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A Definitional Preamble

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The Right to Health Care: Ethical Considerations

Part of the book series: The International Library of Bioethics ((ILB,volume 92))

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Abstract

This chapter introduces and defines the term that will be used in the rest of the study, and to indicate what role they play in the analysis of the right to health care. It also distinguishes between different approaches to analysing the right to health care and indicates why an ethical approach will be used in the subsequent analysis.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Chap. 3, infra.

  2. 2.

    Where it is understood that the impossibility has not been brought about by the party whose duty it is to fulfil that right. See Chap. 2, pp. 23 f.

  3. 3.

    Justinian, Corpus Juris Civilis; Celsus, Digest of Roman Law 8: “Impossibilium nulla obligatio est” (There is no obligation to do anything that is impossible) [D.50.17.185]. See also Taylor v. Caldwell [1863] EWHC QB J1.

  4. 4.

    As will become important later when dealing with allocation of resources, impossibility is not the same as futility. Futility looks at whether the relevant action is likely to be successful in producing the intended or expected result. Thus, it would be futile to perform a colectomy on someone dying of inoperable metastasized cancer of the colon that has spread throughout the whole body and neither chemotherapy nor radiation have proved effective. It would be futile because it would not change the fact of impending death.

  5. 5.

    Hodgkinson (1996).

  6. 6.

    Sullivan (2003).

  7. 7.

    See Gough (1936), Riley (1982), Rousseau (1762).

  8. 8.

    Dworkin (1986), Finnis (1980), Fuller (1964).

  9. 9.

    Emon et al. (2015).

  10. 10.

    Cf. Rommen (1947).

  11. 11.

    Haakonssen (1996).

  12. 12.

    Encyclopedia Britannica, available at https://www.britannica.com/demystified/whats-the-difference-between-morality-and-ethics.

  13. 13.

    Oxford English Dictionary, available at https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ethics.

  14. 14.

    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, available at http://www.iep.utm.edu/ethics/.

  15. 15.

    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Ethics. http://www.iep.utm.edu/ethics/.

  16. 16.

    Williams (1985).

  17. 17.

    Aga Khan Health Services, https://www.akdn.org/our-agencies/aga-khan-health-services.

  18. 18.

    Eban, Abba. “Quotes;” retrieved 25/04/2021 at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abbaeban167934.html.

  19. 19.

    Althaus (1997).

  20. 20.

    World Health Organization (2017).

  21. 21.

    United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1, https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.

  22. 22.

    Environmental ethics and similar domains are not relevant to the present discussion because they are not involved in health care ethics insofar as it is the present enquiry is concerned.

  23. 23.

    Cf. Sherwin (1991).

  24. 24.

    Teichman (1985).

  25. 25.

    Cf. French (1979), Hess (2014), List and Pettit (2011).

  26. 26.

    See Chap. 7, infra.

  27. 27.

    For formal recognition of this at the government level, see Government of Canada, Research Involving the First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples of Canada; available at http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/initiatives/tcps2-eptc2/chapter9-chapitre9/. See Wilson (2001).

  28. 28.

    Cf. Firestone (1970).

  29. 29.

    Gilligan (1982).

  30. 30.

    Lindemann (2005).

  31. 31.

    Held (2006).

  32. 32.

    Tong (2006).

  33. 33.

    Baehr (2004), Hay (2013), Nussbaum (1999), Stone-Mediatore (2004).

  34. 34.

    Jaggar and Bordo (1992).

  35. 35.

    Dillon (2020).

  36. 36.

    Chappell (2014).

  37. 37.

    Zagzebski (2010).

  38. 38.

    Badhwar (2014).

  39. 39.

    Slote (2001).

  40. 40.

    Dawson (2009), Drane (1995), Pellegrino (1993), Toon (2014).

  41. 41.

    Bentham (2009), Mill (1998).

  42. 42.

    Sidgwick (1981), Parfit (1986), Singer (2011).

  43. 43.

    Moore (1912).

  44. 44.

    Brandt (1979).

  45. 45.

    Audi (2004).

  46. 46.

    Hare (1981).

  47. 47.

    Sinhababu (2018).

  48. 48.

    Eggleston (2014).

  49. 49.

    Rawls (1971).

  50. 50.

    Mandal et al. (2016).

  51. 51.

    Sassi (2006).

  52. 52.

    La Puma and Lawlor (1990), Prieto and Sacristán (2003).

  53. 53.

    Andrews (2002), Hilbert and Ackermann (1928).

  54. 54.

    Moreover, it would make a difference in the relative strength of their rights only if—and to the degree that—the difference in such factors affects the possibility of fulfilling the competing rights in question. For more on this, see infra. Chaps. 4 and 5.

  55. 55.

    Kant (1993 [1785]). Kant gave several other formulations of his categorical imperative—three more, to be exact—and he claimed that they were all equivalent. Cf. Paton (1947).

  56. 56.

    See supra, p. 9.

  57. 57.

    World Health Organization, Constitution (1948).

  58. 58.

    World Health Organisation (1992).

  59. 59.

    Boors (1977).

  60. 60.

    Whitbeck (1981).

  61. 61.

    Nordenfelt (1995).

  62. 62.

    Stokes et al. (1982).

  63. 63.

    Engelhardt (1975).

  64. 64.

    Weatherall (2018).

  65. 65.

    Kramer (2002).

  66. 66.

    Nordenfelt, op cit.

  67. 67.

    Ginsberg et al. (2002).

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  1. Department of Philosophy, FRSC, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Eike-Henner W. Kluge

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Kluge, EH.W. (2022). A Definitional Preamble. In: The Right to Health Care: Ethical Considerations. The International Library of Bioethics, vol 92. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93838-3_1

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