The social concept of disease

Theoretical Medicine

Volumn 17, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 353-361

  Räikkä, Juha ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TURKU   (Finland)

Author keywords

medical concept of disease; naturalism; normative judgments; normativism; norms; social concept of disease

Indexed keywords

DISEASE CLASSIFICATION; HUMAN; REVIEW; SOCIAL ASPECT;

ALCOHOLISM; CONCEPT FORMATION; DISEASE; HUMANS; PHILOSOPHY, MEDICAL; SOCIAL VALUES; TERMINOLOGY;

EID: 0030477045     PISSN: 01679902     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/BF00489680     Document Type: Review

References (14)

1. On the importance of the notion of disease, see e.g. Engelhardt Jr HT. The concepts of health and disease. In: Engelhardt Jr HT and Spicker SF, eds. Evaluation and Explanation in Biomedical Sciences. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company, 1975, or Nordenfeit L. On the relevance and importance of the notion of disease: Theor Med, 1993; 14: 15-26. For a view that disease is not an important concept, see Hesslow G. Do we need a concept of disease? Theor Med 1993; 14: 1-14.
2. See e.g. Fulford KWM. Moral Theory and Medical Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989: 29.
3. See e.g. Boorse C. Health as a theoretical concept. Phil Sci, 1977; 44: 542-573. Goosens WK. Values, health, and medicine. Phil Sci, 1980; 47: 100-115.
4. E.g. Reznek L. The Nature of Disease. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987: 211.
5. Engelhardt Jr HT. Human well-being and medicine: Some basic value-judgments in the medical Sciences. In: Mappes TA. and Zempaty JS, eds. Biomedical Ethics. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981: 213-222.
6. On culture and the notion of disease, see e.g. Engelhardt Jr HT. The Foundations of Bioethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986: 164-193.
7. See e.g. Macklin R. Mental health and mental illness. Some problems of definition and concept formation. Phil Sci, 1972; 39: 341-365.
8. Boorse C. What a theory of the mental health should be? J Theor Soc Behav, 1976; 6: 62. Cf. Boorse 1977.
9. Boorse has participated in a discussion about functions; see his Wright on functions. Phil Rev, 1976; 85: 70-86. For recent views about the notion of function, see Nissen L. Four ways of eliminating mind from teleology. Stud Hist Phil Sci, 1993; 24: 27-48.
10. Cf. Räikkä J. and Launis V. Kuka, on sairas. (Who is ill) Sosiaalilaaketieteellinen Aikakauslehti (Finnish Journal of Social Medicine), 1992; 29: 156-164.
11. Engelhardt Jr HT, 1975. Consider Reznek's version of normativism, according to which is a disease means is a condition with which, for example, a person is less able to lead good life. It is of course logically consistent to say that a person is less able to lead a good life (than she used to) but still she doesn't deserve any special services (as she would deserve were she socially diseased as well). To talk about good life is to talk about values, not about norms. Reznek doesn't seem to realize this; see Reznek 1987, 211. Presumably, all normative judgments presuppose some value-judgments; but not all value-judgments imply normative judgments. Cf. Brandt RB. A Theory of the Good and the Right. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979: 224-234.
12. It is possible (although unlikely) that epilepsy is not a disease. About the history of the notion of disease, see Risse GB. Health and disease: History of the concepts. In: Warren TR, ed. Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Vol 1-2. New York: The Free Press, 1978: 579-585.
13. Robert Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man Without Qualities) expresses the unimportance of the medical concept of disease in a funny way. We are told in the courthouse the angel of medical science forgets his own commitments when the angel of law has spoken.
14. About the relation between the notion of mental disease and the notion of physical disease, see Flew A. Crime or Disease? New York: Barnes and Noble, 1973.