Concepts of health and disease: insights from experimental philosophy of medicine

The aim of the paper is to explore how people understand the concepts of health and disease, including the factors that influence their judgments about whether a condition is a disease or a healthy state. The study investigates whether health and disease judgments come apart, and whether they are affected by factors such as typicality, dysfunction, and disvalue. We conclude that the folk concept of health is positive (such that being healthy is consistent with having a disease), while the folk concept of disease is naturalistic (such that value judgments do not play a direct, significant role in determining whether a condition counts as a disease).