Abstract

The second section goes on to establish that the right to health care is one of the class of welfare rights. It is shown that, from the moral perspective, welfare rights are best viewed as claim rights rather than liberty rights; that is, welfare rights are rights to some x, where someone is under an obligation to provide that x to those in need. It is then demonstrated that a moral system can establish the existence of such rights. ;Toward this end, the first section provides a conceptual analysis of health. The word "health" is used to refer to a range of states of the body, a particular state within that range, and a disposition. It is shown that it is the particular highly ranked state which is conceptually primary; and so a specification is given of this state, the state which constitutes good health. It is demonstrated that this state is nothing more than the absence of disease alone , and that there is no such thing as positive, robust or glowing health: health is a species different from fitness. Diseases are shown to be attributable only to specific parts of the body, and it is argued that a body's health is constituted by the health of all its parts. ;The aim of this dissertation is to dissect and explain the concept of health with a view to determining whether there is a right to health care