Meaning is tricky. One is of course free to define ones terms however one wants, but that is to miss the point that meaning of terms is to facilitate communication and hence is a social enterprise.

Someone or other (I'm really sorry, but I can't remember who) attempted to distinguish between:

- Disorder (malfunction, defect)
- Disease (malfunction, defect, together with a judgement that the malfunction / defect is a *bad* thing)

This was a reccomendation for how we *should* use our terms (according to him). He thought that this distinction would make it clear whether or not we were judging the disordered state to be a *bad* thing or not.

Most people grant that there is a sense of 'disease' where to be diseased does mean that one is in a bad state. There is considerable controversy over whether there is a notion of malfunction / defect that is *not* committed to its being a bad thing, however. So... Most people grant the second distinction (whatever we choose to call it). The controversy is over whether the first distinction can indeed be made to work in a way that it is independent from a value judgement of *bad*.

> But I don't believe we're meant to be born without hearing; it's a mutation or defect, I think.

But who decides what we are or are not *meant* to be born with? If God made the individuals in the world then I suppose it is possible that he could tag aspects of them as 'perfect' or 'defective'. But if God didn't make the world and the individuals in the world then what are the relevant facts that determine that some individuals are defective whereas others aren't? (Even if you do believe in God I'm still not seeing the tags so how do we decide what aspects of individuals God takes to be perfect and which aspects of individuals God takes to be defective?)

> I think the problem doesn't lie so much with labels, but how people interpret them and classify them. I can think someone has a defect and not see them as beneath me.

No. But you do think that there is something *wrong* with them in the sense of their failing to meet some standard where you take that standard to be universally applicable.

> What about people with "rage disorders" and dangerous minds?

I have a view of the legal system that is different from most. Because I believe that ones actions are caused by ones inner states and ones inner states are caused by ones genetic inheritance together with ones social and natural environment... I think that given the genes and environment were what they were... It was inevitable that the person had the mental states (beliefs and desires) that they did (which is to say they couldn't have been otherwise)... And given their mental states (and their bodies and their social circumstances etc) were what they were... They could not have done otherwise from what they did in fact do.

As such, I don't believe in retaliative or retributive justice. IMHO the legal system should be about prevention of future reoffending (by removing the person from society) and rehabilitation (to do with prevention of reoffending). Whether people are mentally disordered or not the aim should be the same: Namedly to prevent the person from harming society. Might make a difference as to the appropriate kind of rehabilitation (medication or psychological intervention or social intervention or job skills training or whatever) but I'm not seeing a radical difference in what the legal and medical institutions should be doing...

1) Yes, I think there are objective facts suggesting that males plus females are the norm. It takes males and females to reproduce and create life.

Would you believe... Your views are tracking the literature quite well! I'm serious... The notion you seem to be getting at is something along the lines of this:

Evolution by natural selection is the relevant process for fixing the functions. (The idea here is that hearts are around in virtue of pumping blood rather than making thumpity thump noises. The evolutionary function of the heart is thus to pump blood. If the heart fails to pump blood then the heart is malfunctioning.

Problems for the evolutionary account of function include:

- Whatever mechanisms subserve reading they certainly weren't selected for that purpose. Hence, dyslexia isn't a failure of evolutionary function (hence cannot be a disorder / disease)
- The status of female orgasm is very controversial. If it doesn't have an evolutionary function then it wouldn't be a disorder / disease, however.
- Being a very anxious person with a trigger startle response would have been adaptive in an environment where loud noises and the like were very real indicators of threat. Take that person (who is evolutionary adaptive for savannah life) and put them in NYC with gunshots and cars backfiring and we seem to want to say they have 'anxiety disorder'. No failure of evolutionary function here.
- Some modelling has been done which shows that a certain number of sociopaths (cheaters and deflectors) is required in order for a population to stabilise on the majority of members having a 'tit for tat' with co-operative bias strategy of social interaction (as most of us do, apparently). As such it is far from clear that the population is worse off for having a certain number of sociopaths in the population. Cheating and deflecting and raping is a viable evolutionary strategy with respect to the evolutionary 'purpose' of replication of genes... As such... It is far from clear that the sociopaths genes arne't actually performing their evolutionary function better than the rest of us...
- Some modelling has been done to show that depression is an adaptive response to failure to challenge an individual higher up on the pecking order. These models are very controversial but they are an attempt to show depression to be an evolutionary adaptive strategy.
- Hysterical / borderline symptoms are also being modelled (by some) as adaptive because of the success in eliciting help from others.

And so it goes on...

So... Looks like turning to evolution by natural selection isn't the relevant process to fix the objective functions (where we can read deviations from the evolutionary functions as malfunctioning or defective). Wakefield is clinging to this at the moment (he is very influential). There are other processes that might be relevant to fixing the function... But I haven't seen a satisfactory account of why we should accept that there is one and only one objective standard which determines whehter things are functioning or malfunctioning. I can offer arguments as to their being multiple standards (relevant to our interests) but I don't have a knock down formulation as yet...

> If people look down on those who are labeled "disabled," "defective," "handicapped," or whatever, then therein lies the problem.

Yes. Though... Pity can be a bit more insideous. 'Poor them, life must be hard' is equally dehumanising.

The trouble is that 'defective' is often used in ecomomics. Certain goods are 'defective' when they do not perform the function they were advertised to perform. If a good is 'defective' then we return it to get a replacement good or a refund. When we then apply the term 'defective' to people it does indeed have connotations of 'broken' 'damaged' and the like. Connotations of they / we would be better off if they weren't defective.

> People want change the terms: "Mentally challenged," "hearing impaired," "differently abled," etc., and that doesn't work.

They are campaigning mostly for society to change its attitudes. How do you do that? Education. Change in the terms, yeah. Not everyone who uses the neutral terms has had a change in attitude, but people who have had a change in attitude tend to embrace the neutral terms. When people say 'PC rubbish' then that reveals that they don't understand that the real problem lies in the attitudes. But when people use the neutral terms that doesn't mean they have had a change in attitude, to be sure. If a little kid goes home to mummy and says 'one of the kids at school is hearing impaired' and mummy says 'oh that poor dear it must be so hard to cope with being xxx' it doesn't matter whether they say 'deaf' or 'hearing impaired' because their attitude is apparent (and the kid will pick that up unless teachers and the hearing impaired child manage to convey a different view).

> People who are defective, for instance, should be given self-esteem and strength to not let being defective, or different, keep them from what they want in life.

I'm still getting the notion that things are a little like 'oh little Johhny yes you are defective my son but don't worry you can screw lids on screw-top jars just fine and you will be an asset to any factory!'

> I feel my odds are better with one.

Yes. Still... I would like to think that whether you should be allowed one or not depends on whether in fact the odds are better with one...