Croatian Journal of Philosophy

Volume 23, Issue 1, 2023

Is Autism a Mental Disorder According to the Harmful Dysfunction View?

The supporters of the neurodiversity movement contend that autism is not a mental disorder, but rather a natural human variation. In a recent paper Jerome Wakefield, David Wasserman and Jordan Conrad (2020) argued against this view relying on Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction theory of mental disorder (the HD theory). Although I argue that the HD theory is problematic, I contend that arguments offered by Wakefield et al. (2020) against those of the neurodiversity movement are plausible, except in one respect: their claim that high functioning autism in general is not a disorder is not well supported. I argue instead that the disorder status of high-functioning autistic persons should be judged on a case-by-case basis, depending on the harmfulness of the condition. In this regard, I maintain that the list of basic psychological capacities provided by George Graham (2010) provides an adequate conceptualization of harm. Moreover, I show how this framework may offer an appropriate tool for a case-by-case assessment of harm associated with high-functioning autism.