Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 December 4

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December 4

Can doctors freely self-medicate themselves?

Can they write a prescription for themselves or authorize prescription drugs for their loved ones without making any appointments or billing, assuming they are licensed in that area of medicine? Or do they have to see someone in the same field for their own medical problems and pay or co-pay at their own expense? 140.254.70.25 (talk) 13:44, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Legally yes, but it's not regarded as good practice. Their objectivity might be affected both in this case and prescribing to family members. Obviously, if an acute emergency arises or a very simple case, I don't see why they would wait for help from another doctor. Sometimes it's also physically impossible to diagnose yourself properly, for example, if that implies using an otoscope or anoscope, for example.

Maybe this is similar to lawyers, who would have a fool for a client, if they represent themselves. --Denidi (talk) 14:56, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Oh yeah, impossible to diagnose yourself with an anoscope? <grabs mirrors, lenses and lube> Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't be too sure that the answer is a blanket "yes". Laws could vary from place to place. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:05, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

This article points out that doctors in the US generally can prescribe drugs for themselves if those drugs are not controlled substances. Googling the subject further could answer about other countries. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:10, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

So no ordering 100 kilograms of cocaine eyedrops? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Is that how one gets cocaine eyes? μηδείς (talk) 21:59, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

It also notes these prescriptions are sometimes taken from the free samples the pharmaceutical companies give out. I'd assume they or their insurance have to pay for the rest, but I'm pretty ignorant about these things. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:29, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, the legality probably needs a further specification. But in general yes. Denidi (talk) 15:24, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I am a prescribing dentist in NJ (US) who frequently prescribes for my children such things as fluoride tablets. I've also, on occasion, written for antibiotics for myself or my wife or a child of mine. However, I refrain from writing for narcotics, which I wouldn't need anyway unless I've had a procedure done, in which case I'd have my colleague who performs the procedure write for me. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 19:08, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Is your stuff free? InedibleHulk (talk) 19:29, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, a doctor could report sick (treatment: 3 weeks spa) and prescribe himself narcotics. He could also lose his license. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Denidi (talk • contribs) 23:45, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, they can't self-medicate anyone else. —Tamfang (talk) 07:57, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Moral relativism in Shakespeare

I wonder how frowned upon was "for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" at Shakespeare's time.

Where did Shakespeare (or his character) got this moral relativism from? Wasn't this not only uncommon, but unseen at his time? Did he qualify his view at another point in is works, maybe excluding extreme cases?--Denidi (talk) 14:52, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Ethics of Shakespeare's time would have still been dominated by thinking commonly associated with Thomas Aquinas; later ethicists in the Western tradition like Jeremy Bentham and Joseph Priestly wouldn't be along for another 200 years or so, Aquinas comes down on the side of moral absolutism quite clearly. Thomism#Ethics covers some of this. That doesn't mean there was not an ethos of moral relativism which had developed independently; I'd imagine its the sort of thing people come up with on their own many times in many places, even without any formal philosopher telling them about it. So, under the traditions of formal "academic philosophy", I can't find any such formally defined ethical system which espouses moral relativism. That doesn't mean that Shakespeare is not allowed to just come up with it on his own. --Jayron32 15:35, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The sentiment is perhaps traceable, directly or indirectly, to Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy: "adeo nihil est miserum nisi cum putes contraque beata sors omnis est aequanimitate tolerantis" (II, prosa iv). In neither Boethius nor Shakespeare is it an expression of "moral relativism"; it's a statement, roughly speaking, that an accurate knowledge of the effects of fortune (or of God's providence) is beyond human capacity and therefore that individuals' limited perceptions ("thinking") are what determines their "goodness" or "badness" to those individuals. To Boethius, "This place itself, which you call a place of exile, is home to those who live here." Likewise, to Hamlet, Denmark seems a prison because he thinks it one, not because it is objectively so. Deor (talk) 15:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• The statement comes directly from stoicism, which holds that true virtue consists only of being rational and internal choice, and that externals may be preferable or not preferable, but that this depends on how we choose to look on them. Any educated listener [of that time] would have found the idea expressed a common one, even if he were unaware it was transmitted through Cicero or Seneca. See http://www.stoics.com/why_stoics.html for an excellent treatment of the topic by a Shakespeare scholar. The main site address is Materials for the Construction of SHAKESPEARE'S MORALSμηδείς (talk) 18:05, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Would "moral relativism" explain how the various royals of that era disposed of their opponents? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:10, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
    • Machiavellianism would be more descriptive of royal regicide. (Though stoicism is more pertinent to OP's question, as noted above.) The influence of The Prince (1532) on Shakespeare ("Am I politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel?" etc.) has been a perennial scholarly topic. A recent survey is:Roe, John (2002). Shakespeare and Machiavelli. Cambridge, UK: D.S. Brewer. ISBN 978-0859917643. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 07:41, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
      • Moral relativism in the modern sense of "toleration" is not something I would expect in Shakespeare. There was naked ambition; Edmund, Regan, and Gonneril in King Lear; and Lady Macbeth for example. There was the vacillation of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Richard II. In general, the two motivations in Shakespeare's tragedies seem to be either ambition or a sense of honor hampered by a flaw of character. Edmund (King Lear) seems to come closest to denying there are moral truths, this comes out in the opening scene of the play. Even Richard III admits he is evil.

