Hmm.. did I tell you I am Wittgenstein?

I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where
people don't talk politics.

~ Lord Goring, in An Ideal Husband, act 1.

The controversy over Sadistic Personality Disorder, and why it was
removed from DSM-IV (excerpts)

Livesley, John W., _The DSM-IV Personality Disorders_. New York: The
Guilford Press (1995) 336-338

Other Controversies

...Another concern involved the potential use of sadistic personality
disorder to mitigate responsibility for violent crime. Three was a
feeling that "diminished responsibility" or "not guilty by reason of
insanity" defenses might be used in the defense of a spouse abuser or a
person engaging in other violent behavior.

...Seventy-six percent of the respondents in the Spitzer et al. (1991)
survey believed that if sadistic personality disorder were to become an
"official" personality disorder diagnosis, it would have significant
potential for being misused (in either forensic or clinical settings)
for mitigating criminal responsibility in spouse or child abuse cases.
As one eloquent respondent in this survey noted, "The medicalization of
evil deeds becomes an avenue of excuses" (p. 877).

Conclusions and Action Taken in DSM-IV

There have been relatively few studies of sadistic personality disorder,
with little systematic data collection. Unfortunately, the few studies
that have been carried out have significant limitations, involving use
of small samples from highly selected populations and other
methodological flaws. In a few cases, sadistic personality disorder has
been included in the data sets from larger studies examining all the
personality disorders. However, in most studies of this type it has
generally not been included, in part because of its status as an
"unofficial" personality disorder in DSM-III-R.

From the existing data, sadistic personality disorder would appear to
be relatively uncommon (2-5%), although it may have a higher prevalence
in special forensic populations. There was significant comorbidity with
antisocial, narcissistic, and a number of other personality disorders,
thus raising questions about the distinctiveness of the disorder. There
was a high male:female ration (approximately 5:1) for the diagnosis, and
the disorder was strongly associated with sex-role-stereotyped masculine
behavior.

...It is surprising that the inclusion of this category in DSM-III-R
Appendix A led to little new research. Clearly, more research is needed
to determine whether this really is a useful and valid diagnosis,
distinct from other personality disorders.

...the Personality Disorders Work Group concluded that the current
evidence did not support elevating this disorder to the status of an
official DSM-IV personality disorder.

Whoa! That's impossible, logically impossible. We launch ourselves
straight into a hidden vicious circularity -

We know that certain behaviours are symptoms because they are caused by
ADHD, and we know that ADHD is an illness because we can see the
behaviourial symptoms.

What you should have said, and what the researchers should have done,
was drop the reference to illness and simply said that peoples
behaviours affect each other in certain ways. The inclusion of an
'illness' element in this reasoning is completely ad hoc and
unnecessary.

No - how do they know they are SYMPTOMS?

I'm not looking up references. The fact that 'ADHD' is a 'disorder' you
go to see your doctor about is enough. Otherwise, the position you find
yourself supporting is that society employs doctors to look after or
enforce its moral codes and that one of its moral codes is the removal
of 'disorder'.

If "ADHD is merely a name given to a group of correlated impairing
symptoms or behaviors", then it is insufficiently defined. The
assumption of illness needs arguing for. My definition was: ADHD is the
name given to any particular biological state of illness that is
assumed to be causally implicated in a particular range of
assumed related behaviours.

But if I say that sleeping and waking are related, then this is
confirmed by the evidence that everyone sleeps and wakes. I could then
a la ADHD philosophy, say that sleeping and waking are symptoms of a
condition.

There must be a single cause by definition. Illnesses and conditions
are by their very meaning, delineated.

The brain does not cause experience. There is no reciprocative causal
relationship between brain and experience. Whereas, we could say that
the brain does cause behaviour. But by saying this we are then led to
splitting off experience from behaviour where the latter is in a causal
relationship and the other is not.

Matter, or brain matter is the proposed root of ADHD.

See my argument above.

You yourself have talked of 'the symptoms' of ADHD.

No I mean experience.

The brain.

ADHD is the route by which behaviours are classified as symptoms and
placed within a physical model.

"Dr" Jones?  Since when?  

If the awful, evil "Medical-Industrial Complex" were as powerful as
you are implying, you'd be lying dead in a ditch somewhere.  Except
that you're a fraud and probably a loon, so I doubt they'd bother.

 -- David Wright :: alphabeta at prodigy.net
    These are my opinions only, but they're almost always correct.
    "If you can't say something nice, then sit next to me."
                                -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth