Defining 'health' and 'disease'.

Area of Science:

• Philosophy of Medicine
• Medical Ethics
• Conceptual Analysis

Background:

• The definitions of 'health' and 'disease' are debated among naturalists, normativists, and hybrid theorists.
• Existing definitions face significant conceptual challenges within the philosophy of medicine.

Purpose of the Study:

• To critically evaluate current naturalist, normativist, and hybrid approaches to defining health and disease.
• To propose an alternative framework for understanding health and disease concepts in medical discourse.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual analysis of philosophical positions on health and disease.
• Distinguishing between descriptive and normative elements in medical language.
• Evaluating the proposed framework against existing theories.

Main Results:

• Naturalist, normativist, and hybrid theories present inherent problems in defining health and disease.
• An alternative approach focusing on state descriptions and normative claims offers a more robust framework.
• This distinction better reflects the practical considerations in medical discussions.

Conclusions:

• The debate over defining health and disease can be reframed by separating factual state descriptions from value-laden normative claims.
• This conceptual distinction provides a clearer and more practical way to analyze medical concepts.
• The proposed approach avoids the pitfalls of existing definitions and better captures the essence of medical discourse.