Publication Date

2019

Document Type

Book Chapter

Organizational Units

Sturm College of Law

Keywords

Public health ethics, Distribution, Egalitarianism, Utilitarianism, Welfare, Resources

Abstract

This chapter discusses how justice applies to public health. It begins by outlining three different metrics employed in discussions of justice: resources, capabilities, and welfare. It then discusses different accounts of justice in distribution, reviewing utilitarianism, egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and sufficientarianism, as well as desert-based theories, and applies these distributive approaches to public health examples. Next, it examines the interplay between distributive justice and individual rights, such as religious rights, property rights, and rights against discrimination, by discussing examples such as mandatory treatment and screening. The chapter also examines the nexus between public health and debates concerning whose interests matter to justice (the “scope of justice”), including global justice, intergenerational justice, and environmental justice, as well as debates concerning whether justice applies to individual choices or only to institutional structures (the “site of justice”). The chapter closes with a discussion of strategies, including deliberative and aggregative democracy, for adjudicating disagreements about justice.

Publication Statement

Originally published as Govind Persad, Justice and Public Health, in Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics 33 (Anna Mastroianni, Jeff Kahn & Nancy Kass, eds., 2019). Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press.

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Govind Persad

Provenance

Received from author

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

15 pgs

File Size

455 KB

Publication Title

Oxford University Press

Volume

33

First Page

1

Last Page

15

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