Neuroróżnorodność jako pojęcie moralne

Abstract

Neurodiversity as a moral concept: Contemporary psychiatric discourse — including discourse hailing from phenomenology as well as biomedical sources — often becomes entangled with the field’s historical legacy. It is a domain where power relations have played a key role, including the question of the position of psychiatry in medical science — as well as related issues of knowledge­‐​­ creation and the social position and identity of those covered by psychiatric categories. The overarching logic governing this discourse is a dichotomous distinction — primarily concerning diagnostic purposes — between ‘normal’ and ‘pathological’ human experiences. In contrast to this discourse, the concept of neurodiversity, coined in the late 1990s, treats neurological differences as natural variants of human functioning, rather than deficits. The idea of neurodiversity goes beyond a purely biological understanding of neurological differences, influencing a redefinition of moral values in thinking about psychological well­‐​­ being and approaches to psychiatric diagnosis — often related to stigmatisation. Understood in this way, neurodiversity is a concept with a moral character, opposed to traditional distinctions between ‘normal’ and ‘pathological’, ‘healthy’ and ‘ ill’, ‘acceptable’ and ‘necessary to eradicate’. It offers an alternative to the normative discourse of psychiatry, providing an inclusive and affirmative approach to the diversity of human experience.