TY - CHAP
T1 - Addiction and Its Ambiguities
T2 - Some Comments from History
AU - Blok, Gemma
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - In their rich paper, Mary Jean Walker and Wendy Rogers state that addiction is a ‘paradigmatic borderline case’, its disease status having been contested for at least several centuries. Is addiction a sin, an individual weakness, or a brain disease? Is it caused by the substance, by the individual’s vulnerability and psychology, or by social factors? As historians have demonstrated, ideas about addiction have changed significantly over time (Acker 2002; Carstairs 2006; Courtwright 2001). Walker and Rogers’ conceptualization of the vague cluster approach of disease is very helpful in explaining addiction’s contested status. First of all, addiction is a “vague” condition where the difference between health and disease is a matter of degree. Moreover, criteria that we might use to speak of a disease in spite of this vagueness, are not easily applied to addiction.
AB - In their rich paper, Mary Jean Walker and Wendy Rogers state that addiction is a ‘paradigmatic borderline case’, its disease status having been contested for at least several centuries. Is addiction a sin, an individual weakness, or a brain disease? Is it caused by the substance, by the individual’s vulnerability and psychology, or by social factors? As historians have demonstrated, ideas about addiction have changed significantly over time (Acker 2002; Carstairs 2006; Courtwright 2001). Walker and Rogers’ conceptualization of the vague cluster approach of disease is very helpful in explaining addiction’s contested status. First of all, addiction is a “vague” condition where the difference between health and disease is a matter of degree. Moreover, criteria that we might use to speak of a disease in spite of this vagueness, are not easily applied to addiction.
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-62241-0_16
DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-62241-0_16
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85202009618
SN - 9783031622403
T3 - Philosophy and Medicine
SP - 217
EP - 221
BT - A Pragmatic Approach to Conceptualization of Health and Disease
A2 - Schermer, Maartje
A2 - Binney, Nicholas
PB - Springer
ER -