title: Aristotle, Hume and the goals of medicine.
abstract: Whilst medicine is now an immense global industry clinicians often appear unclear as to its goals. This paper uses two philosophical steps to clarify our conceptualization of health and thus our goals for healthcare. Firstly, clinicians need to understand the significance of Hume's fact / value distinction in medicine, for medicine relies on both facts and values. Secondly clinicians need a better specified definition of 'health' to use as a goal for healthcare. Aristotle's model of human flourishing is used as the starting point for a new conceptualization of health.
authors: Department of Family Medicine, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI Bahrain), Adliya, Bahrain.
authors: David
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0948-7439
authors: D
authors: Misselbrook
mesh_terms: D006304:Health Status; D008511:Medicine; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010347:Patient Care Planning; D010686:Philosophy, Medical
keywords: delivery of health care; goals; health; philosophy of health; social values