Does disease incite a stronger moral appeal than health?

Disease Duty Health Imperative Moral appeal Suffering Wellbeing

Journal

BMC medicine
ISSN: 1741-7015
Titre abrégé: BMC Med
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101190723

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
06 11 2023
Historique:
received: 05 07 2023
accepted: 11 10 2023
medline: 7 11 2023
pubmed: 6 11 2023
entrez: 5 11 2023
Statut: epublish

Résumé

Is disease demotion more important than health promotion? The question is crucial for the ethos of medicine and for priority setting in healthcare. When things get tough, where should our attention and resources go: to health or disease? This study investigates two general perspectives on health and disease to address whether there is a stronger moral appeal from people's disease than from their health. While naturalist conceptions of health and disease are mute on moral appeal, normativist conceptions give diverse answers. Classical utilitarianism provides a symmetrical view of health and disease, according to which we have an equally strong moral appeal to further health as we have to reduce disease. Other normativist positions argue that there is an asymmetry between health and disease providing substantial support for a stronger moral appeal from disease than from health. This has a wide range of radical implications, especially within priority setting. In particular, treatment, palliation, and prevention of disease should have priority to the promotion and enhancement of health.

Identifiants

pubmed: 37926829
doi: 10.1186/s12916-023-03110-3
pii: 10.1186/s12916-023-03110-3
pmc: PMC10626685
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Langues

eng

Sous-ensembles de citation

IM

Pagination

419

Informations de copyright

© 2023. The Author(s).

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Auteurs

Bjørn Hofmann (B)

Norwegian University of Science and Technology - Gjøvik Campus: Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet i Gjøvik, Gjøvik, Innlandet, Norway. bjoern.hofmann@ntnu.no.
Centre for medical ethics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. bjoern.hofmann@ntnu.no.

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