Synthetic biology promises to eliminate the distinction between biology and engineering by delivering a philosophically interesting new kind of entity: a biological organism that is wholly designed and constructed by humans. The possibility of such organisms raises interesting questions in three domains: the analysis of (1) biological functions, (2) engineering functions, and (3) health and disease. This paper identifies and systematically answers these questions. This does not only establish how we should think about functions and health and disease in synthetic (...) biological organisms, but it also reveals insights that are of broader relevance: (1) aetiological accounts of biological function need to omit or reinterpret reference to natural selection. This results in complete continuity between aetiological analyses of function in engineering and philosophy; (2) considering synthetic biology prompts interesting further questions about heritability, ancestry, and biological individuals; and (3) accounts of disease as biological dysfunction do not straightforwardly map onto our intuitive health and disease judgments regarding non‐human animals. In response to the latter point I examine three possible avenues, and tentatively defend one on behalf of the ‘disease as dysfunction’ theorist. (shrink)

In this article, I compare and evaluate R. D. Laing and A. Esterson’s account of schizophrenia as developed in Sanity, Madness and the Family, social models of disability, and accounts of extended mental disorder. These accounts claim that some putative disorders should not be thought of as reflecting biological or psychological dysfunction within the afflicted individual, but instead as external problems. In this article, I consider the grounds on which such claims might be supported. I argue that problems should not (...) be located within an individual putative patient in cases where there is some acceptable test environment in which there is no problem. A number of cases where such an argument can show that there is no internal disorder are discussed. I argue, however, that Laing and Esterson’s argument—that schizophrenia is not within diagnosed patients—does not work. The problem with their argument is that they fail to show that the diagnosed women in their study function adequately in any environment. (shrink)

In the present paper, we shall discuss the notion of prototype and show its benefits. First, we shall argue that the prototypes of common-sense concepts are necessary for making prompt and reliable categorisations and inferences. However, the features constituting the prototype of a particular concept are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for determining category membership; in this sense, the prototype might lead to conclusions regarded as wrong from a theoretical perspective. That being said, the prototype remains essential to handling most (...) ordinary situations and helps us to perform important cognitive tasks. To exemplify this point, we shall focus on disease concepts. Our analysis concludes that the prototypical conception of disease is needed to make important inferences from a practical and clinical point of view. Moreover, it can still be compatible with a classical definition of disease, given in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. In the first section, we shall compare the notion of stereotype, as it has been introduced in philosophy of language by Hilary Putnam, with the notion of prototype, as it has been developed in the cognitive sciences. In the second section, we shall discuss the general role of prototypical information in cognition and stress its centrality. In the third section, we shall apply our previous discussion to the specific case of medical concepts, before briefly summarising our conclusions in section four. (shrink)

The crucial problem in the philosophy of psychiatry is to determine under which conditions certain behaviors, mental states, and personality traits should be regarded as symptoms of mental illnesses. Participants in the debate can be placed on a continuum of positions. On the one side of the continuum, there are naturalists who maintain that the concept of mental illness can be explained by relying on the conceptual apparatus of the natural sciences, such as biology and neuroscience. On the other side (...) of the continuum, there are normativists who maintain that the appropriate characterization of the concept of mental illness cannot avoid reference to epistemic, moral and other social values. Although, this article is primarily an introduction to the debate, we stress the importance of the normativist positions. (shrink)

Williams argued that Darwin replaced teleology by natural selection. This article argues that this idea is based on a misunderstanding of Darwin’s critique of the argument from design. Darwin did not replace teleology by evolutionary explanations but showed that we can understand teleology without referring to a Designer. He eliminated the concept of design and rehabilitated Aristotelian teleological explanations. The implication is that adaptations should not be investigated as if designed, but with the help of both teleological and evolutionary explanations. (...) It is argued that elaborations of teleological explanations enable us to reconcile evolutionary theory and other fields in science. (shrink)

Williams argued that Darwin replaced teleology by natural selection. This article argues that this idea is based on a misunderstanding of Darwin’s critique of the argument from design. Darwin did not replace teleology by evolutionary explanations but showed that we can understand teleology without referring to a Designer. He eliminated the concept of design and rehabilitated Aristotelian teleological explanations. The implication is that adaptations should not be investigated as if designed, but with the help of both teleological and evolutionary explanations. (...) It is argued that elaborations of teleological explanations enable us to reconcile evolutionary theory and other fields in science. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that Aristotelian accounts of disease cannot provide us with an adequate descriptive account of our concept of disease. In other words, they fail to classify conditions as either diseases, or non-diseases, in a way that is consistent with commonplace intuitions. This being said, Aristotelian accounts of disease are not worthless. Aristotelian approaches cannot offer a decent descriptive account of our concept of disease, but they do offer resources for improving on the ways in which (...) we think about the harms that afflict human beings. While they cannot offer an account of ‘disease' they can offer an account of ‘harm'—and this it turns out, is ultimately of greater importance. (shrink)

