Orders of worth and the moral conceptions of health in global politics

Abstract

The article analyzes the contested concept of global health through the lens of orders of worth. Drawing on pragmatist political and social theory, especially the work of Boltanski and Thévenot, I conceptualize orders of worth as moral narratives that connect visions of universal humankind to ideas about moral worth and deficiency. They thereby differ from the self/other narrative of political identity that is emphasized in International Relations scholarship. Orders of worth do not pitch a particularistic identity against foreign identities, but tie collective identity to a higher common good. They provide tools for moral evaluation and the justification of hierarchy. I use this heuristic to reconstruct four main conceptions of health in global politics: The order of survival, the order of fairness, the order of production, and the order of spirit. Each of them articulates a distinct political identity, as ‘we species’, ‘we liberals’, ‘we bodies’ and ‘we souls’, and implies different notions of virtuous and selfish conduct in the global community. These orders are derived from scholarly writings and the policies of global health institutions. Finally, I discuss the nature of compromises between the four orders regarding contested issues such as health emergencies or digital medicine.

The subjective world of home care workers in dementia: an “order of worth” analysis

“…In Table 1, this is illustrated with reference to two social systems, called "civic" and "industrial", which frame rival value systems. Social scientists have used the orders of worth framework, as its authors intended, to describe, explain and justify the differences that arise when individuals operate within different moral hierarchies (Hanreider, 2016;Jagd, 2011). We follow that tradition here to begin to explore how the subjective world of home carers may differ from that of outsiders.…”

Analysis of the Healthcare and Overall Economic Competitiveness of Santiago, Isabela, Philippines

“…The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH), an independent expert group launched by WHO, is assigned to work on collecting evidence of the economic benefits attributable to better health in developing countries. One of their studies states that for developing countries to be out of the circle of poverty, they must prioritize and improve their healthcare to achieve better health outcomes (Hanrieder, 2016).…”

“…The third prevalent health condition is diabetes, with 19.27% (53). The fourth prevalent health condition is stomach ulcer, with 8.00% (22). The fifth prevalent health condition is an infection, with 5.82% ( 16), while the other health condition that can be seen in the appendices comprises 15.64% (43) of the 275 respondents.…”

How can we criticize international practices?

“…In IR, pragmatist ideas have mostly been used to criticize the discipline's dominant practices of theory (Friedrichs and Kratochwil 2009;Hanrieder 2016;Grimmel and Hellmann 2019). The main target of these pragmatic critiques thus has been IR (the discipline), not international relations (the subject matter).…”