What's in a Name? ADHD and the Gray Area between Treatment and Enhancement

In Julian Savulescu, Ruud ter Meulen & Guy Kahane (eds.), Enhancing Human Capacities. Blackwell. pp. 179–193 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In a discussion about human enhancement it is common to make a distinction between medical treatment and enhancement. The treatment‐enhancement (TE) distinction may work as long as we are faced with extreme and evident examples of treatments and enhancements, but it leaves us with unanswered questions if we are confronted with the borderlines cases in the muddy gray area between obvious treatment and obvious enhancement. This chapter focuses on this gray area, shows its complexities, and asks how we can answer questions regarding the medical domain, or regarding the moral obligation for reimbursement if we cannot depend on the TE distinction. The example of adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is used to show how difficult it is to distinguish between treatment of disease and enhancement of normal function, especially given the phenomena of medicalization, disease mongering, and expanding disease definitions.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 94,045

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2023-06-15

Downloads
11 (#1,149,542)

6 months
9 (#436,380)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Ineke Bolt
Utrecht University

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references