Addiction is Not a Natural Kind

Abstract

I argue that addiction is not an appropriate category to support generalizations for the purposes of scientific prediction. That is, addiction is not a natural kind. I discuss the Homeostatic Property Cluster (HPC) theory of kinds, according to which members of a kind share a cluster of properties generated by a common mechanism or set of mechanisms. Leading accounts of addiction in literature fail to offer a mechanism that explains addiction across substances. I discuss popular variants of the disease conception and demonstrate that at least one class of substances that fails to confirm a major prediction of each account. When no mechanism can be found to explain the occurrence of the relevant properties in members of a category, the HPC view suggests that we revise our categories. I discuss options offered by the HPC view, including category revision and category replacement. I then conclude that talk of addiction as a prediction-supporting category should be replaced with categories such as "S-addiction" and "T-addiction," where S and T are substances or sets of substances of abuse, as these categories are genuine natural kinds.

Keywords: addiction; natural kinds; philosophy of neuroscience; philosophy of psychiatry; theories of addiction.