Person, Society and Value: Towards a Personalist Concept of Health / Edition 1

by Paulina Taboada, K.F. Cuddeback, P. Donohue-White

Overview

Besides offering a critical analysis of the WHO definition and a review of both ancient and contemporary conceptions of health, the cooperative effort of physicians and philosophers presented in this book works through the challenges which any definition of health faces, if it is to be both truly personalist, and at the same time operational.

The overall purpose of this book is to capture the essentials of human health and to propose the outlines for a personalist understanding of this concept, i.e., a conception that does justice to the personal nature of human beings by introducing dimensions that are essential to personal life and well-being, such as the realms of rationality, affectivity and freedom, the realms of meaning, values, morality, and spirituality, the realms of social and interpersonal relations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402005039
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	05/31/2002
Series:	Philosophy and Medicine , #72
Edition description:	2002
Pages:	262
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.36(d)

Table of Contents

Section One / Health and the Human Person.- According to Plato, the Evils of the Body Cannot be Cured Without Also Curing the Evils of the Soul.- The General Systems Theory: An Adequate Framework for a Personalist Concept of Health?.- Health: Two Idolatries.- The Concept of Mental Health.- What is Human Health? Towards Understanding its Personalist Dimensions.- Section Two / Health and Human Well-Being.- Health, Disease and Persons: Well-being in a Post-Modern World.- The Good of Health: An Argument for an Objectivist Understanding.- Empirical and Philosophical Aspects of a Definition of Health and Disease.- Section Three / Health and Society.- Positive and Negative Aspects of the WHO Definition of Health, and their Implications for a New Concept of Health in the Future.- The Challenge of Government in the Constructing of Health Care Policy.- Epilogue.- Notes on Contributors.

Editorial Reviews

From a symposium marking the halfway point in their two-year research, scholars of philosophy and medicine from the US, Europe, and Chile explore how the World Health Organization's definition of health can be both personalist and operational. The 11 papers cover health in relation to the human person, human well-being, and society. The general conclusion is that answering philosophical questions regarding such matters as the essence and value of human health is crucial for solving political problems such as how to legislate health care policy. The International Academy of Philosophy undertook the project with funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR