News

CPLB members teach ethics of rationing during the COVID-19 pandemic

CPLB member Dan Hausman and CPLB Board of Advisors member Frances Kamm will be teaching a philosophy seminar on the theory and practice of rationing and its relation to COVID-19, to be offered this spring semester by the Rutgers Philosophy department.
 
Kamm and Hausman, both global leaders in population-level bioethics, have written extensively about ethics and rationing, and their work has been referenced in discussions about treatment and vaccination in the COVID-19 crisis. The seminar will tackle long-standing questions of population-level bioethics, in the context of the difficult resource allocation decisions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. These questions include, how should rationing be done? Which distribution of health care saves the most lives or avoids the most illnesses? Which distribution is most respectful of individual values and choices? Which distributions are fair? Are some deaths worse than others? If individuals are careless of their health, should that affect their priority?