Philosophy 101 17 yrs ago

[bcubed]

The significance of this concept was lost on me then, but I'd actually take a philosophy course if I had the chance to write a paper on this.

Our Prof (probably to say something about free will) told of this writer (whom I wish I could remember) who came up with a world with the following differences:

Whenever someone broke a law, society non-judgmentally considered what was amiss with the offender and planned the most expiditious way to bring him back to socially acceptable functioning.

BUT, if someone got sick, they accused him of bringing it on himself, of being weak enough for the sickness to take hold, etc. Basically, the treatments were reversed and the author argued whether this was any less logical a worldview than what we had.

It'd be so easy to extrapolate this into drug use and addiction, as it has been treated as one, the other, or both off and on for a long time.

Can anyone help with a link?

[ojos_de_brujo]

Swiy is talking about Erewhon, the fictional country created by Samuel Butler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erewhon