Health and Social Justice

Health and Social Justice

Health and Social Justice provides a theoretical framework for health ethics, public policy and law in which Dr Ruger introduces the health capability paradigm, an innovative and unique approach which considers the capability of health as a moral imperative. This book is the culmination of more than a decade and a half of work to develop the health capability paradigm, with a vision of a world where all have the capability to be healthy. This vision is grounded in the Aristotelian view of human flourishing and also Amartya Sen's capability approach. In this new paradigm, not just health care, or even just health alone, but the capability for health itself is a moral imperative, as is ensuring the conditions that allow all individuals the means to achieve central health capabilities. Key tenets of health capability include health agency, shared health governance, where individuals, providers and institutions work together to create a social system enabling all to be healthy, and the use of theorized agreements and shared reasoning to guide social choice and shape health policy and decision-making. This book provides philosophical justification for the direct moral importance of health and the capability for health and follows a norms-based approach to health promotion. It employs a joint scientific and deliberative approach to guide health system development and reform, and the allocation of scarce health resources. The health capability paradigm integrates both proceduralist and consequentialist approaches to justice, and both moral and political legitimacy are critical. "Ruger enhances the reach of her powerful perspective by enlightening investigations of human flourishing.... By producing a book of such richness concerning a major area of human agency and policy, Jennifer Prah Ruger has substantially advanced the reach of public reasoning, not just about health care, but about social justice in general." -- From the foreword by Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University "Jennifer Prah Ruger has produced a masterpiece--a beautifully written and strikingly bold 'health capability paradigm' for the analysis of problems of health and social justice.... This gem of a book is destined to push forward current debates about health care reform and its theoretical foundations. It will more than contribute to this field of investigation; it will be a defining moment." -- Tom L. Beauchamp , Professor of Philosophy and Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University "I have no doubt that this book will become a beacon for the debates on health system reform in the United States and around the world." -- Julio Frenk, Dean and T & G Angelopoulos Professor of Public Health and International Development, Harvard School of Public Health "[A]n original synthesis...that illuminates a way forward toward a more rational health policy and health policy process.... [A] must read for all serious students of health policy." -- Joseph P. Newhouse , John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management and Director of the Division of Health Policy Research and Education, Harvard University "[A]n attractive, concrete vision of a health society, strongly grounded in philosophy, economics and public health." -- Thomas Pogge , Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University and Professorial Fellow, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Australian National University "Ruger articulates a persuasive case...for grounding reform in a commitment to human flourishing...[and] presents us with practical tools for determining what to cover and how to allocate resources at a time when cost-containment must be a constraint on future policy. Health and Social Justice is an important book not just as a guide to current debates, but for understanding how to navigate future challenges in the rapidly evolving environment of health policy in the United States and other nations." -- Arthur Caplan , Director, Center for Bioethics and Sidney D. Caplan Chair of Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania "A major contribution to an important, complex and continuing process that examines the theoretical and operational relationships between development, poverty reduction, health and human rights.... [T]he health and human rights communities are enriched by Ruger's philosophical justification for the right to heath, as well as the health capability paradigm...We commend Ruger's excellent book." -- Paul Hunt, Professor of Law, University of Essex and former United Nations Special Rapporteur "A complex, timely, ambitious reflection on moral and political legitimacy in healthcare.... [A]n original theoretical framework...a fresh, systematic, forward-looking paradigm...Ruger has built 'brick by brick' a serious, provocative comprehensive defense of a progressive, social justice perspective on