... Well, if psychiatry necessarily means medical psychiatry and an illness model, I agree with you that there are philosophical problems with that, just as

Bystander:

Now, if someone were to do the same thing to the US State Department or to BP, I would not consider it to be an immoral act, for a number of reasons, primarily having to do with the illegitimate concentration of power these entities have.

Well, I generally agree with you about that. (Particularly in the case of the State Department, which I would argue is simply a criminal organization, which has no property rights and no legitimate expectation of privacy that anyone is bound to respect.) I would feel differently, in the case of BP, if we were talking about, say, breaking into their computers so as to permanently disable their equipment or prevent them from publishing a public statement. (To be clear, I also think BP is very close to simply being an arm of the State — especially as of late — and so its property rights are dubious at best, but I prefer to err on the side of not breaking other people’s shit where possible. In any case, there are differences among being let in by a leaker, on the one hand, and sneaking in to get information, on the other, and sneaking in to trash the place, on the, um, third.)

In any case, I think what’s wrong with posting a bunch of embarrassing private information online, in the case of an ordinary individual person, is not that it’s a violation of their rights (I don’t believe in intellectual property and so don’t think people have a right to control information in that way), but rather that it is a mean thing to do – - a real dick move, and one that most people don’t deserve. But a corporation has no feelings to be hurt and is not due the same sort of consideration for its secrets. The people in the corporation do, and are, but the purpose of revealing these kind of corporate secrets is hardly ever to inflict that kind of personal damage on people, or to invade the sphere of their private lives, but rather to scrutinize their dealings, and the way that those affect the rest of us. And while a person’s private life may not really be the business of random strangers, the kind of things that people are generally trying to hide within a big business like BP very often are.

I am not under any obligation to condemn every immoral action, especially when I view those actions to ahve positive consequences.

Well, I don’t think that doing what you described would necessarily be unethical. But I also agree that you’re not under any obligation to go out of your way to condemn every action you consider to be unethical. But I do believe in being honest, so if somebody specifically asked, you should probably tell them.

Anyway, I think that the virtue of being considerate and decent to others is an important one, but a distinct question from the question of respecting their basic human rights. I would have no problem with someone being rude or heckling or downright nasty to, say, a uniformed Klansman giving a speech on the street. But I do think that everyone has a right to express their ideas without being threatened or attacked for it; so I don’t think that said Klansman should be given a beat-down. Let alone arrested and prosecuted by the government (which is far bigger and more dangerous than even the most thuggish Klansman). Same goes for corporate sleazebags, raving warhawks, various political flunkies, etc. etc. etc.

... Marja, Right; I agree with you. But the origin of the discussion was around Szasz and his specific claims, so that's why I've mostly been sticking to

... I don't think it is. I think "schizophrenia" in this sense is a grab-bag of genuine symptoms and bogus attempts to write off deviation as "disease." As I

... Joshua, I don't think that the problems with psychiatry have to do with the fact that they make value judgments about brain states. If there are such a

... I don't think anyone here is unaware of that, Mike. Some of us question what the certification is worth. The fact that many psychiatrists all agree in

... Well, you'd have to ask Tucker; I was presenting his view, not mine (*). I think his notion was that anarchy would only come about after a process of

... I don't think I brought this issue up. My point was that government should not have more power to confine people against their will, search their stuff,

... It's not solely for governmental figures or office-holders, though. The murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are both pretty routinely referred

... Sure. Of course, insofar as this sort of thing can be hidden or bargained around, to that extent you'd expect to see fairly similar economic outcomes. The