In The American Conservative, Dalrymple takes issue with a letter to the British Medical Journal objecting to the word “regain” in the context of weight loss, on the grounds that it shifts responsibility from biology to personal inadequacy. He argues that the medicalization of weakness of will, however well-intentioned, divides humanity into agents and automata.
No one says of a very good or kind person that his goodness or kindness is merely biological, and that it is wrong to shift the praise from biology to personal adequacy.