TY - JOUR
T1 - Epistemic burdens and the incentives of surrogate decision-makers
AU - Crutchfield, Parker
AU - Scheall, Scott
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - We aim to establish the following claim: other factors held constant, the relative weights of the epistemic burdens of competing treatment options serve to determine the options that patient surrogates pursue. Simply put, surrogates confront an incentive, ceteris paribus, to pursue treatment options with respect to which their knowledge is most adequate to the requirements of the case. Regardless of what the patient would choose, options that require more knowledge than the surrogate possesses (or is likely to learn) will either be neglected altogether or deeply discounted in the surrogate’s incentive structure. We establish this claim by arguing that the relation between epistemic burdens and incentives in decision-making is a general feature of surrogate decision-making. After establishing the claim, we draw out some of the implications for surrogate decision-making in medicine and offer philosophical and psychological explanations of the phenomenon.
AB - We aim to establish the following claim: other factors held constant, the relative weights of the epistemic burdens of competing treatment options serve to determine the options that patient surrogates pursue. Simply put, surrogates confront an incentive, ceteris paribus, to pursue treatment options with respect to which their knowledge is most adequate to the requirements of the case. Regardless of what the patient would choose, options that require more knowledge than the surrogate possesses (or is likely to learn) will either be neglected altogether or deeply discounted in the surrogate’s incentive structure. We establish this claim by arguing that the relation between epistemic burdens and incentives in decision-making is a general feature of surrogate decision-making. After establishing the claim, we draw out some of the implications for surrogate decision-making in medicine and offer philosophical and psychological explanations of the phenomenon.
KW - Epistemology
KW - Ignorance
KW - Surrogate decision-making
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064656727&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85064656727&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11019-019-09899-2
DO - 10.1007/s11019-019-09899-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 31004263
AN - SCOPUS:85064656727
SN - 1386-7423
VL - 22
SP - 613
EP - 621
JO - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy
JF - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy
IS - 4
ER -