Discussing Mental Illness

I'd say a rational, ethical society would be one that prefers consideration for/understanding of the consequences of one's actions and empathy with other human beings, without regard to any dictatorship or traditional prejudice and bigotry.

Okay, how did you arrive at that conclusion? What is your basis? Rand, for example, would say that society should be based on an ethic of "rational self-interest" (whose derivation I won't bore you with - I'm only picking on her because I'm familiar with her work, not because I prefer her position). How do you refute her position?

You can just as easily add the writers you mentioned to the list I gave and my point would be just as valid, which was that there are many different schools of thought in ethics, and that to simply say that you want an "ethical" society, you have to determine what set of ethics and why.

I wonder if that isn't philosophy's avocation: to confuse issues and reinforce the status quo, keep their jobs in academia.

Have you ever actually studied philosophy? It's really not as convoluted as you imply (Kant beside the point...). I sense that we're rather hijacking Ysabet's thread, which was a discussion of mental illness, not philosophy. But I'll posit that philosophy's point is to clarify issues, not confuse them.

Raven