Abstract
This chapter is a description of some of the major theories of justice, along with the implications of these theories for problems of resource allocation in medicine. The role of physicians in these decisions will also be discussed.
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Notes
For this allegory I am indebted to Professor Ruel W. Tyson, Jr., who attributes it to the late Professor Leo Strauss.
For an interesting and original work on ‘theory’ see Annette Baier’s Postures of the Mind (University of Minnesota Press, 1985), especially chapters 11 and 12. For a critique of foundational thinking, see Richard Rorty’s Consequence of Pragmatism (University of Minnesota Press, 1982), and Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge University Press, 1989). Elizabeth Wolgast (The Grammar of Justice, Cornell University Press, 1987) takes a Wittgensteinian approach. She argues that ‘The question, raised so often by moral philosophers, as to the real foundation of morality asks for something impossible — that we supply a foundation for morality as if it were not part and parcel of our lives and the process of learning our language’ (p. 212). I am indebted to these and other like-minded philosophers for the approach I take here.
The ideas in this section receive a more extensive discussion focused on intensive care situations in Marion Danis and Larry R. Churchill, Autonomy and the Commonwealth, The Hastings Center Report (Jan./Feb., 1991).
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Churchill, L.R. (1992). Theories of justice. In: Kjellstrand, C.M., Dossetor, J.B. (eds) Ethical problems in dialysis and transplantation. Developments in Nephrology, vol 33. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7969-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7969-8_2
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