POLITICS 741

Ethics and Health Policy


Please note: this is archived course information from 2017 for POLITICS 741.

Description

Political theorists think about rights, justice and the good life. Governments everywhere struggle with ethical problems in health. Public policy is all the better for being informed by political theory, and political theory is all the better for thinking about what ought to happen in the real world. One focus is scarcity: how should resources be allocated in a government health system? We consider organs for transplant, expensive treatments, age discrimination and holding people responsible for their own health. Another focus is public health; we consider coercion to control the spread of contagious disease, and how the government should try to reduce "lifestyle" diseases attributed to eg, obesity. This is an applied political theory paper and it would suit politics students of political theory and public policy, and non-politics students interested in health policy, population health and applied ethics.

Availability 2017

Not taught in 2017

Lecturer(s)

Coordinator(s) Professor Martin Wilkinson

Reading/Texts


Recommended Reading


Points

POLITICS 741: 15 points

Prerequisites


Corequisites


Restrictions