Hanna Pickard (Johns Hopkins University): 'Addiction and the Good'
Abstract: Addiction science is at an impasse. Rates of addiction remain high. Translational results from decades of research conducted within the dominant brain disease paradigm are shockingly meager. Meanwhile, theories of addiction multiply and compete, fomenting disagreement about something as apparently simple as what addiction is. Ultimately the cost of this impasse is borne by people with addiction themselves. How to move forward? By attending to what is puzzling about addiction and what people with addiction say about their relationships with drugs, I will propose a Carnapian-style explication as a foundation for a new paradigm: Addiction is a pattern of drug use that persists despite evident and severe costs such that it counts profoundly against a person’s own good. The new paradigm is therefore as humanistic as it is scientific, putting values at the heart of addiction and dialogue with people about their values at the heart of diagnosis.
Registration: If you do not hold a university card, please contact the seminar convenor or admin@philosophy.ox.ac.uk at least two working days before a seminar to register your attendance.
Workshop in Moral Philosophy Convenor: David Owens
