Symptoms of Trauma, Kantian Natural Powers, and the Duty to Seek Treatment

Abstract:Most mental health conditions, though appropriate targets of treatment, do not generate a moral obligation to seek treatment. Trauma, in contrast, is caused (at least in part) by an external event that can happen at any point in the individual’s life. Survivors often experience diverse and enduring symptoms that adversely affect their cognitive, social, emotional, and physical functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). These global impairments diminish an individual’s ability to respond appropriately to morally relevant reasons and stimuli. Fortunately, symptoms of trauma respond well to treatment (Bradley, Greene, Russ, Dutra, & Westen, 2005). The external etiology and effectiveness of treatment allows us examine the moral duties of someone with impaired moral faculties due to trauma within a Kantian framework. The symptoms of trauma interfere with their ability to cultivate what Kant calls “natural powers” of spirit, soul, and body (DoV 6:444–6:445). Kant’s discussion of the natural powers implies that we must possess a baseline level of functioning in these areas in order to fulfill our moral duties (DoV 6:444–446). By Kant’s own reasoning it seems that individuals who experience impairments in any of the three powers are morally obligated to cultivate these capacities. Using Johnson’s (2011) discussion of Kant’s duties to self and careful analysis of available treatments for trauma, I argue that individuals who experience symptoms of trauma and suffer from impairments in Kantian natural powers have an imperfect duty to themselves to repair these powers through empirically informed trauma treatment.