「健康」は「ウェルネス」か? : 健康概念の全体的な枠組みに関する考察

概要

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Why does it seem to us that many diciplines or domains involved in Bioethics, e.g. medical ethics, health care ethics, research ethics, public health ethics, or environmental ethics, etc., do not have close connections with each others. My answer is that a clear and whole conceptual framework of 'health'has been lacking in Bioethics. In this paper, through critically analysing and assessing of such influential definitions or theories as WHO's and L. Nordenfelt's concerning 'health', G. Canguilhem's on "biological normativeness"and A. Sen's on "capabilities", I try to put forward a whole framework of wellness and health. In my theory, we have the 'wellness' of personal 'life' within mutual relationships among three life levels, namely, biological life level, human living level and life as a whole level. Under these relationships, 'health' is defined as 'norm' of wellness/illness on the biologically individual life level. Although 'health' essentially is the norm, it also usually means a well-state according the norm. Furthermore, the biological level is so related with the other two levels, that the wellness or illness on itself generally supports the possibility of wellness or not on the human living level and, on the contrary, is restrictively valued by the latter. This is, I think, the reason why the idea of health has been seen complex or ambiguous.
日本生命倫理学会の論文
1998-09-07