| Summary: | 博士 === 國立中央大學 === 哲學研究所 === 97 === In order to give an adequate treatment of the urgent need of healthcare of an aging society, this thesis works out a Confucian account of just long term care. Since the fair distribution of healthcare resources is an important issue of social justice and this thesis argues that the Confucian theory of justice in terms of benevolence and the principle of the utmost extension of everyone’s natural endowment could give a fairly reasonable argument for social justice in long term care.
It gives first a critical assessment of Norman Daniels’ theory of just healthcare to illuminate the contrast between the difference in justice and moral perspectives between the east and the west in healthcare. Using Taiwan’s recently released policy and the practice of the geriatric long-term care as an example, this thesis shows on the one hand the merits of Daniels’ criteria of justice as the tool for ethical analysis, though his theory of just healthcare is criticized as lacking the explanation of the source of morality and the neglect of a fair consideration of the home care-giver. It shows how Confucianism could improve the discourse employing the notion of benevolence and natural endowment in these two respects.
On the other hand, this thesis is also re-constructing a Confucian theory of just long term care with the help of Daniels benchmarks of justice. It argues that the utmost extension of each one’s natural endowment, especially that of the patient as well as the care-giver, is a necessary guiding principle for a fair treatment and sharing of all parties involved. It could achieve the Confucian political ideal of letting everyone live with “no regret in nurturing those alive and in mourning the dead.” Such a theory is the one that fully achieves Daniels request for fairness, efficiency and accountability in healthcare.
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