Currents in Contemporary Ethics: Avian Influenza and the Failure of Public Rationing Discussions

Lee T. H. , “Rationing Influenza Vaccine,” New England Journal of Medicine 351 (2004): 2365–2366.

I take these to be roughly a family of what we might call “negative” emotions. Space does not permit me from fully teasing apart the differences here between these emotions, although such work may be fruitful.

McNeil D. G. Jr. , “Hospitals Short on Ventilators if Bird Flu Hits,” New York Times, March 12, 2006.

Emanuel E. J. and Wertheimer A. , “Who Should Get Influenza Vaccine When Not All Can?” Science 312 (2006): 854–855.

Knox R. , “WHO Reports Person-to-Person Bird Flu Transmission,” National Public Radio, May 24, 2006, at <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5427939> (last visited June 21, 2006).

Handwerk B. , “Bird Flu Shots Should Go to Elderly, Kids Last, Experts Say,” National Geographic News, May 11, 2006, at <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/> (last visited June 21, 2006).

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Fleck L. , “Justice, Age Rationing, and the Problem of Identifiable Lives” in Health Care for an Aging Population, Hackler C. , ed. (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994): 93–106, at 95.

Bayles M. D. , “The Value of Life,” in Health Care Ethics, VanDeVeer D. and Regan T. , eds. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987): 265–89, at 274.

For a lengthy discussion on the roles of fairness and luck in rationing decisions, see Fried C. , “The Value of Life,” Harvard Law Review 82 (1969): 1415–1437.

Many of these challenges, unsurprisingly, come from contemporary feminist philosophy. For examples of different argument strategies, see Nussbaum M. C. , Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and a number of articles within the anthology Engendering Rationalities, Tuana N. and Morgen S. , eds. (Albany: SUNY Press, 2001).

For an extensive overview of these topics, see Ubel P. A. , Pricing Life: Why It's Time for Health Care Rationing (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000).