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Adaptation and illness severity: the significance of suffering
Adaptation to illness, and its relevance for distribution in health care, has been the subject of vigorous debate. In this paper I examine an aspect of this discussion that seems so far to have been overlooked: that some illnesses are difficult, or even impossible, to adapt to. This matters because...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer Netherlands
2023
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10425500/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37178191 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-023-10155-x |
Sumario: | Adaptation to illness, and its relevance for distribution in health care, has been the subject of vigorous debate. In this paper I examine an aspect of this discussion that seems so far to have been overlooked: that some illnesses are difficult, or even impossible, to adapt to. This matters because adaptation reduces suffering. Illness severity is a priority setting criterion in several countries. When considering severity, we are interested in the extent to which an illness makes a person worse-off. I argue that no plausible theory of well-being can disregard suffering when determining to what extent someone is worse-off in terms of health. We should accept, all else equal, that adapting to an illness makes the illness less severe by reducing suffering. Accepting a pluralist theory of well-being allows us to accept my argument, while still making room for the possibility that adaptation is sometimes, all things considered, bad. Finally, I argue that we should conceptualize adaptability as a feature of illness, and thereby account for adaptation on a group level for the purposes of priority setting. |
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