Abstract
This chapter aims to connect a relatively concrete and specific form of medical intervention—palliative care—to the relatively abstract and expansive concept of the common good. In doing so it explores the relationship of a Catholic conception of the common good to other central commitments and principles within Catholic social thought. These principles and commitments include: the social nature of persons, justice, the preferential option for the poor, and solidarity. The chapter concludes with a discussion of palliative care, drawing connections between a commitment to the common good and the provision of adequate levels of palliative care for all of those who need it.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Randall and Downie (2006) suggest the administration of palliative care can be traced back to Greek practices that pre-date Hippocrates.
- 2.
While it is true that “modern” political philosophies (those associated with the Enlightenment period forward) have tended to stress the rights of the individual over and against the demands of the common good, it is also true that some more recent political philosophers (e.g., the work of Michael Sandel, Martha Nussbaum, and Alasdair McIntyre) have begun to retrieve conceptions of the common good, conceptions that often stress that the good of individuals (and the protections of their rights) are not incompatible with a robust defense of the common good.
- 3.
Aquinas (1945) argued that the good to be sought by all is the uncreated Good (God) : “The supreme good, God, is the common good, since the good of all things depends on God.”
- 4.
Other goods understood to be social or public goods include “the fertility of hearth, the productivity of an industrialized economy,” as well as social insurance programs (Hollenbach 1990).
- 5.
Within the Catholic tradition the first explicit development of this theme occurred in the Final Document of the Third General Conference of Latin American Bishops, which included a chapter titled “The Preferential Option for the Poor .” There, the Latin American Bishops call attention to the fact that “the vast majority of our people lack the most elementary material goods. This is in contrast to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small minority , frequently the price being poverty for the majority. The poor do not lack simply material goods. They also miss, on the level of human dignity , full participation in sociopolitical life” (Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano 1979).
- 6.
Between 2002 and 2012, the average cost for employer-sponsored family health coverage rose 97% to $15,700 per year, a rate of increase equal to three times the rate of inflation (The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, “Family Health Premiums Rise,” 2012a). Observing this rapid increase in the cost of health care insurance, the New America Foundation suggested (in 2008) that the average cost of an employee-sponsored health insurance plan would reach $24,000 in 2016, an amount they noted would mean that “at least half of American households will need to spend more than 45% of their income to buy health insurance” in that year (Axeen and Carpenter 2008).
- 7.
The US spent 48% more per capita than the next highest spending country, Switzerland.
- 8.
As President Bush left office, there were an estimated 46.3 million Americans lacking health insurance (DeNavas-Walt et al. 2009). And, as the Great Recession deepened, that number climbed to over 50 million.
- 9.
Of course, these African-American and Hispanic patients are not alone in shunning palliative care even when it is the most appropriate intervention. As Ron Hamel has pointed out, if palliative treatments, when called for, are to be adopted with greater frequency, they need to be supported by a cultural shift in how Americans (and others) approach death. This will be a challenge since as “a society, we do not do well dealing with our mortality even in the abstract, let alone when confronted with a relatively imminent threat of our demise. We deny and fight against death with every fiber of our being and enlist medicine in the effort” (2011).
References
Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (Advisory Committee). 2002. Resolution on advocacy on behalf of the uninsured. Presbyterian Church USA. www.pcusa.org/resource/resolution-advocacy-behalf-uninsured. Accessed 1 Dec 2016.
Aquinas, Thomas. 1945. Summa contra gentiles, III.17. In Basic writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, ed. Anton G. Pegis, vol. 2, 27–29. New York: Random House.
———. 1948. Book one: Commentary on the nicomachean ethics. In Thomas Aquinas: Selected political writings, ed. A.P. D’Entreves, 189–193. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Aristotle. 1973. Politics. In Introduction to Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon, 584–659. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Axeen, Sarah, and Elizabeth Carpenter. 2008. The cost of doing nothing: Why the cost of failing to fix our health system is greater than the cost of reform. Washington, DC: New America Foundation. 2008.
