No Need for the Disease Label: Choice is Complicated. Reply to Heather

AbstractDespite its historical contribution, Heather sees the Brain Disease Model of Addiction (BDMA) as failing to relieve stigma, increasing fatalism, and fundamentally wrong. He also sees “choice” as partly volitional and partly unconscious, implying no moral violation. I agree on all counts. Heather then presents a disorder-of-choice (DOC) model of addiction, highlighting the failure of self-regulation with respect to immediate goals. Not only do I endorse such modeling, but the neural mechanisms I describe may help to explicate it more thoroughly.
Source: Neuroethics - Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research