Roberto Mordacci

This article examines the normative structure of the concept of health and tries to suggest an account of it in a phenomenological-hermeneutic framework. It is argued that the concept of health has a logical priority to illness, though the latter has an experiential priority. The fundamental feature of the concept of health as discussed in the literature is initially recognized in the notion of ‘norm’, in both the bio-statistical and normative-ideal sense. An analysis of this body of literature reveals some weaknesses in bio-statistical definitions of health as well as in those normative ones which endorse a value-relativity thesis. An approach based on the analogical structure of language is then advanced. In this framework, the notion of biological normativeness proposed by G. Canguilhem is connected with an analysis of the language of health through etymologies. It is argued that health can be characterized as an analogy of ‘plenitude’, which is the common ideal reference of the various health-concepts. The analogical structuring of language allows the recognition of different levels of meaning, and therefore of different kinds of normativeness (biological, mental, social, moral). Some hints of a theory of health deriving from this framework are then given. Keywords: analogy, health, hermeneutics, norm, plenitude CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?

The varieties of meaning in which we use the terms illness and health requires that we develope a conceptualization allowing us to maintain a unity between the differences. In fact, the experiences of health and illness are complex ones and they need to be understood in their different levels so that the need for help of patients and their desire for health is adequately faced. At its roots, the experience of illness is that of a threat posed to the unreflective credit given to life in good health. This threat has not only a biopsychosocial dimension, but a moral and sybolic one as well, and it is mainly at this level that illness represents a moral challenge. Contemporary culture seems to be at pains in suggesting a shared set of meanings enabling the patient to give an intersubjectively valid sense of illness, since the only kind of answer offered is a technical one. The symbolic dimension of the notions of health and illness call for a deeper cultural enterprise of looking for a credible sense of illness for our times

The varieties of meaning in which we use the terms illness and health requires that we develope a conceptualization allowing us to maintain a unity between the differences. In fact, the experiences of health and illness are complex ones and they need to be understood in their different levels so that the need for help of patients and their desire for health is adequately faced. At its roots, the experience of illness is that of a threat posed to the unreflective credit given to life in good health. This threat has not only a biopsychosocial dimension, but a moral and sybolic one as well, and it is mainly at this level that illness represents a moral challenge. Contemporary culture seems to be at pains in suggesting a shared set of meanings enabling the patient to give an intersubjectively valid sense of illness, since the only kind of answer offered is a technical one. The symbolic dimension of the notions of health and illness call for a deeper cultural enterprise of looking for a credible sense of illness for our times.

The distinction between internalism and externalism can be interpreted in different ways, which must be kept clearly distinct. The distinction between internal and external reasons for action, proposed by Bernard Williams , can be interpreted as expressing a form of internalism. If we assume that internalism seems preferable to externalism and Williams’s "internal reason theorist" as an internalist, we have an example of an anti-rationalistic form of internalism. I will suggest that Williams’s arguments do not justify his distinction and the consequences he draws, basically because of the unjustified exclusion of rational elements from the "subjective motivational set". Moreover, Williams’s position seems exposed to a subjectivistic outcome which he himself probably would wish to avoid. Therefore, I argue that the distinction between internal and external reasons should be abandoned. Some considerations in favour of a rationalistic interpretation of internalism and of the normativity of moral reasons are then suggested

The interpretation of experimental data in neuroscientific research concerning moral decisions is controversial. One of the leading experimenters in the field, Joshua Greene, holds that the data show that deontological theories of morality are the expression of a confabulation which tries to give a rational justification for emotional responses. His arguments are criticized on the basis of a different interpretation of deontology. On the other hand, Marc Hauser, John Mikhail and others have proposed a research project in moral psychology called Universal Moral Grammar. This perspective is more promising as far as the normative dimension of moral judgment is concerned. Yet, it is suggested that rather than looking for the universal moral principles we should look for the formal principles of morality, in a more thoroughly Kantian perspective