Benedict XVI. 2006. Message of his holiness benedict xvi for the fifteenth world day of the sick. http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/messages/sick/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20061208_world-day-of-the-sick-2007.html. Accessed 12 Dec 2016.
Boswell, John. 2000. Solidarity, justice and power sharing: Patterns and policies. In Catholic social thought: Twilight or renaissance? ed. J.S. Boswell and F.P. McHugh, 93–114. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
Cahill, Lisa Sowle. 2004. Bioethics and the common good. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 2016a. World fact book: Infant mortality. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html. Accessed 30 Aug 2017.
———. 2016b. World fact book: Life expectancy at birth. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html. Accessed 30 Aug 2017.
Cochran, Clarke E. 1999. The common good and heal thcare policy. Health Progress 80 (3): 41–44. 47.
Cochran Clark, E., and David Carroll Cochran. 2003. Catholics, politics, and public policy: Beyond left and right. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano [CELAM]. 1979. Final document of the third general conference of latin american bishops. In Puebla and beyond: Documentation and commentary, ed. John Eagleson and Philip Scharper, 264–267. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
Covert, Bryce. 2017. “Paul Ryan is wrong on freedom.” New York Times, March 3, 2017, Page A27.
Craig, David. 2014. Health care as a social good: Religious values and American democracy. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
DeCrane, Susanne. 2004. Aquinas, feminism, and the common good. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith. 2009. U.S. census bureau, current population reports, P60–236, income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2008. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
———. 2010. U.S. census bureau, current population reports, P60–238, income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2009. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
European Association for Palliative Care. 2013. Prague charter palliative care: A human right. http://www.eapcnet.eu/Themes/Policy/ PragueCharter.aspx. Accessed 30 Aug 2017.
Farley, Margaret A. 2011. Aging and dying, a time of grace. Health Progress 92 (1): 19–25.
Foley, Kathleen. 2002. Compassionate care, not assisted suicide. In The case against assisted suicide, ed. Kathleen Foley and Herbert Hendin, 293–309. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gibson, Rosemary. 2001. Palliative care for the poor and disenfranchised: A view from the Robert Wood Johnson foundation. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 94: 486–489.
Gutierrez, Gustavo. 2013. Saying and showing to the poor: “God loves you.”. In In the company of the poor: Conversations with Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez, ed. Michael Griffin and Jennie Weiss Block, 27–34. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
Hamel, Ron. 1999. Of what good is the ‘common good’? Health Progress 80 (3): 46–47.
———. 2011. Palliative care needs a culture that sustains it. Health Progress 92 (1): 70–72.
Hollenbach, David S.J. 1990. Modern catholic teachings concerning justice. In Justice, peace, and human rights: American catholic social ethics in a pluralistic world, 16–33. New York: Crossroad.
———. 1998. The catholic university and the common good. Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education 13: 5–15.
Hughes, Anne. 2005. Poverty and palliative care in the US: Issues facing the urban poor. International Journal of Palliative Nursing 11: 6–13.
Human Rights Watch. 2009. “Please, do not make us suffer any more...” Access to pain treatment as a human right. https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/03/03/please-do-not-make-us-suffer-any-more/access-pain-treatment-human-right. Accessed 30 Aug 2017.
Hume, Susan. 1999. Catholic theology informs thinking on health care reform (interview of David Hollenbach, SJ). Health Progress 80 (3): 43.
John Paul II, St. 1987. Sollicitudo rei socialis. http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_30121987_sollicitudo-rei-socialis.html. Accessed 15 Nov 2016.
John XXIII, Pope. 1963. Pacem in terris. http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.html. Accessed 30 Aug 2017.
King, Martin Luther Jr. 1966. Presentation at the second national convention of the medical committee for human rights. Chicago, March 25. http://www.pnhp.org/news/2014/october/dr-martin-luther-king-on-health-care-injustice. Accessed 28 Nov 2016.
Knaul, Felicia M., Paul E. Farmer, Afsan Bhadelia, Philippa Berman, and Richard Horton. 2015. Closing the divide: The Harvard global equity initiative—lancet commission on global access to pain control and palliative care. The Lancet 386: 722–724.
Korea Declaration on Hospice and Palliative Care. 2005. http://www.coe.int/t/dg3/health/Source/KoreaDeclaration2005_en.pdf . Accessed 30 Aug 2017.
Krakauer, Eric L. 2008. Just palliative care: Responding to the suffering poor. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 36 (5): 505–512.
Montreal statement on the human right to essential medicines (2005). 2006. In Health and human rights: Basic international documents, ed. Stephen P. Marks. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Morrison, R. Sean, Sylvan Wallenstein, Dana K. Natale, Richard S. Senzel, and Lo-Li Huang. 2000. ‘We don’t carry that’—failure of pharmacies in predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods to stock opioid analgesics. New England Journal of Medicine 342: 1023–1026.
National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). 1986. Economic justice for all: Pastoral letter on catholic social teaching and the U.S. economy. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference.
Nozick, Robert. 2013. Anarchy, state, and utopia. New York: Basic Books.
O’Mahony, Sean, Janet McHenry, Daniel Snow, Carolyn Cassin, Donald Schumacher, and Peter Selwyn. 2008. A review of barriers to utilization of the medicare hospice benefits in urban populations and strategies for enhanced access. Journal of Urban Health 85 (2): 281–290.
Randall, Fiona, and R.S. Downie. 2006. The philosophy of palliative care: Critique and reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sandel, Michael. 1982. Liberalism and the limits of justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scheid, Daniel P. 2016. The Cosmic common good: Religious grounds for ecological ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sebuyira, Lydia Mpanga, Faith Mwangi-Powell, Jose Pereira, and Christopher Spence. 2003. The cape town palliative care declaration: Home-grown solutions for sub-saharan Africa. Journal of Palliative Medicine 6 (3): 341–343.
Smith, Cardinale and Otis Brawley. 2014. Disparities. In Access to palliative care. Health affairs blog. http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2014/07/30/disparities-in-access-to-palliative-care/ Accessed 5 Jan 2017.
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (Kaiser). 2012a. Family health premiums rise 4 percent to average of $15,745 in 2012, national benchmark employer survey finds.” http://kff.org/private-insurance/press-release/family-health-premiums-rise-4-percent-to/. Accessed 28 November 2016.
———. 2012b. Health care costs: A primer. http://kff.org/report-section/health-care-costs-a-primer-2012-report/ Accessed 28 Nov 2016.
The International Children’s Palliative Care Network. 2008. Charter of rights for life limited and life threatened children. http://www.icpcn.org/icpcn-charter. Accessed 30 Aug 2017.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). 1993. A framework for comprehensive health care reform: Promoting human life, promoting human dignity, pursuing the common good. Washington, DC. http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/health-care/upload/health-care-comprehensive-care.pdf. Accessed 15 Jan 2017.
Vatican Council, Second. 1965. Gaudium et spes. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html. Accessed 30 Aug 2017.
Walzer, Michael. 1983. Spheres of justice: A defense of pluralism and equality. New York: Basic Books.
Wells, Francis. 2006. The doctor. Tate, etc.8 (Autumn): 108.
Williams, David R. 2004. Health and equality of life of African Americans. In The state of black America, ed. Lee A. Daniels, 115–138. New York: Urban League.
Wooden, Cynthia. 2016. Health care is a right, not a privilege, pope says. Washington DC: Catholic News Service/US Conference of Catholic Bishops. http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2016/health-care-is-a-right-not-a-privilege-pope-says.cfm. Accessed 30 Aug 2017.
World Health Organization. 2014. Global atlas of palliative care at the end of life. http://www.who.int/nmh/Global_Atlas_of_Palliative_Care.pdf. Accessed 30 Aug 2017.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bailey, J.P. (2019). Palliative Care and the Common Good. In: Cataldo, P., O’Brien, D. (eds) Palliative Care and Catholic Health Care . Philosophy and Medicine, vol 130. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05005-4_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05005-4_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05004-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05005-4
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)