‘What is (mental) disease?’: an open letter to Christopher Boorse
This “open letter” to Christopher Boorse is a response to his influential naturalist (value-excluding) analysis of disease from the perspective of linguistic-analytic value theory. The key linguistic-analytic point against Boorse (and other naturalists) is that, although defining disease value free,...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2001
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| In: |
Journal of medical ethics
Year: 2001, Volume: 27, Issue: 2, Pages: 80-85 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This “open letter” to Christopher Boorse is a response to his influential naturalist (value-excluding) analysis of disease from the perspective of linguistic-analytic value theory. The key linguistic-analytic point against Boorse (and other naturalists) is that, although defining disease value free, he (and they) continue to use the term with clear evaluative connotations. A descriptivist (value-entailing) analysis of disease would allow value-free definition consistently with value-laden use: but descriptivism fails when applied to mental disorder because it depends on shared values whereas the values relevant to mental disorders are highly diverse. A part-function analysis, similarly, although initially persuasive for physical disorders, fails with the psychotic mental disorders because these, characteristically, involve disturbances of the rationality of the person as a whole. The difficulties encountered in applying naturalism to mental disorders point, linguistic-analytically, to the possibility that there is, after all, an evaluative element of meaning, deeply hidden but still logically operative, in the concept of disease. |
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| ISSN: | 1473-4257 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of medical ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1136/jme.27.2.80 |