Saving Young Adults Over Infants: Defending Gradualist Health Priorities : Bastian Steuwer

 

In health policy and elsewhere, we can sometimes choose between averting the deaths of different people at different ages. Gradualism holds that (i) we should – all else equal – save younger over older people but also (ii) – all else equal – save young adults over infants. I defend a gradualist view on two grounds: it tracks the moral status of the being harmed by death and it tracks the kinds of goods the being is deprived of. Additionally, I defend the gradualist view against the charge that it violates plausible principles of rational choice.