Michael Sandel: The Cost Benefit Analysis

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Michael Sandel discussed the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and the cost benefit analysis. He gives the examples of the cost benefit analysis conducted by Ford in connection with promoting the safety of the Ford Pinto or not. Ford concluded that it would cost more to promote the safety than to pay back for injuries and losses which may occur in a case of the accident. In his calculations Ford assigned the monetary value on human life. Sandel discussed Ford’s decision in class and some of the students argues that it was unacceptable to put monetary value on a human life. Other students argued that in order to maximize the utility you should put some value, usually the dollar amount, even on human life. Sandel discussed are two main My main concern that the idea of the greatest good for greatest number. I personally believe that human life cannot not be converted into monetary values, due to the idea that our life is priceless. Ray Robins (2000) discussed the cost benefit analysis in the health care system and he wrote that cost benefit analysis “ ignores the non-financial costs of pain, suffering, and grief which are often associated with illness [and] is not based on an individual person 's valuations of benefits.”(p. 924) The problem is that “ a third party view is taken about people 's "worth" to the society in terms of their productive potential”(p.924) Even though we live in the society where money can play a huge role, especially in a political decisions, there should be values that cannot have a price tag. Another problem with the cost benefit analysis is usually conducted by wealthy social class. Robert H. Frank(2000) argued that "that using unweighted willingness to-pay measures virtually assures a mix of public programs that are slanted in favor of preferences of high-income persons." R. Frank discussed another problem " they give too much weight to current costs and benefits, too little weight to those that occur in the future, as a result it often generates misleading prescriptions.

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