  Some philosophers (Schwartz 2014), drawing upon the biostatistical theory of disease as departure from age and sex-typical function (Boorse 1977), argue that we ought to classify such early stage cancers as risk factors, rather than disease. Such growths are not disease, on this view, because they are not atypical and do not as yet impair function—in fact as many as one half of men over 60 have some lesions the prostate (Welch &amp; Black 2010). Reclassification of such cancers as mere risk factors, it’s hoped, will prevent overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Other philosophers less sympathetic to the biostatistical approach (e.g., Reid 2016) argue that this approach fails to acknowledge how the practice of diagnosis is itself a sort of risk-benefit calculation, informed in part by our knowledge of the prevalence of early stage growths like DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ), or indolent prostate disease, and in part by more or less precautionary values. As we’ve learned how common such indolent diseases are, with the growing realization that many such growths do not progress, it seems that they fall into some further (and less well-defined) category. It seems this debate is not only a scientific or empirical one, but also a normative one; much like debates about PTSD or obesity, there are normative dimensions to how we define and classify disease. Labeling can have both positive and negative consequences for patients, clinicians, insurers, not to mention developers and producers of screening, medical device, and pharmaceuticals (Ereshefsky 2009). Overdiagnosis of early stage disease can lead to serious harms; not least, treating a “cancer” that may or may not progress in the lifetime of a patient is costly and harmful to quality of life.