Monday, July 04, 2005

The Ethics Of Amputating Healthy Limbs

“Two Australian philosophers believe surgeons should be allowed to cut off the healthy limbs of some "amputee wannabes". Neil Levy and Tim Bayne argue that patients obsessed with having a limb amputated should be able to have it safely removed by a surgeon, as long as they are deemed sane. "As long as no other effective treatment for their disorder is available, surgeons ought to be allowed to accede to their requests," the pair wrote in the Journal of Applied Philosophy.” – The Age.

The question that this position presents, is whether or not the philosophers are on the right track?

[Is it just me, or is The Age more philosophically inclined than The Sydney Morning Herald?]

4 comments:

Samuel Douglas said...

Tricky. Does wanting a healthy limb removed render one, by definition insane, and thus unable to give consent?
Apparently not.

Samuel Douglas said...

I agree. It makes little sense to talk of someone being 'sane' other than that desire to have a limb removed. As many of you know I facy myself as a bit of a libertarian, but this is a bit much even for me.
On the other hand, if they can pay for it, why not? What the Maarket wants the Market shall have, one way or the other.

MH said...

As I understand it, and I have read little on this area of psychology (so I am open for criticism from those who know better), there are two different drives that lead individuals to desire to become disabled. The first is that they come to identify more with disabled individuals than with the able-bodied, and want to become disabled. The other drive, and they need not be connected, is that an individual may come to identify the limb as the cause of all their problems. That is, they begin to think 'x has gone wrong, and it is the fault of my arm; if I did not have the arm x would not have gone wrong'.

I agree with Mr Walston that these people need a psychiatrist; but can conceed that this cosmetic proceedure is no more insane than wanting to have your nose reshaped, your breasts reduced, or the fat around your waist extracted. It is unfortunate, as I understand it, that the drives that underlie this desire are not yet fully understood, and there is no treatment for the disorder.

I, like Mr Woodward, am interested as to the history of the disorder.

MH said...

Peter, I am not sure that this thing should be considered a disorder; it is just that 'disorder' seemed slightly more apropos than 'thing'. Once I get a chance to read the actual paper - am a bit busy at the moment, with the thesis and the green wig - I will try to clarify a couple of these issues. (Or, someone else could track down a copy and read it ...)