“What We’re Not Talking about When We Talk about Addiction,”
“What We’re Not Talking about When We Talk about Addiction,”
Hanna Pickard,
Hastings Center Report 50, no. 4 (2020): 37-46. DOI: 10.1002/hast.1172
The landscape of addiction is dominated by two rival models: a moral model in which addition is partly a matter of choice and a model that characterizes addiction as a neurobiological disease of compulsion, not personal choice. Against both, Pickard offers a scientifically and clinically informed alternative. To help someone overcome addiction, you need to understand and address why they persist in using drugs despite negative consequences. If they are not compelled, then the explanation must advert to the value of drugs for them as an individual. What blocks us from acknowledging this reality is not science but fear: that it will ignite moralism about drugs and condemnation of drug users. The solution is to fight moralism directly. Pickard is a professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University.