Christopher Boorse's Health As A Theoretical Concept

Submitted By Julissa-Feliz
Words: 342
Pages: 2

Julie Feliz

Prof: Maybee

Draft #1

April 7th, 14

Explain Christopher Boorse’s definition of “disability” in his article “Health as a Theoretical Concept.” (b) What model of disability that we studied does his definition fit? (c) Boorse claims that his definition of disability is value-free, or avoids making any value judgments. Does it in fact avoid making value judgments? Why or why not?
Based on the article “Health as a Theoretical Concept” Boorse defines “disability” as a disease or anything physical that can harm a human being functions. Boorse quotes “it seems clearly true of any disease process serious enough to cause manifest illness” (pg. 559) for boorse disability is within the body itself, he explains how a disease in fact can trigger physical distress and cause a disability at some period. Boorse believes that there’s a correlation between disability and the body, for example a disability/disease can affect the body in a way that the body’s function are no longer able to function, like “cholesterol (heart disease) can affect the heart (body function) which causes a stroke which leads to disability.
I believe that the social Model fits under boorse definition of disability, people are considered disabled because they don’t achieve certain task but that doesn’t mean that they don’t perform well in other task, for example society views children with autism as disabled but in reality children with autism very smart does this still consider them non-functional or