Medical disorder, harm, and damage
- 4 February 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
- Vol. 41 (1), 39-52
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-020-09516-x
Abstract
Jerome Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis (HDA) of medical disorder is an influential hybrid of naturalist and normative theories. In order to conclude that a condition is a disorder, according to the HDA, one must determine both that it results from a failure of a physical or psychological mechanism to perform its natural function and that it is harmful. In a recent issue of this journal, I argued that the HDA entails implausible judgments about which disorders there are and how they are individuated. The same arguments apply to other views that incorporate a harm criterion. More recently, David G. Limbaugh has modified the HDA by providing a novel account of the way in which a disorder must be harmful. Here, I briefly review the relevant issues and then critically assess Limbaugh’s account. I argue in the end that Limbaugh’s revisions do not succeed in making accounts like the HDA more attractive.Keywords
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