Philosophy of Science 44 (4):542-573 (1977)
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Abstract |
This paper argues that the medical conception of health as absence of disease is a value-free theoretical notion. Its main elements are biological function and statistical normality, in contrast to various other ideas prominent in the literature on health. Apart from universal environmental injuries, diseases are internal states that depress a functional ability below species-typical levels. Health as freedom from disease is then statistical normality of function, i.e., the ability to perform all typical physiological functions with at least typical efficiency. This conception of health is as value-free as statements of biological function. The view that health is essentially value-laden, held by most writers on the topic, seems to have one of two sources: an assumption that health judgments must be practical judgments about the treatment of patients, or a commitment to "positive" health beyond the absence of disease. I suggest that the assumption is mistaken, the commitment possibly misdescribed
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Keywords | Function Teleology Explanation Biology Philosophy of Science |
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DOI | 10.1086/288768 |
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References found in this work BETA
On the Distinction Between Disease and Illness.Christopher Boorse - 1975 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 5 (1):49-68.
Teleology and the Logical Structure of Function Statements.William C. Wimsatt - 1972 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 3 (1):1-80.
View all 25 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
On the Ethics of Algorithmic Decision-Making in Healthcare.Thomas Grote & Philipp Berens - 2020 - Journal of Medical Ethics 46 (3):205-211.
A Second Rebuttal On Health.Christopher Boorse - 2014 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 39 (6):683-724.
Yesterday’s Child: How Gene Editing for Enhancement Will Produce Obsolescence—and Why It Matters.Robert Sparrow - 2019 - American Journal of Bioethics 19 (7):6-15.
The Teleological Notion of 'Function'.Karen Neander - 1991 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (4):454 – 468.
Biological Normativity: A New Hope for Naturalism?Walter Veit - 2021 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 24 (2):291-301.
View all 430 citations / Add more citations
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