Situating care in mainstream health economics: an ethical dilemma?

John Davis and Robert McMASTER

Journal of Institutional Economics, 2015, vol. 11, issue 4, 749-767

Abstract: Standard health economics concentrates on the provision of care by medical professionals. Yet ‘care’ receives scant analysis; it is portrayed as a spillover effect or externality in the form of interdependent utility functions. In this context care can only be conceived as either acts of altruism or as social capital. Both conceptions are subject to considerable problems stemming from mainstream health economics’ reliance on a reductionist social model built around instrumental rationality and consequentialism. Subsequently, this implies a disregard for moral rules and duties and the compassionate aspects of behaviour. Care as an externality is a second-order concern relative to self-interested utility maximization, and is therefore crowded out by the parameters of the standard model. We outline an alternative relational approach to conceptualising care based on the social embeddedness of the individual that emphasises the ethical properties of care. The deontological dimension of care suggests that standard health economics is likely to undervalue the importance of care and caring in medicine.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jinsec:v:11:y:2015:i:04:p:749-767_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Institutional Economics from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().