ABSTRACT
One of the most conceptually and sociologically puzzling things about mental disorder is that there are intelligent people who deny that it exists. Nothing really is a disorder or illness of mind, so they say. Their skepticism may be a difficult challenge to fathom, given everything said about mental disorder by mental health clinicians and in the world at large. Metaphysical anti-realists about mental disorder believe that neuroscience has a responsibility to prune talk of mentality from research into “mental” disorder and to replace it with addressing disorders in brain damage or neural dysfunction terms. Characterizing a person as the subject of a mental disorder is a form of disrespect or an indignity to them as a person and should be avoided. Some people have unusual preferences, unshared by other persons, or imprudent desires, harmful to themselves. But an unusual or imprudent desire just is another desire or preference.
