Action, Ability and Health: Essays in the Philosophy of Action and Welfare

ISBN-13: 9780792362067 / Angielski / Twarda / 2000 / 173 str.

Lennart Nordenfelt; L. y. Nordenfelt

Opis

This book is a part of the ongoing enterprise to understand the nature of human health and illness. This enterprise has expanded dramatically during the last decades. A great number of articles, as weIl as a fair number of monographs, on this topic have been published by renowned international publishers. In this discussion most participants share the idea that health is a partially normative concept, Le. that health is not a phe- nomenon which can be wholly characterised in biological (or otherwise descriptive) terms. To ascribe health to a person is eo ipso, according to this line of thought, to as- cribe a positively evaluated property to this person. Moreover, most debators share the idea that health is a holistic property, belonging to the person as a whole, whereas dis- eases, injuries and defects are entities (or properties of entities) which can be very lim- ited and and normally affect only a part of the individual. My own monograph belongs to this tradition. A feature of my position, which is not universally acknowledged in riyal theories, however, is my emphasis on the notion of ability as a fundament in the theory of health. In my formal characterisation of health I view it as astate of a person which is such that the person has the ability to fulfi1 his or her vital goals.

Spis treści

Preface. Introduction. Part I: Action Theory. 1. Towards an ontology of episodes. 2. Towards an analysis of the concept of action. 3. On complex actions: accomplishments and projects. 4. On the explanation and determination of actions. 5. On the logical form of action-explanations. 6. On the logical form of interaction. 7. Towards a theory of ability and disability. Part II: Action-Theory as a Basis for the Theories of Health and Welfare. 8. On the notion of health as ability. 9. On the concepts of vital goal and happiness. 10. On the multiplicity of health concepts. Part III: Action-Theoretic Applications in the Theory of Health and Health Care. 11. On the technical notions of disability and handicap: the WHO context. 12. On the complexity of autonomy. 13. A sketch for a theory of health enhancement. 14. On the role of compulsion in mental illness. The case of forensic psychiatry. Part IV: Summary of Basic Concepts. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.