Pathologising ugliness: an ethical critique of conflating health and beauty in cosmetic surgery

My dissertation critically examines the practice of pathologising ugliness in cosmetic surgery. ‘Pathologising ugliness’ refers to the use of disease language and medical processes to foster and support the claim that undesirable features are pathological conditions requiring medical or surgical intervention. The first four chapters offer a conceptual analysis of the conflation of health and aesthetic norms that potentially contributes to pathologising ugliness. The conceptual analysis is based on competing philosophical accounts of health, disease, beauty and ugliness. The final two chapters offer a critique of the practice by using Daniel Callahan’s goals of medicine as an ethical framework. I argue that aesthetic judgments, which underpin the pathologisation of ugliness, fail at establishing robust processes of disease determination, standard diagnostic evaluation and legitimate clinical indications. Furthermore, I contend that the practice of pathologising ugliness, which relies on prejudicial standards of beauty, legitimises oppressive attitudes based on sex, race and disability. Thus, my analysis shows that pathologising ugliness raises ethical conflicts that ultimately undermine the goals of medicine.