Solidarity and Public Health
We argue that an unqualified use of the term solidarity in public health is not only equivocal but problematic toward the ends of public health. The term may be deployed normatively by public health advocates to strengthen the bonds among public health practitioners and refer to an ideal society in...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Medicine, health care, and philosophy health care, and philosophy, 2022-09, Vol.25 (3), p.371-382 |
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Hauptverfasser: | , |
Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | We argue that an unqualified use of the term solidarity in public health is not only equivocal but problematic toward the ends of public health. The term may be deployed normatively by public health advocates to strengthen the bonds among public health practitioners and refer to an ideal society in which the importance of interdependence among members ought to be acknowledged throughout the polity. We propose an important distinction between
partisan solidarity
and
societal solidarity
. Because any moralized belief in a vision of a broad societal solidarity will be a contested political ideal, political reality would limit solidarity based on such a vision to
partisan solidarity
. An idealized vision of
societal solidarity
is simply not politically feasible in pluralistic, liberal, democratic societies. However, although
societal solidarity
is unlikely with respect to any particular policy, it might be hoped for with respect to constitutional procedures that provide boundaries for the agon of the political process. We suggest that moralizing assertions of a solidaristic ideal in a pluralistic society might be counterproductive to generating the political support necessary for public health per se and establishing legitimate public health policy. A pragmatic political approach would be for public health advocates to generate sufficient strong political support for those public health policies that are most amenable to the political and social realities of a time and place. |
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ISSN: | 1386-7423 1572-8633 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s11019-022-10084-1 |