BEYOND ECONOMICS, BEYOND MEDICINE | 2006-05-25
First you have to read the piece I wrote below.
The reason other disciplines were so upset about economists who branched out into Public Choice was because they were no longer just economists. They stopped just talking about supply and demand and started acting like experts on the whole subject of life as a balance.
Let us first acknowledge that the critics' fears were perfectly justified. Public Choice now pervades every social science.
The reason Hippocrates's Do No Harm is so popular is because it limits doctors to making choices about how to keep a person's heart beating for a maximum period of time.
At present, the only function Medical Ethics has is to keep a person functioning physically for as long as possible.
Here is crucial difference:
A physician's only ethical obligation is to keep a body functioning physically, something which is measurable for the maximum period of time, something else that is measurable.
A theoretical human being would find that satisfactory. A theoretical Economic Man only wants to make as much money as he can. A theoretical Do No Harm human is only interested in keeping his physical functions measurable for as long a period as possiblw.
But there are a lot of us who are not Economic Men or Do No Harm beings.
What about US?
The argument for the Do No Harm approach is that doctors can just remain physicians. They don't have to make any calls except those that relate to keeping you physically functioning.
Pro-lifers and other tell us that if doctors broke out of the Do No Harm bit the way economists broke out of the Economic Man bit, they would have to make some IMPORTANT decisions.
It wouldn't just be life and death any more.
Is this life WORTH living?
Such a question was once in the hands of theologians -- you know, the folks who brought us the Inquisition.
The Spaniards have a saying, "If life were worth living, we would not need so many philosophers."
Or theologians.
So if life is horrible, you can't end it because you will go to Hell.
The fact is that Collective Decisions/Public Choice was an inevitable developement.
Economists had to break out of suply and demand.
They wil make a mess of it, of course, butit is hard to imagine how they can make more of a mess of it than the Marxists did with the Economic Man.
Doctors in the twenty-first century will have to break out of this Do No Harm nonsense.
They will make a mess of it.
But it is hard to imagine theycould make more of a mess of it than the theologians did.