found some stuff...

where the rubber hits the road:

the 'naturalisation project' is an attempt to characterise whether someone is mentally disordered or not by showing mental disorder can be reduced to physical disorder.

but it doesn't stop there. there is controversy over whether medicine is objective or whether values are an important part of it. so the naturalisation project continues with the attempt to characterise whether someone is physically disordered or not by showing physical disorder can be reduced to biological malfunction.

but it doesn't stop there. there is controversy over whether biology is objective or whether values are an important part of it. so the naturalisation project continues with the attempt to characterise whether something is biologically malfunctioning or not by showing biological malfunction can be reduced to purely causal processes (e.g., evolution by natural selection).

basically... the last step can't be carried through. whether there is a function, malfunction, diffunction (two distinctly different ways of being), superfunction (a better way of being) cannot simply be read off from the causal facts. there is something missing. we need to plug the gap with something... IMHO we need to plug the gap with our attributing a 'goal' or 'good' to the system. e.g., evolution by natural selection (a purely causal process) together with an attribution of a 'goal' or 'good' (survival and reproduction) deliver a verdict as to whether there is function, malfunction, diffuntion, or superfunction.

this shows that the naturalisation project can't work because value judgement (attribution of a 'goal' or a 'good' to the system) is necessary for function and malfunction hence necessary for physical disease / disorder hence necessary for mental disease / disorder.

there is fairly much unanimous consensus that 'survival and reproduction' is a worthwhile good to attribute to a biological system. (not a physical system e.g., a rock or a mountain range or a planet though which is why 'functions' seem to be reserved for living things and for artifacts - where artifacts are designed for a purpose / goal / good). the consensus in biology has resulted in people mistaking the attribution of good for the discovery of good. though there is some controversy about the good this is typically cast as controversy over the unit of natural selection. e.g., the individual, the group, the genes etc. i think this can be cast as controversy over the good e.g., whether the relevant good is the good of the individual, the group, the genes etc. there is no further fact of the matter...

the problem percolates up in medicine where we have even less consensus on the good.

the problem percolates up still further in psychiatry where we have EVEN LESS consensus on the good.

the naturalisation project won't work, however.

what this means... is that we need to be more explicit about the value judgements that are involved in attributing the good. the DSM makes some noises about 'disruption to social and occupational functioning'. here the notion seems to be that social and occupational functioning is part of the good (purpose, function) of a person. that seems fairly uncontroversial... there are problem cases, however.

but the upshot of all this...

i think there is a difference in degree between mental disorder and non mental disorder. there is no difference in kind. i'm not sure if this falls out of the above analysis as a matter of logical necessity but i think it is fair to say that the above analysis does seem to suggest such an approach. it also means that the behavioural criteria is crucial. the causes of mental disorder are only of interest to us because we have decided (from our values) that a certain class of people deviate from our evaluation of 'the good'.

blah.

it is true that sometimes the debate seems to be a back and forth... back and forth... progress is made, however. though sometimes it is hard to keep a site of the shape of the forest over time instead of getting lost in the individual trees.

though... progress... according to whose values???

blah.