Reconciling accuracy with ethics

From You Don't Want A Purely Biological, Apolitical Taxonomy Of Mental Disorders by Scott Alexander.  His article is on the broader issue of the nature of disease and mental illness and where biology leaves off and psychology begins.  

But in his argument he has this wonderful articulation of a dilemma which I think is far broader than the particular argument he is making.

The people asking for apolitical taxonomies want an incoherent thing. They want something which doesn’t think about politics at all, and which simultaneously is more politically correct than any other taxonomy.

Or if “political correctness” sounds too dismissive, we can rephrase it as: “they want something that doesn’t think about ethics and practicality at all, but which is simultaneously more ethically correct and pragmatically correct than other taxonomies”. That is, we want our definition of “mental disorder” to be ethical (eg not stigmatize people who don’t deserve stigma). And we want it to be practical (eg identify a group of people who need and deserve care). 

It is those last two lines which grab my attention.

We want our definition of “mental disorder” to be ethical (eg not stigmatize people who don’t deserve stigma). And we want it to be practical (eg identify a group of people who need and deserve care).  

 

To broaden it further:

We want out our definitions and actions to be ethical so that we do not stigmatize those who do not deserve to be stigmatized.  We also want our definitions and actions to be practical and applicable so that all who need care (the benefit) can receive care (the benefit).  

Ethical and practical bump into the reality that the individual is not the average and the average is not the individual.

There are range of truisms that impose a conflict here.  Anything we do beyond ourselves necessarily entails a modeling of others and of reality.  We are not omniscient and therefore our models of others and reality must be simple representations.  The map is not the terrain.  All models are wrong but some are useful.  

We are always going to fail to reconcile the proper categorization of people with the desire not to stigmatize people.  Which takes priority?  Accuracy (clear definitions and categorization) or Ethics (considerate treatment without stigmatization).  It is not that they are impossible to reconcile.  It is that they are very, very difficult to reconcile and the means of reconciling Accuracy with Ethics is likely different for every individual.