Contractualist age rationing under outbreak circumstances.
Bioethics
; 35(3): 229-236, 2021 03.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-868047
ABSTRACT
Age rationing is a central issue in the health care priority-setting literature, but it has become ever more salient in the light of the Covid-19 outbreak, where health authorities in several countries have given higher priority to younger over older patients. But how is age rationing different under outbreak circumstances than under normal circumstances, and what does this difference imply for ethical theories? This is the topic of this paper. The paper argues that outbreaks such as that of Covid-19 involve special circumstances that change how age should influence our prioritization decisions, and that while this shift in circumstances poses a problem for consequentialist views such as utilitarianism and age-weighted consequentialism, contractualism is better equipped to cope with it. The paper then offers a contractualist prudential account of age rationing under outbreak circumstances.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Health Care Rationing
/
Disease Outbreaks
/
Ethical Analysis
/
Ethical Theory
/
Health Priorities
/
Health Resources
Type of study:
Observational study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Bioethics
Journal subject:
Ethics
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Bioe.12822
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