An Evaluation of the Scope of the Principle of Justice After the Pandemic

Türkiye Biyoetik Dergisi

Fatma Gülsüm Önal¹ 

[1] Trakya University Faculty Of Medicine, Department Of Medical History And Ethics;

关键词: principle of justice;    pandemic;    climate change;    ıntergenerational justice;   

DOI  :  10.5505/tjob.2021.02419

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

INTRODUCTION[|]Although justice in medicine is one of the four basic principles of medical ethics according to the 'Principled Approach', it is very difficult to define and determine its scope compared to the other three principles. In fact, with the pandemic, discussions about the principles of 'respect for autonomy', 'non-maleficence' and 'beneficence' became current issues, but the need to update the principle of justice and expanding its scope has also became evident. In recent years, due to the inequalities in the access and protection of natural resources for a healthy life and accessing the opportunities that technology provides, we are witnessing that this already existing need has gained a new dimension with the COVID-19 pandemic.[¤]METHODS[|]Considering that the four basic principles of medical ethics are determined according to their relative robustness in real-life scenarios, we can say that the lack of clarity in distrubution of resources based on the principle of justice in medicine has caused the first ethical impact of the pandemic to be experienced at this point. From the very first days, it has become a worldwide issue how to decide on distribution, especially when the resources such as ventilators and intensive care beds are limited; prioritizing public health in terms of distributing health resources while the criteria for 'micro distribution' were discussed and guidelines were issued one after the other. [¤]RESULTS[|]More extensive discussions were held on the larger scale 'mega distribution' and 'macro distribution' levels. Starting from the fact that the risks posed by the new mutant viruses (which could easily been foreseen, but no funds were allocated to fight them), to fight against climate change (which is the main factor of the formation of these viruses), to climate justice, to intergenerational justice, this huge debate once again showed that updating the principle of justice can only be possible by expanding its scope. [¤]DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION[|]While number of studies and guidelines have been published analyzing how to allocate limited clinical resources during the pandemic, studies addressing the issue of justice in the context of climate change are more limited. In this study, the need to expand the principle of justice in bioethics to include environmental ethics and future generations is discussed by establishing a relationship between new types of mutant viruses and climate change. In this sense, the aim of the study, which deals with the problem of 'scope of distributive justice', is to discuss whether the levels of scaling the distribution are themselves sufficient today. Because, planet-wide problems of justice, such as the sustainability of the earth and how it can be equally passed on to the future generations surpass all other problems.[¤]

【 授权许可】

Unknown