On the Differing Role of Counterexamples in Philosophical Theory and Health Policy

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

This article refers to:

Rationing, Responsibility, and Vaccination during COVID-19: A Conceptual Map

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank Lori Bruce and Ju Zhang for comments on a draft of this manuscript.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Park, J., Davies, B. 2024. Rationing, Responsibility, and Vaccination During COVID_19: A Conceptual Map. American Journal of Bioethics. Robertson, C. 2022. What the harm principle says about vaccination and healthcare rationing. Journal of Law and the Biosciences. 9(1):1-22.

2 Brock, D.W., 1987. Truth or consequences: the role of philosophers in policy-making. Ethics, 97(4):786-791.

3 There is considerable debate about what constitutes a justified counterexample that conclusively shows that a philosophical theory has a false implication. Some counterexamples may not show that a theory has a false implication but instead show that the theory is objectionable in some other way and so theorists can choose to ‘bite the bullet’ rather than reject or modify the original theory. See, for example, Wallace, M., 2020. Counterexamples and Common Sense: When (Not) to Tollens a Ponens. Analysis 80(3):544-558. and Lesser, H. 2010. The use of examples in bioethics. In Arguments and Analysis in Bioethics, ed. M. Häyry, T. Takala, P. Herissone-Kelly, and G. Árnason, 63-71. New York: Brill.

4 Lesser, H. 2010. The use of examples in bioethics. In Arguments and Analysis in Bioethics, ed. M. Häyry, T. Takala, P. Herissone-Kelly, and G. Árnason, 63-71. New York: Brill.

5 Vong, G. 2020. Weighing up weighted lotteries: scarcity, overlap cases, and fair inequalities of chance. Ethics 130(3): 320-348.

6 Thompson has argued that at its most basic, “health policy is a hypothesis that if a, b, c … are done at time one, then x, y, z … will result at time two.” Thomson, F. 1981. Health Policy and the Bureaucracy: Politics and Implementation. Cambridge: MIT Press.

7 Leider, J.P., Lim, S., DeBruin, D., Waterman, A.T., Smith, B., Ghimire, U., Huhtala, H., Zirnhelt, Z., Lynfield, R. and Hick, J.L. 2023. Using a web platform for equitable distribution of COVID-19 monoclonal antibodies: a case study in resource allocation. Frontiers in Public Health, 11:1-10.

8 Robertson, C. 2022. What the harm principle says about vaccination and healthcare rationing. Journal of Law and the Biosciences. 9(1):1-22.

9 Robertson, C. 2022. What the harm principle says about vaccination and healthcare rationing. Journal of Law and the Biosciences. 9(1):19.

10 While theories with multiple criteria are possible, it is typically easier to justify a policy’s implementation of multiple criteria of differing importance during a pandemic because (i) not all theoretically possible options are feasible to implement in policy, thereby restricting the policy options relative to the theoretical ones, (ii) empirical evidence or institutional processes may favor a particular implementation in the actual context, (iii) urgency, and (iv) institutions often trust the authority of policymakers who have been selected to develop policy on the basis of their expertise but philosophical practice tends to reject appeals to authority.

11 McGuire, A.L., Aulisio, M.P., Davis, F.D., Erwin, C., Harter, T.D., Jagsi, R., Klitzman, R., Macauley, R., Racine, E., Wolf, S.M. and Wynia, M., 2020. Ethical challenges arising in the COVID-19 pandemic: An overview from the Association of Bioethics Program Directors (ABPD) task force. The American Journal of Bioethics, 20(7):15-27.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.