Y and Z are not off the hook: the survival lottery made fairer.
In this article I show that the argument in John Harris's famous "Survival Lottery" paper cannot be right. Even if we grant Harris's assumptions--of the justifiability of such a lottery, the correctness of maximizing consequentialism, the indistinguishability between killing and letting die, the practical and political feasibility of such a scheme--the argument still will not yield the conclusion that Harris wants. On his own terms, the medically needy should be less favored (and more vulnerable to being killed), than Harris suggests.
Nelson
Mark T
MT
Department of Philosophy, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA 93105, USA. manelson@westmont.edu
D026689:Ethical Analysis; D005066:Euthanasia, Passive; D015276:Health Care Rationing / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D028681:Moral Obligations; D016377:Organ Transplantation / Q000941:ethics; D010686:Philosophy, Medical; D010820:Physicians / Q000941:ethics*; D011897:Random Allocation