Cholbi on Mersault: The Humanity of Mersault
In this post I shall criticize Cholbi in much the same way as Weirob attacked a claim on grounds of the conclusions leading to absurdity, but I would mostly like to use this as an avenue for discussing how mental illness affects one’s ability to engage in philosophical discourse, or their ideas in that discourse. I will continue this line of reasoning with the argument in this post as premises in another post, where I will argue that abnormal psychology, because of our schemas--because of our intersubjective majority agreement on philosophical conceptions of humanity--can create issues for philosophical inquiry, both for how people with psychological disorders are viewed by others, as well as for the fundamental deviations from a norm of methods of inquiry.
I have a concern with Cholbi’s conclusions about grief in relation to Mersault. The way Cholbi describes Mersault is very similar to how one would describe someone with anti-social personality disorder--psychopathy/sociopathy. He then concludes the essay with this: “the arguments offered here give us, the nonalienated, affectionate, interrelated, and interdependent non-Meursaults of the world, reason to be glad for the opportunity to grieve. We should therefore be reassured in our convictions that grief is a crucial element of human life and that we have little reason to envy Camus’s protagonist.” Specifically what concerns me about this is the dichotomy created by using the term ‘non-Mersaults,’ paired with the implication in the last sentence that, if Mersault cannot grieve, and if grief is a crucial element to human life, then Mersault must be something other than human. I think a lot of people might actually agree with that.
However, if this is so, are there other psychological disorders which have also, all this time, been grounds to consider someone inhuman? This is a jarring question to ask oneself; many people have some form of psychological abnormality--how many of them are not human? Which aspects crucial to the human experience are they unfamiliar with? Or perhaps the concern should not be that Cholbi implied Mersault not to be an experiencer of human life, but of life.
This can be connected with the other concern; what if it were implied that Mersault does not experience life because he is ‘dead’ inside? That is what if Mersault is not innately incapable of meaningful human interaction, but has another psychological disorder: severe depression? This certainly would not excuse senseless murder, but it would be a very different interpretation. The importance of this interpretation is that many people have chronic clinical depression, and happiness, as well as grief, is crucial to human life.
As a student of psychology, I know better, but a lot of people would consider psychopaths to be inhuman. That is, that implication is not so absurd. If you extend the logic, as I have shown, you can arrive at the conclusion that there is the alternate implication that Mersault is inhuman because he is depressed. Such a conclusion seems more absurd; lots of people deal with depression at some point or another. Are they not human? Of course they are human; they love and desire and aspire to the same human goals as most--it just comes harder for depressed individuals at times.
I have a concern with Cholbi’s conclusions about grief in relation to Mersault. The way Cholbi describes Mersault is very similar to how one would describe someone with anti-social personality disorder--psychopathy/sociopathy. He then concludes the essay with this: “the arguments offered here give us, the nonalienated, affectionate, interrelated, and interdependent non-Meursaults of the world, reason to be glad for the opportunity to grieve. We should therefore be reassured in our convictions that grief is a crucial element of human life and that we have little reason to envy Camus’s protagonist.” Specifically what concerns me about this is the dichotomy created by using the term ‘non-Mersaults,’ paired with the implication in the last sentence that, if Mersault cannot grieve, and if grief is a crucial element to human life, then Mersault must be something other than human. I think a lot of people might actually agree with that.
However, if this is so, are there other psychological disorders which have also, all this time, been grounds to consider someone inhuman? This is a jarring question to ask oneself; many people have some form of psychological abnormality--how many of them are not human? Which aspects crucial to the human experience are they unfamiliar with? Or perhaps the concern should not be that Cholbi implied Mersault not to be an experiencer of human life, but of life.
This can be connected with the other concern; what if it were implied that Mersault does not experience life because he is ‘dead’ inside? That is what if Mersault is not innately incapable of meaningful human interaction, but has another psychological disorder: severe depression? This certainly would not excuse senseless murder, but it would be a very different interpretation. The importance of this interpretation is that many people have chronic clinical depression, and happiness, as well as grief, is crucial to human life.
As a student of psychology, I know better, but a lot of people would consider psychopaths to be inhuman. That is, that implication is not so absurd. If you extend the logic, as I have shown, you can arrive at the conclusion that there is the alternate implication that Mersault is inhuman because he is depressed. Such a conclusion seems more absurd; lots of people deal with depression at some point or another. Are they not human? Of course they are human; they love and desire and aspire to the same human goals as most--it just comes harder for depressed individuals at times.
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