Must Social Values Play a Role in the Harm Component of the Harmful Dysfunction Analysis? Reply to Rachel Cooper

Although Boorse’s and Wakefield’s accounts of health are generally regarded as competing ones, they are in fact so only if they are aimed at the same concept. Some remarks made by Boorse and Wakefield, however, leave it unclear whether they are. On one possible interpretation, Boorse’s account aims at analysing a theoreticalconcept of abnormality, which ought to be distinguished from a more clinicalor therapeuticconcept, whereas Wakefield’s account aims at analysing a clinicalor therapeuticconcept. The debate between Boorse and Wakefield would then either be merely terminological, or would boil down to whether Boorse is correct to assert the existence of a theoreticalconcept of abnormality which ought to be distinguished from a clinicalor therapeuticone. This paper aims to clarify what is at stake between Boorse and Wakefield, by maintaining that their accounts are most plausibly interpreted as both being aimed towards a theoreticalconcept of abnormality.

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Must Social Values Play a Role in the Harm Component of the Harmful Dysfunction Analysis? Reply to Rachel Cooper

Cited by 4 publications

References 23 publications

Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis of disorder and the problem of defining harm to nonsentient organisms

Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis of disorder and the problem of defining harm to nonsentient organisms

The harmful-dysfunction account of disorder, individual versus social values, and the interpersonal variability of harm challenge

A clarification on the Boorse–Wakefield debate about health: Is the theoretical/therapeutic distinction dispensable?

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