Abstract

This paper argues for the importance of approaching medicine, as a theoretical science, through values. The normative concepts of benefit and harm are held to provide a framework for the analysis of medicine which reflects the obligations of the doctor-patient relationship, suffices to define the key concept of medical relevance, yields a general necessary condition for the basic concepts of medicine, explains the role of such nonnormative conceptions as discomfort, dysfunction, and incapacity, and avoids the mistakes of other normative approaches which hold that unhealthy conditions are disvaluable or should be treated. Neutralist analyses are criticized, especially those approaching health through proper functioning