According to the intuitionist picture of moral normativity, prima facie duties are features of the overall nature of an act, which together make them overall right or wrong. W.D. Ross says that prima facie duties are «not a duty», but something which has a special relation to duty. These fea-tures are «apprehended» by way of an intellectual act , which implies that they are the object of a theoretical cognitive act. This image creates serious problems for both the theory of moral normativity and the theory of motivation. The problem is how to explain the practical nature of duties and their connection with the will: the intuitionist picture sketches a rather passive role for the will, both in determining the obligatoriness of an action and the possible motivation for it. This rather intellectualistic picture fails to explain the authority and motivational power of moral reasons. Furthermore, the outcome of this position is to lead back to a form of naturalism and to a problematic externalist explanation of moral motivation. In the end it is suggested that a more thoroughly Kantian theory of normativity shows a more promising picture for this problem

Philippa Foot’s Natural Goodness is a restatement of a naturalistic theory of ethics. It is an interesting book for many reasons, since the author changes her position from a broadly Humean position to a more thoroughly Aristotelian one. Foot criticizes the non-cognitivist stance and various forms of expressivism and utilitarianism. She now declares that there are categorical imperatives, a thesis she used to deny. These imperatives are based on the idea of «patterns of natural normativity» which depend on the forms of life we are talking about. Human life needs practical rationality in order to flourish, and this means to have a rational will, without «volitional defect». Yet, this strategy confines practical rationality to an instrumental value and, more importantly, it can’t stand the objection that, after all, being human or flourishing as human may not be a normative ideal, e.g. from a Nietzschean point of view. Only if the will has an intrinsic side constraint as pure will, the Nietzschean objection can be faced: even a Will of Power cannot will against itself. But it can still will against nature. Naturalism, at least in this version, cannot face such a challenge

This article tries to point out a source of potential conflict in Charles Taylor’s theoretical perspective. There is an unsolved tension between the historical reconstruction of the genealogy of the modern identity and the theoretical claim that our moral reactions are the basis of an objective assessment of practices. My intention is to analyse this tension at three different levels of discourse: first, Taylor’s position as a liberal non-atomist thinker hinges upon his idea that our moral identity depends on our free determination of our relation to good, which can be pursued only within the experience of a community. Second, this Hegelian trait of his perspective is also present in his meta-ethical theory, in which our moral reactions are said to be both instinctive and culturally mediate. In this case, it is not clear how an individual or a group can transcend this limited perspective, if any appeal to reason is inextricably tied to historical delimitations. Third, the principle that any culture in itself is to be considered equally valuable appears to be disputable in front of the objection that some cultures do violate what seem to be fundamental rights and therefore do not deserve equal consideration and are not to be preserved

Nella seconda metà del Novecento la conoscenza dell'etica anglosassone in Italia è stata alquanto parziale. Si pensava che il mondo dell'etica di lingua inglese fosse stato dominato nel Novecento dallo scientismo neopositivista o pragmatista che non riusciva a concepire l'etica se non nella forma tecnicizzata dell'analisi del linguaggio o metaetica. In questo modo si è ignorata tutta una ripresa dell'etica normativa, in particolare di Kant e di Aristotele, o la ripresa del diritto naturale che ha tra i suoi principali riferimenti storici il pensiero di Tommaso d'Aquino intorno alla legge. Questo volume presenta un quadro della filosofia pratica anglosassone degli ultimi cinquant'anni.

Recent developments in molecular biology and genetic engineering open the possibility of rethinking the meaning of an eugenic project in contemporary society. Whereas the old eugenic movement aimed at an “improvement of the race” and explicitly adopted coercitive means, eugenetics in a liberal society would be the result of the free and equal access of the public to the genetic technologies available. Buchanan, Brock, Daniels and Wikler suggest in a recent book that access to genetic therapy and enhancement can be permitted without generatine any discrimination, provided that it is regulated by rules of fairness that guarantee the equality of opportunities. Things are not so simple, anyway, because a normative model of a “perfectly healthy” individual will impose itself in the social perception, and equality of access does not protect against the discrimination of those who depart from such “perfectionist” model. A different approach is also suggested by Habermas in a recent book, where he maintains that the self-normative image of man as free and equal needs to be protected leaving the genome untouched