[Biologism controversy: ethical implications for psychiatry]

Current biological psychiatry, it is frequently claimed by its opponents, is "biologistic" and unduly narrows psychological disorders to neurobiology and molecular biology. They deem a complete neuroscientific reduction of the mental phenomena to be impossible because of the impossibility of reducing certain phenomena, such as the individual subjective experience. If such a reduction is nevertheless undertaken it is ultimately to the disadvantage of the patients. We argue in this article that the very term "biologism" has to be put under scrutiny in the first place. As a result it becomes obvious that "biologism", as a subclass of "philosophical naturalism", is ultimately quite unproblematic. Biologism is dangerous only if it implies an eliminative rejection or an inappropriate underestimation of the relevance of the psyche. On closer examination it gets evident that such implications do not follow necessarily from biologism but cannot be precluded either. To better identify and possibly prevent such dangers, a more differentiated terminology seems helpful.