 Schroeder (2013) has taken issue with the whole idea of defining health as a property or state of an individual. He argues in contrast that “health” is a fundamentally comparative term like “tall”. Two human beings can both be tall even if one is taller than the other, whereas it makes no sense to think of two straight lines, one of which is straighter than the other. Schroeder argues that if we see health as fundamentally comparative or relational  we can recast several conceptual, ethical and policy debates. For example, instead of thinking in terms of non health-related differences among the healthy we could think in terms of gradations of health. Schroeder also thinks that his approach makes intergenerational or cross-temporal comparisons easier, since we can say that a medieval serf was healthy in their time, but nonetheless less healthy than a modern person who is, by our standards, chronically ill. An approach like this might offer some traction on the reference class problem outlined above.