Aging & Social Change: Tenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

There has been a great deal of discussion about triage of ventilators and other allocation issues during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this paper, two moral philosophers debate the following question: In the event of a shortage, should ventilators and ICU beds be allocated by lottery among patients with more than negligible chance of surviving this specific illness? One of us believes the answer is Yes. She is concerned about ageism that devalues old people and ableism that devalues frail or disabled people. She rejects the Rawlsian-inspired defense of age discrimination: first, because of the well-known objection that not everyone behind the veil of ignorance would adopt the same risk-management strategy, and second, because, not knowing whether one is old, people who do follow the maximin principle will not take the risk involved in discriminating against old people. She also has objections to the other arguments for favoring the young. Another of us believes that when there is a substantial age gap the younger person should be given priority, even if they have the same probable health outcomes. The arguments put forth are: all else being equal, saving a younger life saves more life years, thus producing greater benefit; an older person, especially one in the final third of her life, has experienced many of the goods (family, career, etc.) that a young person has not experienced, thus saving a younger life is more fair; from a Rawlsian perspective, behind the veil of ignorance, we would “vote” to save younger persons.