A philosophical question divides the field of addiction research. Can a psychological disorder count as an addiction absent a common underlying physical basis (neurological or genetic) for every case of the disorder in the category? Or is it appropriate to categorize a disorder as an addiction if the symptoms of and diagnostic criteria for it are sufficiently similar to those of other disorders also classified as addictions—regardless of whether there is some underlying physical basis common to each case of the (...) disorder? The question concerns the scope and validity of the scientific concept of addiction and, more broadly, what is required for a psychological concept to count as scientific. The case of pathological gambling (PG) raises this question nicely. ‘‘Should pathological gambling be considered an addiction?’’ asks Howard Shaffer (2003, 176). He specifies the question further (2003, 177–178): ‘‘When clinicians and scientists identify a behavior pattern as an addiction, even if they can identify it reliably according to DSM criteria, how do they know that it is indeed an addiction?’’ He warns that, as it stands, ‘‘the concept of addiction represents a troublesome tautology’’ (2003, 178): a subject S is addicted if and only if S engages in repetitive behavior with negative consequences against S’s better judgment. The problem with this concept is that it provides no way to distinguish behavior that cannot be controlled from behavior that is merely in fact not controlled. This ‘‘lay’’ concept is of little scientific value, Shaffer (2003, 179) argues, saying that ‘‘for addiction to emerge as a viable scientific construct . . . investigators need to establish a ‘gold standard’ against which the presence or absence of the disorder can be judged.’’ PG has no such gold standard, says Shaffer. What would such a gold standard be? Shaffer suggests ‘‘neurogenetic or biobehavioral attributes’’ (ibid.).. (shrink)

Michel Seymour fills an important gap in Rawlsian theory. In fact, his Rawls inspired normative theory of collective rights is unprecedented. Likewise, his ideal theory of a primary right to internal self-determination (ISD) is a welcome contribution to the issue of collective rights. That said, his non-ideal theory – a remedial right only to secession – seems rather toothless in cases of noncompliance. In particular, Seymour leaves us with no guidance in the case of transition countries and situations of tension (...) where we need to know whether the ISD of the minority (the stateless) people is enabling or disabling for the ISD of the majority (the state owning) people. The paper concludes that borrowing from Aristotle, as Rawls does, offers more in the way of guidance when it comes to these issues. (shrink)

In order to be exercised meaningfully, political freedom requires the capacity to actually identify available policy options. To ensure this, society ought to engage in deliberation as a discussion oriented towards mutual learning. In order to highlight this issue, I define deliberation in terms of the participants’ openness to preference change, i.e. the deliberative stance. In the context of the systemic approach to deliberative theory, I find several factors causing the atrophy of such a deliberative stance. I note that this (...) state can occur not only when debaters are representatives or are in the presence of an audience, but also when they face the prospect of a binding decision. It is the latter effect that is a serious challenge to the micro-deliberative strategy, one that strives towards decisional powers being granted to deliberative minipublics. Presenting my findings, I propose—as an alternative to the power-oriented ‘ladder of participation’—a distinction between traditional co-decision and deliberative consultation, the latter one being an environment that is more conducive to deliberative stance. This new typology highlights factors that lead to preference petrification and allows for the appreciation of the non-decisional character of micro-deliberation. All of it leads to the conclusion that, in order to preserve their deliberative character in the systemic context, deliberative minipublics should not always be required to have decision-making powers. (shrink)