. Current debates concerning the concept of mental disorder involve many different philosophical issues. However, it is not always clear from these discussions how, or whether, these issues relate to one another, or in exactly what way they are important for the definition of disorder. This article aims to sort through some of the philosophical issues that arise in the current literature and provide a clarification of how these issues are related to one another and whether they are necessary for (...) defining disorder. I argue that the main concern in defining disorder, namely demarcation, is obscured by a number of these other philosophical issues and that a focus on demarcation gives us a means of placing these other issues in a clarifying context. (shrink)

Ovaj je zbornik nastao kao rezultat istraživanja provedenog unutar istoimenoga znanstveno-istraživačkoga projekta na kojemu su urednici istovremeno bili i glavni istraživači, a ostali autori članovi istraživačke skupine. Kao svjedoci različitih vrsta otklona od prevladavajućeg, uobičajenoga, normalnoga, pozitivnog ili ponašanja koje se karakterizira kao asocijalno, zapitali smo se – što postojeće čini normom, treba li odstupanje od norme nužno smatrati devijacijom i kakvi su poželjni društveni odgovori na odstupanja od normi. Često se smatra ispravnim upravo ono što je prevladavajuće, a ono (...) što predstavlja otklon označava se kao devijacija u negativnome značenju onoga što nije ispravno, nije posve ispravno, ili čak onoga što treba sankcionirati. Naš je početni stav bio da ono što prevladava ne smije biti neupitna norma, kao što ni ono što je otklon nije po automatizmu devijacija. Međutim, ne smatramo ni da prevladavajuću normu, samom tom činjenicom što je prevladavajuća, nužno treba kritizirati te da je svaki otklon po sebi poželjan. Cilj našeg istraživanja bio je istražiti različite oblike deficita i devijacijau u domeni formiranja vjerovanja individualnih, grupnih, kolektivnih i institucijskih epistemičkih aktera (socijalna epistemologija) i u domeni društvenog i institucijskoga djelovanja (filozofija politike i filozofija psihijatrije). Nastavno na to, pokušali smo identificirati vrijednosti postojećih normi, koliko odgovaraju poželjnim vrijednostima te koji su poželjni društveni odgovori na otklone od normi. (shrink)

My interest is in the application of Rawls’ principles of distributive justice to the allocation of health care. In developing an interpretation of those principles I encountered the problem I present below. Although this issue is problematic for Rawlsian theories, it also has implications for any distributive theory that measures the impact of health care distribution via the mechanism of incremental movements in health or its absence.

A number of prominent writers on the concept of mental illness/disease are committed to accounts which involve rejecting certain plausible widely held beliefs, namely: that it is part of the meaning of illness that it is bad for its possessor, so the concept of illness is essentially evaluative; that if a person has a mental illness, that is a fact about him; and that the same concept of illness is applicable in the case of mental illness as in that of (...) physical illness. Methodologically this is unattractive. We should seek accounts of concepts which preserve our pre-theoretical beliefs so far as is possible. In this paper I argue that these writers are driven to this pass because they accept certain underlying metaphysical commitments including, in particular, the fact-value distinction. I then claim that there is an alternative account of mental illness (defended more fully elsewhere) which preserves our pre-theoretical beliefs, and that this account can be further buttressed because it coheres with a metaphysical picture which does not involve the metaphysical assumptions which led to the unattractive results noted above. The metaphysical picture and the account of mental illness are thus mutually supportive and suggest that there is good reason to reject the supposed fact-value distinction. (shrink)

