Abstract

Although mental disorder categories were originally developed to explain and predict human psychology and behavior, in certain cases, namely, in cases involving animal caregiving and welfare, these categories have been extended to animal minds. This is in tension with the views of the majority of the scientific community, which tends towards skepticism about the utilization of mental health categories in non-human cases. This paper considers the feasibility of applying mental disorder categories to animals, and explores why different fields have drawn different conclusions on the matter. Using a comparison between human obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and animal stereotypic behavior, and drawing on literature in psychiatry, philosophy of science, animal models, and philosophy of disability, I explore the various considerations relevant to whether and how mental disorders can be attributed to cases of abnormal animal behavior.