Racist appearance standards and the enhancements that love them: Norman Daniels and skin-lightening cosmetics
Bioethics 25 (4):185-191 (2011)
| Abstract | Darker skin correlates with reduced opportunities and negative health outcomes. Recent discoveries related to the genes associated with skin tone, and the historical use of cosmetics to conform to racist appearance standards, suggest effective skin-lightening products may soon become available. This article examines whether medical interventions of this sort should be permitted, subsidized, or restricted, using Norman Daniels's framework for determining what justice requires in terms of protecting health. I argue that Daniels's expansive view of the requirements of justice in meeting health needs offers some support for recognizing a societal obligation to provide this kind of ‘enhancement,’ in light of the strong connections between skin tone and health outcomes. On balance, however, Daniels's framework offers compelling reasons to reject insurance coverage for skin-lightening medical interventions, including the likely ineffectiveness of such technologies in mitigating racial health disparities, and the danger that covering skin-lightening enhancements would undermine public support for cooperative schemes that protect health. In fact, justice may require limiting access to these technologies because of their potential to exacerbate the negative effects of racism | |||||||||
| Keywords | skin?lightening | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,705 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesLawrence Stern (1983). Opportunity and Health Care: Criticisms and Suggestions. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 8 (4):339-361.
Norman Daniels (1985). Just Health Care. Cambridge University Press.
A. Rid & N. Biller-Andorno (2009). Justice in Action? Introduction to the Minisymposium on Norman Daniels' Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly. Journal of Medical Ethics 35 (1):1-2.
Joseph Lacey (2012). Climate Change and Norman Daniels' Theory of Just Health: An Essay on Basic Needs. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 15 (1):3-14.
Andrew M. Courtwright (2007). Justice, Health, and Status. Theoria 54 (112):1-24.
Wilson James (2009). Not So Special After All? Daniels and the Social Determinants of Health. Journal of Medical Ethics 35:3 - 6..
B. Sachs (2010). Lingering Problems of Currency and Scope in Daniels's Argument for a Societal Obligation to Meet Health Needs. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 35 (4):402-414.
Norman Daniels (2008). Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly. Cambridge University Press.
Shlomi Segall (2010). Is Health (Really) Special? Health Policy Between Rawlsian and Luck Egalitarian Justice. Journal of Applied Philosophy 27 (4):344-358.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-09-13Total downloads30 ( #40,899 of 549,198 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,397 of 549,198 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
