right grants them carte blanche to infringe the property rights of others.

I am not defending drug prohibition, and I certainly have compassion for addicts, but it is ludicrous to suggest that the states discrimination against drug users somehow absolves drug addicts of responsibility when they infringe the rights of individuals in order to feed their addiction.