Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T07:56:17.293Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Value of Living

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2016

John Broome*
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Get access

Summary

Many practical decisions, in medicine and elsewhere, alter the lengths of people’s lives; many affect the number of people who are born; and many do both. Decision makers need to attach a value to changes of these sorts. In the past the value of prolonging life and the value of changes in population have generally been treated separately. This paper explains the need for an integrated treatment: a theory of the value of living. In one sense, prolonging a life and bringing into existence an extra person are alternative ways of doing the same thing: both bring it about that a period of life is lived that otherwise would not have been lived. But there is also a vital difference: in one case the extra period of life comes to someone who exists already; in the other it comes to a new person. The paper discusses a number of principles that might be used in developing an integrated theory of the value of living.

Résumé

Résumé

En médecine comme dans d’autres domaines, de nombreuses décisions affectent la durée de vie de certaines personnes ou/et le nombre de naissances. Et les preneurs de décisions doivent évaluer les changements ainsi causés. Jusqu’à présent, la valeur d’un prolongement de vie et celle d’un changement de population étaient en général traitées séparément. Cet article explique la nécessité d’un traitement intégré : une théorie de la valeur de la vie. En un sens, prolonger une vie et donner naissance à une personne supplémentaire correspondent à deux façons de produire un même résultat : elles produisent une période de vie qui autrement n’aurait pas existé. Mais il y a également une différence cruciale : dans un cas la période de vie supplémentaire concerne une personne qui existe déjà, dans l’autre elle correspond à une nouvelle personne. L’article discute plusieurs principes qui pourraient servir à développer une théorie intégrée de la valeur de la vie.

Keywords

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 1992 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

(*)

This paper was written with the support of the Economic and Social Research Council, under grant number R 000 23 3334.

References

REFERENCES

Arthur, W.B. (1981), The economics of risk to life, American Economic Review, pp. 5464.Google Scholar
Blackorby, Ch., and Donaldson, D. (1984), Social criteria for evaluating population change, Journal of Public Economics, 25, pp. 1333.Google Scholar
Boyle, M.H., Torrance, G.W. Sinclair, J.C. and Horwood, S.P. (1983), Economic evaluation of neonatal intensive care of very-low-birth-weight infants, New England Journal of Medicine, 308, pp. 1330–7.Google Scholar
Broome, J., (1991) Weighing Goods, Blackwell.Google Scholar
Broome, J., (1992), Counting the Cost of Global Warming, White Horse Press.Google Scholar
Hammond, P.J., (1988), Consequentialist demographic norms and parenting rights, Social Choice and Welfare, 5, pp. 127–45.Google Scholar
Harsanyi, J., (1955), Cardinal welfare, individualistic ethics, and interpersonal comparisons of utility, Journal of Political Economy, 63, pp. 309–21.Google Scholar
Jones-Lee, M.W., (1989) The Economics of Safety and Physical Risk, Black-well.Google Scholar
Kuhse, H. and Singer, P. (1988) Age and the Allocation of Medical Resources, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 13, pp. 101–16.Google Scholar
Narveson, J., (1967). Utilitarianism and New Generations, Mind, 76, pp. 6272.Google Scholar
Parfit, D., (1984), Reasons and Persons, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar