Health and Disease: Between Naturalism and Normativism

Abstract Traditionally, the debate about health and disease is characterized as an opposition between naturalism and normativism. However, recent contributions show that theories of health and disease need not be purely naturalistic or normative, but may be located somewhere in between. The first purpose of this article is to further advance this line of nuancing. The second purpose is to argue in favor of a specific position, which the added nuances reveal. I call this position ‘subjectively salient naturalism’. If one is interested in scientific concepts of health and disease, subjectively salient naturalism is a more plausible position than naturalism.