Neither she nor anyone she knew had firsthand experience of this, but the fact that she mentioned it had me questioning whether I should attend. In talking with a musician friend about the upcoming performance, she shared with me that she had heard rumors about “less than appropriate” encounters between this soloist and other student performers.
I was familiar with the soloist’s work and was thrilled about seeing a live performance for the first time.
You can give weight both to the general principle, as a citizen, and to these particular concerns, as an intimate of this patient.īefore the pandemic, I managed to score discounted student tickets to an opening-night concert for a major symphony orchestra, featuring a star soloist renowned for a dynamic style of playing. The point is that you can both be committed to a society that fairly allocates medical attention and acknowledge the special demands of your relationship with your sister-in-law - and your friend’s relationship with this doctor. Doctors might say, plausibly, that they can treat those they aren’t connected to as well as they should, maintaining a high level of professionalism and respecting the rules, while still treating those they are connected to even better, perhaps by lengthening their workday and fitting them in earlier. Next, we might want to distinguish between the rules of the system and the discretion that some doctors may choose to exercise. Your concern to avoid taking advantage of your social capital in this case - your concern for social fairness - is different: a general ethical commitment without specific roots in your relationships. Special obligations are a feature of friendship and kinship. You have what philosophers call “special obligations” to her - obligations that you don’t have to people in general. Your responsibilities to your sister-in-law are specific to your relationship with her. Contrast the sources of your responsibilities to your sister-in-law on the one hand, and of your principled opposition to preferential treatment on the other. (Otherwise your concern would be only for your personal moral standing.) Wouldn’t it be inconsistent for you to use a personal connection to secure what you term “preferential treatment” for your sister-in-law? You’re plainly committed to the idea that society should be organized in ways that don’t allow differences in social capital to lead to significant differences in medical outcomes. Social scientists sometimes mark a distinction between “social capital” and “financial capital” - the Rolodex versus the Rolex - and social capital can play an important role when it comes to making available the best medical treatment.
One significant form of inequality in our society is inequality not of wealth but of access.
0 kommentar(er)
