A Cause without an Effect? Primary Prevention and Causation

Clinical primary prevention eliminates or preempts either a susceptibility or risk (synergistically a cause) in order to avoid a specific harm. Philosophically, primary prevention gets caught in the metaphysical controversy of the "hard questions" of whether it is possible to "cause n...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of medicine and philosophy Vol. 38; no. 5; pp. 539 - 558
Main Author FAUST, Halley S
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cary, NC Oxford University Press 01.10.2013
Subjects
Bioethics
Causality
Historical studies (History of philosophy. History of ideas)
Humans
Models, Theoretical
Philosophy
Philosophy, Medical
Primary Prevention
Risk Assessment
Risk Factors
Time Factors
primary prevention
optimal health
absence of action
harm
causation
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Clinical primary prevention eliminates or preempts either a susceptibility or risk (synergistically a cause) in order to avoid a specific harm. Philosophically, primary prevention gets caught in the metaphysical controversy of the "hard questions" of whether it is possible to "cause not" both through a positive action (preventive act causes no harm) or no action (avoiding something causes no harm). I examine my previously proposed four-step definition of the process of prevention, discuss its limitations in light of the "hard questions," and then offer a revised five-step process definition that eliminates the "cause not" concerns by changing the goal of prevention from avoiding harm, a negative state, to achieving optimal health, a positive state.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0360-5310
1744-5019
DOI:10.1093/jmp/jht039