{"title":"Why a responsibility sensitive healthcare system is not disrespectful.","authors":"Lydia Tsiakiri","doi":"10.1007/s11019-025-10262-x","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The prevalence of non-communicable diseases, the related increased medical costs, and the recent public health emergency bring out more forcefully pre-existing dilemmas of distributive justice in the healthcare context. Under this reality, would it be justified to hold people responsible for their taken lifestyle decisions, or would it constitute an instance of unjustified disrespectful treatment? From a respect-based standpoint, one could argue that a responsibility-sensitive healthcare system morally disrespects the imprudent ones engaging in disadvantageous differential treatment to their detriment. In contrast, however, we might also have luck egalitarian reasons that explain why this differential treatment is not unjust. Luck egalitarianism is a responsibility-sensitive theory of distributive justice, which argues that it is bad if some people are worse off than others through no voluntary fault of their own. In this paper, I clarify the concerns about disrespect raised against the luck egalitarian viewpoint and offer possible respect-based reasons for why this might not be the case grounded in deontological concepts. First, I employ a revised Double-effect case to support responsibility-sensitive rationing. In the last part of the paper, these are further supported through the Kantian Formula of Humanity supplemented by the concept of duties.</p>","PeriodicalId":47449,"journal":{"name":"Medicine Health Care and Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Medicine Health Care and Philosophy","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-025-10262-x","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The prevalence of non-communicable diseases, the related increased medical costs, and the recent public health emergency bring out more forcefully pre-existing dilemmas of distributive justice in the healthcare context. Under this reality, would it be justified to hold people responsible for their taken lifestyle decisions, or would it constitute an instance of unjustified disrespectful treatment? From a respect-based standpoint, one could argue that a responsibility-sensitive healthcare system morally disrespects the imprudent ones engaging in disadvantageous differential treatment to their detriment. In contrast, however, we might also have luck egalitarian reasons that explain why this differential treatment is not unjust. Luck egalitarianism is a responsibility-sensitive theory of distributive justice, which argues that it is bad if some people are worse off than others through no voluntary fault of their own. In this paper, I clarify the concerns about disrespect raised against the luck egalitarian viewpoint and offer possible respect-based reasons for why this might not be the case grounded in deontological concepts. First, I employ a revised Double-effect case to support responsibility-sensitive rationing. In the last part of the paper, these are further supported through the Kantian Formula of Humanity supplemented by the concept of duties.
期刊介绍:
Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy: A European Journal is the official journal of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care. It provides a forum for international exchange of research data, theories, reports and opinions in bioethics and philosophy of medicine. The journal promotes interdisciplinary studies, and stimulates philosophical analysis centered on a common object of reflection: health care, the human effort to deal with disease, illness, death as well as health, well-being and life. Particular attention is paid to developing contributions from all European countries, and to making accessible scientific work and reports on the practice of health care ethics, from all nations, cultures and language areas in Europe.