Proyectos en desarrollo
Is addiction a disease?
In this paper, I look at some of the possible reasons for viewing addiction as a disease, and I spell out what would need to be true for the relevant arguments to hold. I examine whether addiction satisfies two of the most popular criteria for inclusion—dysfunction and harmful consequences— and I consider the issue from the perspective of both strong and minimal models of disease. In my view, some ways of arguing for the disease claim are more plausible than others. Like others before me, I argue that we currently have no decisive reason to think of addiction as involving brain dysfunction. At the same time, I argue that impaired behavioral control is at least strongly suggestive of dysfunction—that is, if we assume that addiction involves impaired control and allow for personal-level dysfunction-talk in the absence of a precise etiological story. Some of the arguments voiced by critics of the disease view target a particular way of articulating this claim, namely the brain disease model of addiction. I argue, moreover, that legitimate objections to some of the claims made by proponents of the brain disease model leave ample room for the possibility of defending other versions of the disease view.
Lay perceptions of control and moral responsibility in addiction (en colaboración con Gino Marttelo Carmona Díaz & María Fernanda Rangel Carrillo).
Theories of addiction have long debated how best to think about the ability to control behavior in the context of addiction, with opinions tending to cluster around two main families of views, typically known as compulsion and choice views (see Burdman, 2022). This debate has implications for another hotly debated topic, namely the extent to which it is appropriate to see people suffering from addiction as eligible for negatively valenced responsibility responses when it comes to addiction-related moral faults (see Burdman, under review). Which of the available views best accords with the lay perspective is an important datum in the context of these debates. Philosophical views on control and moral responsibility are often construed as making explicit and refining the folk perspective, and it is typically assumed that a revisionary stance with regard to the folk view calls for a special sort of argumentative support.
We aim to conduct four experimental studies to probe into different aspects of ordinary people’s understanding of addictive agency. All studies will be conducted online and will target a similar population of non-experts from Colombia and Chile. We intend to examine layperson’s perceptions on (i) the extent to which people suffering from addiction have the ability to control addictive behavior, and (ii) the extent to which people suffering from addiction can be blameworthy for addiction-related moral faults. Each individual study will explore different aspects of these common themes by manipulating variables such as the strength of the reasons to refrain from addictive behavior, the harmfulness of the consequences of the behavior, and the histories of addiction acquisition. Based on the extant literature, we expect to find evidence of two previously described effects: the general/abstract effect, i.e., we expect people to attribute more control and responsibility when presented with concrete scenarios as opposed to abstract decontextualized questions (cf. Nichols & Knobe, 2007), and the so-called ‘Knobe effect’, i.e., we expect people to attribute more control and responsibility when harmful consequences of addictive behavior are made more salient to them (cf. Knobe, 2003; Feldman et al., 2016; Sripada, 2010). Another contribution of our studies comes from their focus on Latin American subjects. To the best of our knowledge, all currently available studies of public perceptions and attitudes concerning addiction have targeted subjects from WEIRD countries.
“The Problem of Fitting Blame in Addiction”.
People suffering from addiction enjoy an ambivalent standing when it comes to moral responsibility. They are not credibly pictured as altogether exempt from accountability. But, when moral wrongs are connected with decisions to use, severely addicted agents appear to be less blameworthy than they would otherwise have been. In this paper, I introduce a problem about the fittingness of blame in the context of addiction which is premised on this view. If an agent’s blameworthiness is mitigated on account of their addiction, fitting blaming responses should appropriately register that fact. What could be the correct way of doing so? I refer to this question as the problem of fitting blame in addiction. The solution I offer is built around the contrast between retributive and scaffolding blaming responses.
“Addiction ain’t (just) in the head”.
In this paper, I argue that the internalistic account of dysfunction in the context of addiction fails. I present three arguments against the internalistic account, and I conclude that the most plausible candidate for a dysfunction in addiction involves dysfunctional ways of interacting with a certain range of environmental conditions. If we want to pursue the idea that there is, in fact, a dysfunction in the context of addiction, we need to go externalistic. This poses a challenge for those inclined to endorse the conjunction between the dysfunction-based disorder claim and psychiatric internalism: if my argument is correct, they should abandon at least one of these views.
“¿Son básicas todas las emociones básicas?”, en co-autoría con Andrea Melamed. En preparación.
En este paper analizamos un problema para la tesis sobre el carácter básico de algunas emociones. Hay buenos motivos para pensar que algunos procesos afectivos son básicos en un sentido filogenético y ontogenético. Al mismo tiempo, algunos rasgos que caracterizan la vida emocional de los humanos adultos típicos son difícilmente atribuibles a los procesos afectivos filogenética y ontogenéticamente básicos. ¿Tienen el miedo, la ira, la alegría, etc., tal como las experimenta un humano adulto típico los mismos rasgos que atribuimos a emociones filogenética y ontogenéticamente primigenias? ¿En qué sentido son (o no) el miedo filogenéticamente antiguo y el miedo que experimenta un bebé una instancia del mismo tipo de estado psicológico que el miedo tal como lo experimenta un humano adulto típico?
Número especial ‘Filosofía de la psiquiatría’, para Análisis Filosófico. Editor invitado. Junto con Diana Pérez y Andrea Melamed. En preparación.