The good of health

an argument for an objectivist understanding

Patricia Donohue-White

Kateryna Fedoryka

pp. 165-185

in: Paulina Taboada, Kateryna Fedoryka, Patricia Donohue-White (eds), Person, society and value, Berlin, Springer, 2002

Abstract

In contemporary analyses of the concept of health, it is generally undisputed that health in its primary meaning is a value concept¹: health is a good and as such it motivates and regulates types of action. The good of health is further specified as a kind of well-being or as a necessary condition for well-being. The predominant understanding of good in general and well-being in particular is a subjectivist one (Nordenfelt, 1987, pp. 81–82), basing well-being variously in individual feelings of happiness or the satisfaction of desires (desire-satisfaction theory²).