Ethical issues in moral and social enhancement

5.2.3. Medicalization: a normative or non-normative concept?
One question that arises is whether medicalization is necessarily a bad thing. 
Conrad proposes that the term ‘medicalization’ is descriptive. In his early writings 
Conrad (1975) argued that ‘by medicalization we mean defining behavior as a 
medical problem or illness and mandating or licensing the medical profession to 
provide some sort of treatment for it,’ thus emphasising both the medical definition 
of a social problem and medical jurisdiction over that problem. In a later review 
article, Conrad de-emphasized the jurisdictional aspect of medicalization and 
highlighted the definitional one:
‘[m]edicalization consists of defining a problem in medical 
terms, using medical language to describe a problem, 
adopting a medical framework to understand a problem, or 
using a medical intervention to ‘treat’ it.’ (1992, p. 211)
Thus conceived, medicalization is a sociocultural process that may or may not 
involve the medical profession, may or may not lead to medical social control or 
medical treatment, and may or may not be the result of intentional expansion by the 
medical profession. Medicalization here is a descriptive term and medicalization 
need not be morally problematic (Verweij, 1999). 
Despite explicitly assuming a position of non-normativity, many sociologists have 
traditionally criticized the increasing scope of the medical gaze (Conrad, 2007) or 
seem to have worked on the assumption that the process is bad (Parens, 2011). 
Thus, many authors use the term 'medicalization' with an implicit pejorative 
connotation, indicating a problematic extension of medical control over more and 
more aspects of private and social life (e.g. Illich, 1975). However, others see 
medicalization as having some positive implications, arguing that medicalization 
may open the door to effective medical treatment for harmful conditions (e.g. 

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Carter and Hall, 2012, p. 231). In the proceeding sections I will not attribute any 
normative connotations to the term itself, but highlight and discuss both the positive 
and negative consequences of medicalization.