SilasBarta comments on Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (343)
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but
seems to summarise to:
(1) Medical treatments (drugs, surgery, et cetera) for conditions that can be treated in other ways can have negative consequences. (2) But so do those for conditions without other treatments and we use those. (3) Therefore: we should not object to these treatments on the grounds of risks.
I'd question the validity of this argument. Consider a scenario where there are two treatments for a condition: A and B. A has lower risks than B. Where is the flaw in the following argument:
(1) Treating the condition with B has risks. (2) But the treatments used for other conditions have similar risks. (3) Therefore: we should not object to B on the grounds of risks.
The problem with the argument is that it draws a false analogy between this condition (where there is a lower and higher risk treatment) and others where the only treatment is of similar risk to the high risk treatment for this condition.
I'm not saying the people with conditions like obesity shouldn't get medical treatment: there are compelling advantages to it, such as the decreased amount of effort involved and faster progress... But I think that this argument isn't valid.
If I understand you right, you're saying that allowing drugs might discourage people from even trying the willpower-based treatments, which provides a cost of allowing drugs that isn't present in diseases without a willpower-based option.
It's a good point and I'm adding it to the article.