On the Notion of Health as Ability

Abstract

Medical concepts, such as health, illness and disease, have been the focus of studies in the disciplines of anthropology, sociology and philosophy for a number of decades. There has been debate concerning mainly the respective merits of a medical view of these concepts, stressing the biological basis, and a sociological/anthropological view, which emphasises their dependence on the cultural and social context in which they are used. Most debaters, in particular the representatives of the social sciences, have sided with the sociological interpretation of these concepts. In the philosophical arena, on the other hand, quite different theories have been proposed; a forceful analysis essentially defending the medical view has been given by C. Boorse [9], [10] and [11], whilst many equally forceful criticisms of this view have been presented by a number of later theorists (for instance G.J. Agich [1], H.T. Engelhardt [28], K.W.M. Fulford [30] and myself [71]; for a recent response by Boorse, see [12]).