IHEM External Speaker Series: Dr. Korbinian Rüger public ZOOM access

Title of the talk: Saving Lives, Interpersonal Comparability, and Age

Abstract: During the COVID-19 pandemic, medical societies in many countries have released ethical guidelines to assist medical personnel in deciding whom to help when resource constraints prevent helping everyone in need. Unfortunately, most of the released documents are either not very helpful in guiding decisions, not properly justified, or both. One main reason for this is that they offer inconsistent advice. For example, some of them ask doctors to pursue potentially conflicting goals, without advising doctors which goal to prioritize in case of conflict. I here focus on an inconsistency that is much harder to detect, but that is shared by many of the guidelines. What many of these guidelines have in common is their call to make decisions in light of the overarching goal of maximizing the number of lives saved. However, at the same time, they deny that the age of the patients should be a relevant factor in deciding which lives to save. I here argue that this particular position is unstable. I argue that if we are committed to maximizing the number of lives saved, then age should be an important factor in deciding which lives to save.

Bio: Korbinian Rüger is a research fellow in practical philosophy at LMU Munich, where he is a member of the Center for Ethics and Philosophy in Practice. His research focus is in normative and applied ethics. He holds a BA in philosophy and economics from the University of Bayreuth, an MSc in philosophy from the London School of Economics, and a DPhil in philosophy from Oxford.

If you would like to attend, please use the following Zoom dial-in info:

https://tum-conf.zoom.us/j/63062412184

Meeting-ID: 630 6241 2184
Code: 536634