'What is (mental) disease?': an open letter to Christopher Boorse

This "open letter" to Christopher Boorse is a response to his influential n aturalist (value-excluding) analysts of disease from the perspective of lin guistic-analytic value theory. The hey linguistic-analytic point against Bo orse (and other naturalists) is that, although defining disease value free, he land they) continue to use the term with clear evaluative,e connotation s. A descriptivist (value-entailing) analysis of disease would allow value- free definition consistently with value-laden use: but descriptivism fails when applied to mental disorder because it depends on shared values whereas the values relevant to mental disorders are highly diverse. A parr-functio n analysis, similarly, although initially persuasive for physical disorders ,fails with the psychotic mental disorders because these, characteristicall y, involve disturbances of the rationality of the person as a whole. The di fficulties encountered in applying: naturalism to mental disorders point, l inguistic-analytically, to the possibility that there is, after all, an eva luative element of meaning, deeply hidden bur still logically operative, in the concept of disease.