The Department of Philosophy welcomes philosopher Quill Kukla, senior research scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and professor of philosophy at Georgetown University.
Many theorists and organizations have moved towards an expansive conception of health, modeled on the WHO’s definition of health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.”
While there are advantages to this kind of flexible definition, in this presentation, Kukla will explore the ways in which an expansive conception of health can be weaponized as a tool of oppression, surveillance and social and embodied discipline. They look at four case studies, in which this weaponization has been especially striking: healthy eating, mental health, healthy sexuality, and healthy gender identity. They argue that health is a concept that is especially vulnerable to what Olufemi Taiwo has called “elite capture,” wherein elites are able to hijack the meaning of socially important concepts, and use them to serve their own social interests.