ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses four general categories of criticism against Christopher Boorse's naturalistic concept of health. These include the charges of circular reasoning, covert normativism, bad biology, and bad medicine. The chapter presents some of the major objections to Boorse's non-normative concept of health. K. W. M. Fulford argued that norms are present in Boorse's concept of health as a result of his slide form normative to non-normative terms. R. M. Hare insisted that the concept of health is value-laden based on the badness of the effects of a physical condition on a person. W. Miller Brown pronounced Boorse's concept of health is normative to the extent that choices have to be made as to which goals in a system merit privilege. Tristram Engelhardt argues that Boorse's choice of reproduction and survival as the goals of species reflects a value/normative judgment.
