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Q1
Discuss a real ethical dilemma that society currently faces and explain how you think it should be approached. Use philosophical reasoning to support your view.
Useful Expressions
the ethical dilemma I find most pressing is · the dilemma is genuinely hard because · my view is that the most defensible framework · what this does not resolve is
Show Model Response
The ethical dilemma I find most pressing and most philosophically interesting is the question of how societies should allocate scarce life-saving resources — a question that the COVID-19 pandemic made impossible to avoid, but which will recur in various forms as the population ages, climate-related health crises multiply, and medical technology creates new categories of expensive life-extension.
The dilemma is genuinely hard because the most plausible ethical frameworks pull in different directions. A utilitarian approach suggests prioritizing those who will gain the most life-years from treatment, which may systematically disadvantage the elderly or those with pre-existing conditions. A strict egalitarian approach — a lottery, or first-come-first-served — ignores medically relevant considerations in ways that also produce morally questionable outcomes. A desert-based approach asks who has 'earned' treatment, which introduces morally fraught questions about lifestyle and responsibility.
My view is that the most defensible framework combines elements of the Rawlsian approach with clinical criteria. We should first establish which clinical factors are genuinely relevant — likelihood of survival, capacity to benefit from treatment — and then, among patients who are comparable on those grounds, apply a lottery or priority queue. This does not eliminate the hard choices, but it grounds them in criteria that do not embed arbitrary social prejudices. What it does not resolve is the prior question of resource allocation: the real ethical work lies upstream, in ensuring that societies invest adequately in the medical infrastructure needed to avoid scarcity in the first place.
The dilemma is genuinely hard because the most plausible ethical frameworks pull in different directions. A utilitarian approach suggests prioritizing those who will gain the most life-years from treatment, which may systematically disadvantage the elderly or those with pre-existing conditions. A strict egalitarian approach — a lottery, or first-come-first-served — ignores medically relevant considerations in ways that also produce morally questionable outcomes. A desert-based approach asks who has 'earned' treatment, which introduces morally fraught questions about lifestyle and responsibility.
My view is that the most defensible framework combines elements of the Rawlsian approach with clinical criteria. We should first establish which clinical factors are genuinely relevant — likelihood of survival, capacity to benefit from treatment — and then, among patients who are comparable on those grounds, apply a lottery or priority queue. This does not eliminate the hard choices, but it grounds them in criteria that do not embed arbitrary social prejudices. What it does not resolve is the prior question of resource allocation: the real ethical work lies upstream, in ensuring that societies invest adequately in the medical infrastructure needed to avoid scarcity in the first place.
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