ABSTRACT
Contemporary scientific and philosophical debates on addiction center on two models. In the brain disease model, drug addiction is a “chronic and relapsing brain disease that results from the prolonged effects of drugs on the brain”. In the brain disease model, all drugs of abuse have common direct or indirect effects on a single pathway in the brain—the brain’s reward system, i.e., the mesolimbic dopamine system. On the one hand, the brain disease model promotes cellular-level understanding, painting the addict as a biological organism. On the other hand, the self model sees the addict as a person or intentional system who acts according to beliefs and desires and responds to complex historical, environmental, and interpersonal aspects of life. The chapter provides an overview of Schaffner’s framework for reduction in science, describing his notions of “sweeping” and “creeping” reductionism. The notion of creeping reductionism is a conceptually productive way of making sense of addiction, with great practical import.
