Biological normativity: a new hope for naturalism?

Experimental philosophy of medicine and the concepts of health and disease

“… 7 For more detail on the second of these options, see my article [ 40 ], parts of which are revised here. …”

Reconsidering harm in psychiatric manuals within an explicationist framework

“…Naturalists view mental illness as reducible to their biological characteristics and think that mental disorders can be accounted for in biological terms, often conceptualized as some kind of biological dysfunction (e.g. Boorse 1975 ; 2014 ; Hausman 2012 ; Schwartz 2007 ; for a recent overview, see Veit 2021 ). Thus, they can be characterized as dysfunction-only views of mental disorder.…”

“…First, theoretical fruitfulness directs us towards adopting an account of dysfunction that could apply across different disciplines. As John Matthewson and Paul Griffiths clearly indicate “notions of normality, abnormality, pathology, and physiology are essential to understanding the biology of living things, even in cases where human values play no role whatsoever” (Matthewson and Griffiths 2017 , p. 464; cited in Veit 2021 , p. 295; see, also Griffiths and Matthewson 2018 ). Accordingly, when assessing whether an animal suffers from a disease a proper notion of biological function is usually presupposed that does not rely on human conceptions of harm or well-being.…”

“…Accordingly, when assessing whether an animal suffers from a disease a proper notion of biological function is usually presupposed that does not rely on human conceptions of harm or well-being. In this regard, adopting a notion of dysfunction that necessarily relies on human conception of harm would sever the notion of dysfunction in the human case from the notion of dysfunction as used across biological sciences (Veit 2021 ). Given that humans belong to the natural world theoretical fruitfulness plausibly requires a notion of function/dysfunction that would enable making generalizations and reliable inferences that can apply across biological species (for discussion, see Griffiths and Matthewson 2018 ).…”

Evidens, estetikk og etikk

“…I tillegg har jeg i stor utstrekning anvendt medisinens og helsefagenes perspektiv og selvforståelse. For eksempel forstås sykdom i stor grad som et naturalistisk begrep innen helsefagene (Bechtel 1985;Hofmann 2014b;Kingma 2014;Schramme 2007;Veit 2021), mens det i filosofi og samfunnsfag forstås normativistisk Khushf 2007;King 1954;Twaddle 1994;Young 1995). Mens man i filosofien vil kunne forstå sykdom som et verdiladet eller et «tykt begrep» som kombinerer faktuelle påstander med vurderinger (Hare 1952;Williams 1984), har helsefagene i stor utstrekning forstått slike begreper som deskriptive (Boorse 1977;2004;2011;Hofmann, Bond, and Sandman 2018;Hofmann, Cleemput, Bond, and others 2014).…”