[MD] The state of morality in the mordern world

[Krimel]

[Platt]
In an article entitle, "Psychology: The Hard Truth about a Soft Science," 
the author not only supports Pirsig's view but attributes much of the cause 
to modern psychology, beginning with Freud. Citing that "Science deals in 
empiricism, in what can be observed, touched and quantified, and nothing 
spiritual, be it the soul, Truth or something else, qualifies," the author 
concludes, "Thus, psychology prefers to view man as an organic robot, a 
cosmic accident, one whose actions are explainable in terms of hardware 
(genetics) and software (conditioning or socialization." 

[Krimel]
You article addresses issues in clinical psychology not the science of
psychology. Clinical psychology helps individuals with psychological
dysfunction and proceeds from a largely medical model. This medical model
has largely been perpetuated by the medical/insurance model that requires
static labels for dysfunctions and standardized methods of treatment. The
DSM IV manual that your author mentions is a direct result of this.

In addition Freud was a psychiatrist and practiced medicine as psychiatrists
all do. Some of the abuses your author reports in over prescribing of
medications for example do not come from psychiatry. Very often, in fact
much more often than not, psychiatric medications are prescribed by primary
care physicians not specialists in psychiatry. This is likely the source of
'over prescribing.'

As for the theistic aspects that your author describes, so what? When you
consult with your physician do you inquire as to her faith? Most serious
psychiatric problems have discernable symptoms and physical causes. They are
diseases of the brain. The number of patients confined to psychiatric
hospitals declined dramatically in the first half of the last century as a
direct result of prescription drugs. The number and effectiveness of those
drugs increase throughout the 20th century. 

The point of psychotherapy, which is Freud's main contribution, is to help
patients gain insight into their own feelings regarding their problems. It
still serves an important role in conjunction with prescription medications.
Christian therapists developed specifically to address the needs of people
who have strong religious beliefs.

As for some of the 'barbaric' procedures your author mentions I am not
familiar with some of them. Many of them sound like experimental techniques
from the late 1800s or early 20th century. I know for example that insulin
induced shock and convulsions were effective in relieving symptoms of
depression but were abandoned when electro-shock was found to be less
dangerous to the patient and equally effective. Electroshock should be
familiar to MoQers as Pirsig received a bunch of them as a mental patient.
This treatment is still practiced today and is very effective in patients
with severe and chronic depression. Today when electroshock is administered
patients are given muscle relaxants to avoid the serious convulsions most of
us associate with seeing it administered in the movies.

It is one thing to be critical of all of this when you think of how this
applies to normal folks or to Woody Allen style neurotics but for chronic
schizophrenics, people with life long bi-polar disorder, clinical
depression, and other serious mental illness, all this talk of moral
responsibility and accountability is shear rubbish. Pirsig for example does
not dwell on this but he does describe himself as catatonic, soiling himself
and letting cigarettes burnout on his fingers. All the mystical talk about a
religion and culture of one in Lila sounds nice but consider his wife and
son watching this. How mystical was their experience? Reckon they saw him
enveloped in the Dharmakaya light?

[Platt]
As a result, any notion of a rational morality embedded in nature as 
proposed in the MOQ is rejected out of hand. "If psychology's predominant 
school of thought is correct and there is no God, no Truth and we have no 
souls, then, sure, we are simply a few pounds of chemicals and water; 
hence, organic robots. And this would have some staggering implications. 
For one, morality is then mere opinion, and we can't expect opinion to 
govern the operation of the human "machine" any more than it influences the 
rotation of the Earth." 

[Krimel]
In contrast to the bleak man is "organic robot" nihilistic view, what does
your author espouse? Man is the creation of a jealous God who puts us on
earth to see if we will freely acknowledge him and then throws us into a
fiery pit for eternity if we don't. The option is he sentences us to sit
around his pearly throne singing his praises for eternity if we do. Free
will is supposed to be the "blessing" that gives us this choice.

And it really doesn't matter what we actually do while we are here since all
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And it is by faith that we
are save not of works least any man should boast. So not matter how good you
are, you fry if you don't say the magic words and if you say them, you get
to sing, no matter how bad you are. 

As a bonus we, the living, get to inflict blame and punishment of the
morally weak because they are inferior and deserving for our contempt while
we are morally pure. God on the other hand doesn't care at all what we do as
long as we acknowledge him and say we are sorry if we've been naughty,
regardless of how naughty we've been. Speaking of electroshock, remember
James Dobson's pre-execution interview with a saved Ted Bundy?