What is so important about completing lives? A critique of the modified youngest first principle of scarce resource allocation

Abstract

Ruth Tallman has recently offered a defense of the modified youngest first principle of scarce resource allocation [1]. According to Tallman, this principle calls for prioritizing adolescents and young adults between 15-40 years of age. In this article, I argue that Tallman's defense of the modified youngest first principle is vulnerable to important objections, and that it is thus unsuitable as a basis for allocating resources. Moreover, Tallman makes claims about the badness of death for individuals at different ages, but she lacks an account of the loss involved in dying to support her claims. To fill this gap in Tallman's account, I propose a view on the badness of death that I call 'Deprivationism'. I argue that this view explains why death is bad for those who die, and that it has some advantages over Tallman's complete lives view in the context of scarce resource allocation. Finally, I consider some objections to the relevance of Deprivationism to resource allocation, and offer my responses.

Revisitando los argumentos de Macklin contra el principio de vida completa

“…There are adolescents who lack the capacity to develop long-term plans due to a disability. The "modified youngest-first principle" has been subject to criticism (KERSTEIN & BOGNAR, 2010;GAMLUND, 2016) and defense (TALLMAN, 2012). 11 I consider that this possible implication of the complete-lives system should be seen as a reductio ad absurdum of the whole proposal.…”

Addressing the Sugar Crisis Supply Chain Management Problem in the Philippines via a Mixed-Integer Linear Optimization Approach

“…As a result, risks of mineral deficiency and similar facets have become a concern. In a different case, demand-induced scarcity is also evident in the medical field and plays an even more critical role because the matter of life and death is already at hand [11]. Along that line, the priority of how life-saving medical interventions may be allocated has become a central concern in the extant literature.…”

Putting a Number on the Harm of Death

“…Philosophers are fond of citing long-term projects (like writing books) and life plans (like raising families). But do we really want to say that people whose projects are more short-term and whose life plans are more changeable have deaths that are significantly less bad (Gamlund 2016)? (4) The function should be close to its peak by 18-24 months. It seems clear why characteristics like future-directed mental states and a conception of oneself would be relevant to whether losing future life would count as a loss for the individual.…”