TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jefferson, Anneli
TI  - Mental disorders, brain disorders and values
JO  - Frontiers in psychology
VL  - 5
SN  - 1664-1078
CY  - Lausanne
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
M1  - FZJ-2014-01664
SP  - 130
PY  - 2014
AB  - The debates about the normativity of mental disorders and about the distinction between somatic and mental disorders have long been closely linked. This is very obvious in Szasz, who claims that there can only be brain disorders, no mental disorders and that so-called mental disorders are really problems in living. The implication of the latter claim is that people who have mental disorders are really people whose behavior and emotions depart from societal expectations. One might therefore be tempted to think that the normativity claim and the claim that mental disorders are really brain disorders stand and fall together. This is indeed what Stier claims. “Because of the normative nature of psychiatry, mental disorders cannot be completely reduced to neuronal or molecular processes.” (Stier, 2013, p.8)But how close is the link between normativity and irreducibility really? I agree with Stier that ascriptions of mental disorders are intrinsically normative, and that what counts as a mental disorder has to be decided at the mental rather than at the brain level is also correct. However, the normativity claim and the claim that physicalism does not imply that all mental disorders are brain disorders can and should be separated for two reasons: First, we do not need the appeal to value judgments to justify the importance of the mental level in description and explanation. Second, we need to invest significant normative judgments in any kind of ascription of disease or disorder, not just in the range of the mental. ...
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000331286000001
C6  - pmid:24596567
DO  - DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00130
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/151782
ER  -