I THE HUMAN RIGHT TO HEALTH: A PERVASIVE BUT OPAQUE IDEA 17
1 Human Rights: A Practice with Little Theory 18
2 The Human Right to Health 25
2.1 The Human Right to Health in International Law 25
2.2 The Lacking Theoretical Foundation of the Human Right to Health 27
3 Purpose and Structure of this Thesis 30
II UNVEILING THE ENIGMA OF HEALTH 37
1 Preconditions of Health: Life and Death 40
1.1 Human Life 41
1.1.1 Biological Life 44
1.1.1.1 The Empirical Marks of Biological Life 45
1.1.1.2 The Philosophical Marks of Biological Life 48
1.1.2 Mental Life 52
1.1.3 The Human Soul as the First Principle of Human Life 54
1.2 Death 56
2 A Comprehensive Theory of Health 58
2.1 Contemporary Concepts of Health and what we can learn from them 58
2.1.1 The WHO’s Understanding of Health and its Deficiencies 59
2.1.2 Boorse's Reductionist Theory of Health 61
2.1.2.1 The Main Elements of Boorse’s Theory 62
2.1.2.2 Exposing the Deficiencies in Boorse’s Theory 63
2.1.3 Nordenfelt’s Welfare Theory of Health 70
2.1.3.1 The Main Elements of Nordenfelt’s Theory 70
2.1.3.2 Exposing the Deficiencies in Nordenfelt’s Theory 73
2.2 Health as Norm and State 80
2.2.1 The Negative Dimensions of Health: The Triad of Unhealth 85
2.2.1.1 Illness 85
2.2.1.2 Disease 86
2.2.1.3 Sickness 87
2.2.1.4 Manifestations of Unhealth 88
2.2.2 A Positive Understanding of Health: The Triad of Health 93
2.2.2.1 Perceived Health 94
2.2.2.2 Bio-Medical Health 95
2.2.2.3 Social Health 97
2.2.2.4 Manifestations of Health 97
2.2.3 The Concept of Health as Norm and State: Room for Improvement 100
2.3 A Complementary Understanding of Health: Health as Good Habit 103
2.3.1 Determinants of Health 104
2.3.2 Behavioural Pathogens and Salutogens: The Relationship between Health and Behaviour 110
2.3.3 A Primer on Habits and Virtues 115
2.3.3.1 Habitus 116
2.3.3.2 Virtue 121
2.3.3.3 The Powers of the Human Soul 125
2.3.3.3.1 Intellectual Power: Intellect, Intelligence, Reason or Mind 129
2.3.3.3.2 Appetitive Power (‘Strebevermögen’) 130
2.3.4 Health as Good Habit 137
2.4 A Comprehensive Theory of Health 144
III JUSTICE, DIGNITY, RIGHTS AND DUTIES: THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RIGHTS 149
1 Justice, Rights and Duties 151
2 Analytical Fundamentals: The Concepts of ‘Right’ and‘Duty’ 159
2.1 The Concept of ‘Rights’ 159
2.1.1 The Hohfeldian Instances of Rights 160
2.1.1.1 Claim-Rights 160
2.1.1.2 Liberty-Rights 162
2.1.1.3 Power-Rights 164
2.1.1.4 Immunity-Rights 164
2.1.2 Molecular or Cluster-Rights 165
2.1.3 Further Analytical Characteristics of Rights 165
2.2 The Concept of ‘Duty’ 168
2.2.1 Analytical Characteristics of Duties 169
2.2.2 Ought Implies Can 172
3 The Morality of Rights and Duties 175
3.1 Legal, Conventional and Moral Rights/Duties 181
3.2 Bentham’s Fallacy: If Legal Rights are a ‘Child of Law’, then whose Child is Law? 186
3.3 The Analytics of Moral Rights and Duties 195
3.3.1 Is there such a Thing as a Moral Positive Claim-Right? 199
3.3.2 The Exception to the Rule: The Principle of Extreme Necessity 211
3.3.3 The Kinds of Moral Rights and Duties 223
3.4 Human Rights and Duties as a Special Class of Moral Rights and Duties 224
3.5 The Foundation of Moral Rights and Duties 227
3.6 A Short Commentary on the Is-Ought-Problem 234
4 The Dignity of Human Beings 239
4.1 The Foundation of Human Rights in Human Dignity 240
4.1.1 Understanding Human Dignity 245
4.1.2 Facets of Human Dignity 246
4.2 The Four Dimensions and Sources of Human Dignity 252
4.2.1 Ontological Dignity: Being a Person 253
4.2.1.1 What it means to be a Person 254
4.2.1.1.1 The Person as Individual Substance 257
4.2.1.1.2 The Person as Individual Substance of a Rational Nature 264
4.2.1.2 Only Human Beings can be granted Personhood 266
4.2.1.3 All Human Beings are Persons from the Moment of Conception 269
4.2.1.4 Characteristics of Ontological Dignity 280
4.2.2 Inflorescent Dignity 282
4.2.2.1 Dignity of Actual Rational Consciousness: Functioning as a Person 282
4.2.2.2 Acquired Dignity: Fulfilment of the Personal Vocation toTranscendence and Moral Dignity 294
4.2.3 Bestowed/Contingent Dignity: Dignity as Gift 297
4.2.4 Human Dignity and its Four Dimensions: Concluding Remarks 300
4.2.4.1 The Close Relationship between the Four Dimensions of Human Dignity 300
4.2.4.2 Not all Human Beings have Equal Human Dignity 301
5 From the Dignity of Human Beings to Human Rights 303
5.1 Respect: The Mediator between Dignity and Human Rights 304
5.2 What Forms of Human Rights are there? 307
5.3 Human Rights: Strict versus Non-Strict 311
IV HEALTH: A HUMAN RIGHT? 315
1 A Summary of what has been established so far 316
1.1 Health 316
1.2 Human Rights 317
2 Health and Ontological Dignity: Is Health a Human Right? 320
3 A Marginal Note: Is there no Right to Health, at all? 323
3.1 A Moral Right to Health grounded in the Human Right to Life 324
3.2 A Moral Right to Health grounded in the Duty to Health 331
3.2.1 A Primer on Natural Law Theory 333
3.2.2 Natural Law and Health 339
3.3 The Moral Right to Health: A Summary 342
4 Epilegomena: Concluding Remarks and Implications 344
INDICES 349
List of Abbreviations 350
List of Tables, Figures and Illustrations 351
References 352
Legislation and International Treaties and Conventions 352
Literature Cited in Abbreviation 355
Bibliography 362