Moral relativism in the classic era was connected to the mercenary Sophists and the skeptics like Pyrrho who, unlike the Sophists, taught withdrawal from passions. Modern skepticism doesn't really begin until Hume and only blossoms after Kant and becomes a real cultural force in reaction to WWI. See Lost Generation "'Lost means not vanished but disoriented, wandering, directionless — a recognition that there was great confusion and aimlessness among the war's survivors in the early post-war years.'" μηδείς (talk) 21:51, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Georgina Island: History of Habitation

I am looking for any information which may indicate Gorgona Island - particularly on the southern edge, was inhabited in and around 1934. I have found a claim that it was listed as uninhabited on certain nautical charts around that time, but am not sure that claim is accurate. Calw25 (talk) 16:26, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

First of all, are you referring to Gorgona, Italy; Gorgona, Colombia; or someplace else? (Your heading says "Georgina"; your query, "Gorgona".) Deor (talk) 17:07, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Or Georgina Island in Ontario? (Probably not many nautical charts for Lake Simcoe though...) Adam Bishop (talk) 16:15, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Why doesn't the U.S. simply go to Dabiq?

Per [1], ISIS seems to want to meet American troops in battle in Dabiq, to carry out some supposed prophecy of theirs.

Question is... why hasn't the U.S. done so?

Compared to hunting terrorists by drone, let alone trying to control territory with "boots on the ground" who are supposed to try to tell civilians from attackers, it seems pretty straightforward. A set piece battle where ISIS operatives don't have to be hunted, but can simply be killed, after which U.S. forces can simply go home and jeer afterward, at least for a while until a new batch of terrorists requests to be obliged.

Was the option ever considered? What is the downside? Wnt (talk) 22:11, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

In the articles you linked it is explained clearly: this is propaganda, not a concrete plan. They are just announcing how tough they are, and that they will prevail in a decisive battle against Christian forces. That's like promising Xanadu to their fighters. --Denidi (talk) 22:18, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) For the same reason religious warfare didn't come to an end when Christian troops resoundingly defeated Islamic forces at Armageddon in 1918. IS's Dabiq talk is a piece of propaganda, not a mission statement, and in any case the Hadith are so contradictory and open to interpretation that even the most devout fundamentalist doesn't consider them prophecy. ‑ Iridescent 22:30, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

@Denidi and Iridescent: But if it's just propaganda, if ISIS fighters wouldn't really defend the city, wouldn't that be a bloodless propaganda victory for the U.S.? Wnt (talk) 22:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I am afraid the US has little interest in the symbolic part of the fight. They want to thwart terror attacks in US soil, and destroy infrastructure of any kind, that's used either to prepare said terror attacks, or to take the power in allied countries.Denidi (talk) 23:12, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Easier said than done. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:49, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Probably, but I fail to remember any single attempt to reach a "propaganda victory", the efforts are concentrated more pragmatically. Contrary to ISIS, that seems to have a rather intense media production. Denidi (talk) 00:21, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

You don't "simply" move an army into a sovereign state that doesn't want you there (and has bigger friends who also don't want you there), simply negotiate a winner-take-all battle royale with terrorists, then simply kill everyone the home team has been trying to kill for years. Wanting it simple and bloodless is even more a pipe dream, even if you think ISIS blood doesn't matter. Normal civilians live in Dabiq, too, and coalition soldiers die relatively easily when they're not in the sky. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:03, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

As somebody who studies ancient Egyptian religion, I would prefer that people not call it Isis. To directly address the question, here is one of the more widely read articles about Da'esh, from the Atlantic. It doesn't directly cite US foreign policy experts for this analysis, but many of them must be thinking along these same lines.

One way to un-cast the Islamic State's spell over its adherents would be to overpower it militarily and occupy the parts of Syria and Iraq now under caliphate rule… If it loses its grip on its territory in Syria and Iraq, it will cease to be a caliphate… If the United States were to invade, the Islamic State's obsession with battle at Dabiq suggests that it might send vast resources there, as if in a conventional battle. If the state musters at Dabiq in full force, only to be routed, it might never recover. And yet the risks of escalation are enormous. The biggest proponent of an American invasion is the Islamic State itself. The provocative videos, in which a black-hooded executioner addresses President Obama by name, are clearly made to draw America into the fight. An invasion would be a huge propaganda victory for jihadists worldwide: irrespective of whether they have given baya'a [allegiance] to the caliph, they all believe that the United States wants to embark on a modern-day Crusade and kill Muslims. Yet another invasion and occupation would confirm that suspicion, and bolster recruitment. Add the incompetence of our previous efforts as occupiers, and we have reason for reluctance. The rise of ISIS, after all, happened only because our previous occupation created space for Zarqawi and his followers. Who knows the consequences of another botched job?

A. Parrot (talk) 00:22, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

While it was easy to imagine how wiping out Saddam could lead to something worse, it's difficult imagining how wiping out IS could possibly lead to anything worse. StuRat (talk) 07:18, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Not sure about that - I believe the body count from Bashar Al-Assad's brutality exceeds that of ISIS, yet for some reason, he's deemed untouchable. 101.188.7.126 (talk) 13:34, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

@StuRat: ISIS does every malignant thing they can think of, but they aren't very creative. Yeah, they burn hostages alive, but no, they don't breed bioweapons and threaten to let them loose unless they're paid off. (Yet, anyway; I don't think this would be hard for them to do but I shall regretfully omit ideas...) Which under certain radical ideologies could be presented as a win-win since letting them loose sends believers to 'heaven' and infidels to 'hell'.

My thought about Dabiq was that it could be a true one-off, an engagement to meet by common agreement in battle but not to occupy territory, sort of like a peace treaty but in this case a war treaty, meant to give those looking for it the chance to die heroically and pointlessly, not truly ending or reforming ISIS but diminishing it. But I don't know that's how it would happen. Wnt (talk) 15:38, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

That's only how things are settled at WWE Armageddon. The Dunkin' Donuts Center still seems like a fine place to die heroically and pointlessly. Seriously though, this book might hold your answer. The Atlantic thinks Obama thinks it does. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:52, 8 December 2015 (UTC)