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 Dissociative Identity Disorder, Personhood, and Rights. (2)

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thousandin1(1931) pic



Dissociative Identity Disorder, Personhood, and Rights.

The debate title should give an idea of what I'm looking for here;  When a human has dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities), how do you feel such things as personhood and rights should be handled?

To help guide the line of thought, I've split the analysis into 4 separate cases for analysis. In all cases, for the sake of simplicity, I am referring to a dissociative identity disorder patient having three distinct and separate personalities/identities.  I will use the term 'body' to refer to the physical body and all personalities as a single entity, and the term 'personality' to refer to the individual personalities/identities.

Case 1: Generalization.
Is it the body that we ascribe personhood and rights to, or is it the personality?

Case 2: Specifics- Criminal Justice
If the body commits a crime while one of the personalities is 'active,' is it reasonable to punish the body (and all three personalities) for the crimes of one?
If yes, to what extent?  Fines?  Short prison sentence?  Extended prison sentence?  Life imprisonment?  Death penalty (Set aside personal stance on death penalty for the moment, and assume this is a jurisdiction that does have the death penalty for certain crimes)?
If no, do you have any ideas for an alternative wherein the specific offending personality (and only the specific offending personality) can be punished?
Should individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder be exempted from criminal justice?

Case 3: Specifics- Politics and the vote.
Is the body or the personality assigned the right tovote?
If the body, wouldn't this effectively disenfranchise all personalities except the one that happened to be active at the booth?
If the personality, how should we handle it?
Should individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder be denied the right to vote altogether?

Case 4: Specifics- Contracts.
Is it the body or the personality who enters a legally binding contract, anywhere from a non-disclosure agreement to a marriage or civil partnership?
If the body, wouldn't any personalities who disagree have a reasonable objection to being bound by the agreement?
If the personality, how could the terms of the agreement be enforced in such a way as to affect only the bound personality?
Should a body with Dissociative Identity Disorder simply not be allowed to enter a legal contract?


I do not actually hold a position on this one, and I thought it might be an interesting intellectual pursuit, and a bit different from the standard fare here on CD.

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1 point

That is certainly an interesting set of questions. I'll go off the top of my head in order to take less than a few weeks to respond.

Case 1: Generalization. Is it the body that we ascribe personhood and rights to, or is it the personality?

Personhood leans toward the personality as being the more defining factor, because we deal will the personality while interacting with someone much more than the body. Example: I am speaking to you now and not your body, and I am in my head.

Case 2: Specifics- Criminal Justice If the body commits a crime while one of the personalities is 'active,' is it reasonable to punish the body (and all three personalities) for the crimes of one?

No, it is not reasonable to punish all the personalities. What that means is, that punishment is not fair justice or even justice at all. DID is by definition a disorder of the mind. We commonly approach mental disorders with treatment rather than punishment. Resolving the disorder becomes the only acceptable approach from a legal perspective.

Case 3: Specifics- Politics and the vote. Is the body or the personality assigned the right to vote?

Again the individual is the personality. If any or all of the personalities is deemed mentally competent they should be allowed to vote. This provides personhood to all competent personalities without a likelihood of effecting any voting results.

Case 4: Specifics- Contracts. Is it the body or the personality who enters a legally binding contract, anywhere from a non-disclosure agreement to a marriage or civil partnership.

This is getting easier now!

Contracts should be legal and binding with any personality deemed competent. As a practical matter this is not very likely to happen. But in theory it could even happen between two or more DID individuals in the same or separate bodies. Hmmmm starting to get weird now.

Well that was fun. Good question!

thousandin1(1931) Clarified
1 point

Resolving the disorder becomes the only acceptable approach from a legal perspective.

What if I were to ask if resolving dissociative identity disorder was ethical? Wouldn't resolving the disorder effectively mean terminating all but one of the personalities- or if they all merged, would the resultant personality really be all of them, or not any of them?

Not trying to nit-pick your position- I'm just curious.

daver(1771) Clarified
1 point

Hmmmm nuther good question.

I'm going to stick with resolving the disorder. Here's why

IMHO it is extremely unlikely that DID in one body would be comprised of more than one mentally healthy individual. But even IF it was, from a clinical perspective its still a dis-order of the mind. The ethics of resolving the disorder only become significant if it is believed that more than one soul exists in the body. This is the real question we are discussing.

This brings us to a point that I didn't see coming. Now it appears that the questions surrounding DID can only be answered subjectively. Presenting my opinion will tell you something about me that I'm not sure of myself. But here goes. In my subjective opinion the disorder should be treated and resolved. Here's why again. If individual souls exist, by definition they are eternal. I can do nothing that will end them. I am certain however that the disorder exists and should be resolved.

1 point

I hate to be so bland in my views, but I feel it's as simple as this.

One body, one set of rights, and if the person feels they have multiple personalities, then they need help. If not in riding themselves of the alternate personalities, than to at least establish one dominant one, and when any rights , privileges, or punishments need to be given, they are given ultimately to he whole body, but the responsibility lies with the dominant personality who is in part to blame for not being able to control their other personalities. Obviously not the most harsh punishment should be given, but like for anyone who pleads insanity, a smaller punishment, and help should be given.

thousandin1(1931) Clarified
1 point

No, there's nothing wrong with that viewpoint, except possibly the implication that a dominant personality is responsible for keeping the others in line; I'm not an expert on the disorder, but I don't believe it generally works quite like that. As I said- I'm not a proponent of either side, being completely on the fance on the issue, and I'm primarily curious regarding the reasoning others use for this question.