Data indicate the ubiquity and rapid increase of depression wherever war, want and social upheaval are found. The goal of this paper is to clarify such claims and draw conceptual distinctions separating the depressive states that are pathological from those that are normal and normative responses to misfortune. I do so by appeal to early modern writing on melancholy by Robert Burton, where the inchoate and boundless nature of melancholy symptoms are emphasized; universal suffering is separated from the disease states (...) known as melancholy or melancholia, and normal temperamental variation is placed in contrast to such disease states. In Burton's time these distinctions and characterizations could be secured by the anchoring tenets of humoral theory. Without such anchoring, and in light of the findings and assumptions of today's biological diagnostic psychiatry, we must re-visit each of them. My goals here are to show the need for analytic foundations when claims are made about depression such as those cited above, and to draw attention to some contemporary attempts that may help provide those foundations, particularly, attempts to define disorder or disease. With adjustments, one of these (Cooper 2002) is shown to take us some way toward that goal. (shrink)

Metaphysical realism about mental disorder is the thesis that mental disorder exists mind-independently. There are two ways to challenge metaphysical realism about mental disorder. The first is by denying that mental disorder exists. The second is by denying that mental disorder exists mind-independently. Or, differently put, by arguing that mental disorder is mind-dependent. The aim of this paper is three-fold: (a) to examine three ways in which mental disorder can be said to be mind-dependent (namely, by being causally dependent on (...) the human mind, by being weakly dependent on human attitudes, and by being strongly dependent on human attitudes), (b) to clarify their differences, and (c) to discuss their implications regarding metaphysical realism about mental disorder. I argue that mental disorder being mind-dependent in the first two senses is compatible with metaphysical realism about mental disorder, whereas mental disorder being mind-dependent in the third sense is not. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on some new normativist positions and compare them with traditional ones. In so doing, we claim that if normative judgments are involved in determining whether a condition is a disease only in the sense identified by new normativisms, then disease is normative only in a weak sense, which must be distinguished from the strong sense advocated by traditional normativisms. Specifically, we argue that weak and strong normativity are different to the point that one ‘normativist’ label (...) ceases to be appropriate for the whole range of positions. If values and norms are not explicit components of the concept of disease, but only intervene in other explanatory roles, then the concept of disease is no more value-laden than many other scientific concepts, or even any other scientific concept. We call the newly identified position “value-conscious naturalism” about disease, and point to some of its theoretical and practical advantages. (shrink)

Naturalistic theories of disease appeal to concepts of biological function, and use the notion of dysfunction as the basis of their definitions. Debates in the philosophy of biology demonstrate how attributing functions in organisms and establishing the function-dysfunction distinction is by no means straightforward. This problematization of functional ascription has undermined naturalistic theories and led some authors to abandon the concept of dysfunction, favoring instead definitions based in normative criteria or phenomenological approaches. Although this work has enhanced our understanding of (...) disease and illness, we need not necessarily abandon naturalistic concepts of function and dysfunction in the disease debate. This article attempts to move towards a new naturalistic theory of disease that overcomes the limitations of previous definitions and offers advantages in the clinical setting. Our approach involves a re-evaluation of concepts of biological function employed by naturalistic theories. Drawing on recent insights from the philosophy of biology, we develop a contextual and evaluative account of function that is better suited to clinical medicine and remains consistent with contemporary naturalism. We also show how an updated naturalistic view shares important affinities with normativist and phenomenological positions, suggesting a possibility for consilience in the disease debate. (shrink)

Debates about the concept of disease have traditionally been framed as a competition between two conflicting approaches: naturalism, on the one hand, and normativism or social constructivism, on the other. In this article, we lay the groundwork for a naturalistic form of social constructivism by dissociating the presumed link between value-free conceptions of disease and a broadly naturalistic approach; offering a naturalistic argument for a form of social constructivism; and suggesting avenues that strike us as especially promising for filling in (...) the details of an alternative approach and addressing the most obvious objections. (shrink)

The main claim of this paper is that the method outlined and used in Aristotle’s Ethics is an appropriate and credible one to use in bioethics. Here “appropriate” means that the method is capable of establishing claims and developing concepts in bioethics and “credible” that the method has some plausibility, it is not open to obvious and immediate objection. It begins by suggesting why this claim matters and then gives a brief outline of Aristotle’s method. The main argument is made (...) in three stages. First, it is argued that Aristotelian method is credible because it compares favourably with alternatives. In this section it is shown that Aristotelian method is not vulnerable to criticisms that are made both of methods that give a primary place to moral theory (such as utilitarianism) and those that eschew moral theory (such as casuistry and social science approaches). As such, it compares favourably with these other approaches that are vulnerable to at least some of these criticisms. Second, the appropriateness of Aristotelian method is indicated through outlining how it would deal with a particular case. Finally, it is argued that the success of Aristotle’s philosophy is suggestive of both the credibility and appropriateness of his method. (shrink)