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98.More information
SUMMARYThe author shows us that, apart from a physical fear that we may experience at times, there exists a more subtle and destructive fear of the insane which determined - and still determines in many circumstances - the attitudes and even the policies which we advocate in regard to the mentally ill. The fear of being overcome, of being consumed by the avidity, the hate, and the projective identification which exist in the psychotic. In the face of this fear we have developed a series of rather inadequate and inefficient defense mechanisms which range from the denial of insanity to institutiona-lization and include all forms of activism and intolerance. In the end, however, this fear must not create in us a state of helplessness nor an oppressive reaction of omnipotence. Perhaps all that is necessary is simply to continue to listen to oneself and others?
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In this paper, I present a non standard objection to moral impartialism. My idea is that moral impartialism is questionable when it is committed to a principle we have reasons to reject: the principle of self-other symmetry. According to the utilitarian version of the principle, the benefits and harms to the agent are exactly as relevant to the global evaluation of the goodness of his action as the benefits and harms to any other agent. But this view sits badly with the “Harm principle” which stresses the difference between harm to others and harm to the self. According to the deontological version, we have moral duties to ourselves which are exactly symmetrical to our duties to others. But there are reasons to believe that the idea of a duty to the self is not coherent.