Suchergebnisse

Abstract
For patients suffering from renal failure, cadaveric donor kidneys are a scarce and valuable good. In 1996, the Eurotransplant International Foundation implemented a new kidney allocation. system. The aim of this paper is to identify and discuss issues of distributive justice in kidney allocation, with an emphasis on the basic features of the new Eurotransplant system. Particular consideration is given to waiting time and medical success.

Disasters that produce an overwhelming number of casualties demand that healthcare resources be rationed. Given the gravity of these decisions, it is imperative that they be guided by acceptable principles of distributive justice. Utilitarianism governs current disaster triage protocols because the efficient use of resources prevents the greatest amount of disability and mortality in the population. However, this conflicts with maximin egalitarianism, which demands that the most severely injured patients be prioritized even if it is not an efficient use of resources. Utilitarian triage also conflicts with the egalitarian principle of equal chances, which states that all people should be given an opportunity to be given treatment since all persons value their lives equally. Utilitarianism protects the needs of the entire population, and so demands that an individual patient's right to autonomy and a fiduciary relationship with their physician must be sacrificed. Like other policies in a democratic society, the legitimacy of disaster triage protocols comes from support by the majority. For this reason, choosing the values that guide disaster triage requires open and transparent communal disaster planning that reflects the values of all members of society. Rather than prioritizing one principle over another, it is likely that the most just approach to allocating resources in disaster triage may be to apply a mixture of distributive justice principles.

Distributive justice concerns the fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. Opposition to higher rates of taxation, or even existing levels of taxation, is often made on grounds that such taxes are unfair burdens. This fairness argument can be given a number of further, more-specific formulations. Libertarians, such as Robert Nozick, argue that taxation of income is unfair because it violates individual rights. They invoke an entitlement argument that presumes that the appropriate baseline of property rights is pretax income. Others take issue with specific policies that are supported by taxation, such as welfare provisions, and argue that welfare reform is necessary because tax burdens are only legitimate when they satisfy some form of reciprocity thesis. These arguments are critically assessed here in relation to three recent books – The Cost of Rights, The Myth of Ownership and The Civic Minimum – which explore different arguments often invoked in defence of tax cuts. Themes that raise important questions about taxation and justice are also examined – private property, welfare reform and inheritance. The real challenge facing justice theorists is to take scarcity seriously; thus, I emphasise the shortcomings of simply endorsing a 'cost-blind', rights-oriented conception of justice, which currently dominates debates in normative political theory.

"Distributive Justice for LGBTQ People" published on by Oxford University Press.