Identified versus Statistical Lives: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Population-Level Bioethics) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0190217472 ISBN 13: 9780190217471

Publisher: OUP USA, 2015

Synopsis

On August 5, 2010, a cave-in left thirty-three Chilean miners trapped underground. The Chilean government embarked on a massive rescue effort that is estimated to have cost between ten and twenty million dollars.
There is a puzzle here. Many mine safety measures that would have been more cost effective had not been taken in Chile earlier, either by the mining companies, the Chilean government or by international donors. The Chilean story illustrates a persistent puzzle: the identified lives effect. Human beings show a greater inclination to assist persons and groups identified as those at high risk of great harm than to assist persons and groups who will suffer -- or already suffer -- similar harm but are not identified as yet. The problem touches almost every aspect of human life and politics: health, the environment, the law.
What can social and cognitive sciences teach us about the origin and triggers of the effect? Philosophically and ethically, is the effect a "bias" to be eliminated or is it morally justified? What implications does the effect have for health care, law, the environment and other practice domains?
This volume is the first book to tackle the effect from all necessary perspectives: psychology, public health, law, ethics, and public policy.

About this title

About the Author

I. Glenn Cohen is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics.

Norman Daniels Daniels is the Mary B. Saltonstall Professor and Professor of Ethics and Population Health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Nir Eyal Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine (Medical Ethics) at the Harvard Medical School. He is the co-editor of INEQUALITIES IN HEALTH (OUP, 2013) and the co-editor of the Population-Level Bioethics series.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP USA
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0190217472
• ISBN 13: 9780190217471
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Cohen I. Glenn, Daniels Norman, Eyal Nir