Abstract
Although I reject neuronormativity -- an idea central to the Brain Disease Model of Addiction (BDMA) -- Henden and Gjelsvik argue that the disease definition might refer to normativity in nonneural domains. They profess that a cognitive dysfunction (e.g., impaired response inhibition), or a mismatch of evolutionary intentions, could also qualify as norm violations, thus legitimizing the disease label. The need for dividing lines is questioned as well. I rebut these criticisms in turn, but I must admit they are thought provoking.
References
Henden, Edmund, and Olav Gjelsvik. 2017. What is wrong with the brains of addicts? Neuroethics 10. Neuroethics. doi:10.1007/s12152-016-9285-4.
Lewis, Marc D. 2017. Addiction and the Brain: Development, not Disease. Neuroethics 10. Neuroethics. doi:10.1007/s12152-016-9293-4.
Fenton, Ted, and Reinout W. Wiers. 2017. Free will, black swans and addiction. Neuroethics 10. Neuroethics. doi:10.1007/s12152-016-9290-7.
Lewis, Marc D. 2017. A continuum is a continuum, and swans are not geese. Reply to Fenton and Wiers. Neuroethics 10, forthcoming.
Lewis, Marc D., Isabela Granic, and Connie Lamm. 2006. Behavioral differences in aggressive children linked with neural mechanisms of emotion regulation. In Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1094: 164–177. doi:10.1196/annals.1376.017.
Lewis, Marc D., Isabela Granic, Connie Lamm, Philip David Zelazo, Jim Stieben, Rebecca M. Todd, Ida Moadab, and Debra Pepler. 2008. Changes in the neural bases of emotion regulation associated with clinical improvement in children with behavior problems. Development and Psychopathology 20: 913–939. doi:10.1017/S0954579408000448.
Lewis, Marc D., Lamm Connie, S.J. Segalowitz, J. Stieben, and P.D. Zelazo. 2006. Neurophysiological correlates of emotion regulation in children and adolescents. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18: 430–443. doi:10.1162/089892906775990633.
Szalavitz, Maia. 2016. Unbroken brain: A revolutionary new way of understanding addiction. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lewis, M. Searching for Norms to Violate. Reply to Henden & Gjelsvik. Neuroethics 10, 79–81 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-017-9324-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-017-9324-9