The Addiction Philosophy Map
05 December 2016
Ries, Richard; Miller, Shannon C.; Saitz, Richard; Fiellin, David A. (Eds.) (2014): The ASAM principles of addiction medicine. American Society of Addiction Medicine. Fifth edition. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
So, we put the sacramental issue of the sense of the human existence aside although it’s also important for our addiction philosophy. Let’s remember our previous talk about the rewarding center and the addiction as a chemical sort of hedonism (the concept of putting pleasure above everything else). We’ll say a very questionable thing that the addictive preference of alcohol to other things isn’t only immorality or false choice of a short-term aim to a long-term one (the long-term perspective can be better rendered by the expression executive power, something that leads everyone to a definite benefit – an American dream so to say – like a president of a country).
There are different perspectives on the self, different possible definitions, and with each perspective and definition, naturally, comes a different explanation. Yet it is likely that something like an essence of self can be uncovered behind the multiplicity of views. In this article I suggest that a neurobiological account can help us find such an essence. The title of this article includes the words “feelings” and “self” because I believe the neural basis of feelings and of self have a shared neurobiological stem.