>That involves moving out of the realm of consenting individuals. That is what changes.
Note that I also said we can avoid this by only looking at other animals where notions of consent don't apply. Ideally psychology should realize that consent is a human abstraction.
>I agree that there is a point at which abnormality becomes illness - my (draft) definition is drawn when the abnormality causes pain (especially chronic pain), or early death.
Look at honey bees again. How much longer could individual drones live if they didn't sacrifice themselves for the colony. But wouldn't selfishness be a big problem for the colony as a whole? We cannot optimize on either the individual nor the colony to determine what is a mental illness.
Also, consider issues of causing pain to others. Every animal that eats meat causes pain to the victim it consumes. But that is clearly normal behavior.
And I'm sure we can find other examples of things that cause pain to self or others which we would find normal.
Note that I also said we can avoid this by only looking at other animals where notions of consent don't apply. Ideally psychology should realize that consent is a human abstraction.
>I agree that there is a point at which abnormality becomes illness - my (draft) definition is drawn when the abnormality causes pain (especially chronic pain), or early death.
Look at honey bees again. How much longer could individual drones live if they didn't sacrifice themselves for the colony. But wouldn't selfishness be a big problem for the colony as a whole? We cannot optimize on either the individual nor the colony to determine what is a mental illness.
Also, consider issues of causing pain to others. Every animal that eats meat causes pain to the victim it consumes. But that is clearly normal behavior.
And I'm sure we can find other examples of things that cause pain to self or others which we would find normal.