Health sufficientarianism and health inequality.

Abstract

This paper asks: If we are sufficientarians about health, then why do we care about health inequality? This is an important ethical question which should be of interest to moral philosophers as well as decision-makers, bureaucrats, and healthcare professionals. I present a generic account of health sufficientarianism and I argue that this account offers a distinctive and plausible explanation for our concern with health inequality. Central to my argument is the claim that the driver of our reasons for concern with social inequality in health is not the inequality per se, but the underlying risk of absolute health deficiency, and that this phenomenon is most directly explained by health sufficientarianism. This gives strengthened confidence in a sufficientarian approach to health justice.