I was listening/chatting to the British philosopher, Jonathan Wolff on how to value life. We went through some expected value and cost-benefit theory as applied to philosophy and healthcare spending.
We then came across the challenge of potentially incorporating “society preferences”. For instance, in the UK it seems—from surveys and outreach as well as policy practice—that much more money is spent on pre-term babies and also rare disease healthcare spend then woul dbe suggested by the more “normal” quality adjusted life year (QALY) calculation for eg diabetes treatment.
We didn’t discuss this that much further, but it seems challenging to me that people/society does seem to value some times of health/life differently and to what extent we need to think about that when allocating healthcare or other scare but beneficial sources.
It does seem to me something EA or society has to account for? Or not? And then also how? As revealed preference is tricky here?
I was listening/chatting to the British philosopher, Jonathan Wolff on how to value life. We went through some expected value and cost-benefit theory as applied to philosophy and healthcare spending.
We then came across the challenge of potentially incorporating “society preferences”. For instance, in the UK it seems—from surveys and outreach as well as policy practice—that much more money is spent on pre-term babies and also rare disease healthcare spend then woul dbe suggested by the more “normal” quality adjusted life year (QALY) calculation for eg diabetes treatment.
We didn’t discuss this that much further, but it seems challenging to me that people/society does seem to value some times of health/life differently and to what extent we need to think about that when allocating healthcare or other scare but beneficial sources.
It does seem to me something EA or society has to account for? Or not? And then also how? As revealed preference is tricky here?
Podcast with philosopher here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2021/9/26/jonathan-wolff-valuing-life-philosophy-disability-models-society-of-equals-musical-performance-podcast