Fabian Hundertmark

This paper introduces the line-drawing challenge for ability-based accounts of health. What degree of which abilities is required for complete health? I argue that the answers provided by existing theories are flawed and propose the Blueprint View. On this view, an organism is completely healthy if and only if it has the abilities it would have in its design state, where design is determined by the etiology of its traits. This view provides an objective, naturalistic distinction between health and non-health. It strikes a balance between pure physiology and well-being, and distinguishes treatment from enhancement, as well as real pathology from pathologized variation.

In this article, we show that historical naturalistic theories of biological function can meet central desiderata, while ahistorical alternatives cannot. To this end, we develop a comprehensive taxonomy of naturalistic theories of function and malfunctioning and argue that all possible ahistorical theories are unable to meet the distinction challenge (i.e. explaining why different traits have different functions) and the futile functioning challenge (i.e. allowing functions and malfunctions even when the fulfilment of the function serves no further purpose). In contrast, the selected effects theory and other historical theories can easily meet these two challenges. We, therefore, have good reason to leave ahistorical theories behind.

Teleosemantic theories aim to naturalize mental representation through the use of functions, typically based on past selection processes. However, the historical dependence of these theories has faced severe criticism, leading some philosophers to develop ahistorical alternatives. This paper presents a new dilemma for all ahistorical teleosemantic theories, focusing in particular on the theories proposed by Timothy Schroeder and Bence Nanay. These theories require certain dispositions in the producers or consumers of mental representations. But the appeal to dispositions puts the proponents in an undesirable position: mental content is either overly dependent on current circumstances or ultimately dependent on historical factors.