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Short abstract

It is commonly supposed that it is inappropriate for scientists to characterise ecosystems in terms of their health. I show, using marine examples, that such evaluative terminology is indispensable in the life sciences, and has the potential to be beneficial for humans and non-humans alike.

Long abstract

Much work in the life sciences grapples with problems of evaluation. For instance, target 14.2 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals aims at achieving 'healthy and productive' oceans. The terminology of ocean health, and more broadly, environmental health, is widespread throughout the life sciences. Similarly widespread, however, is condemnation of such terminology, from a variety of disciplines: organisms can literally be healthy, but for ecosystems this is a metaphor which problematically smuggles value judgements into otherwise value-neutral scientific characterisations of the environment.

Drawing on examples from the ocean sciences, and connecting them with work on health in organisms, I complicate this picture: first, I show that similar issues around value judgements apply to many concepts which are important to the sciences but which are not subject to the same criticism as ocean health. Second, I show that the evaluative and perspectival nature of 'health' and other concepts is essential to their usefulness as scientific tools. Third, I show that, given their evaluative nature, these concepts offer important avenues for factoring the interests of different people (and non-human organisms) into the practices of science.

Ocean health and similar concepts thereby present opportunities as well as risks: they can be used to foster more fruitful theories for understanding environments and their relevance for living things. I finish by sketching out an approach to assessing ocean health which allows for both scientific measurement and variation in perspective. This points towards ways of answering the question of 'resilience of what and for who?'.