1 I would like to thank David Levy, Erik Angner, and Ross Emmett for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I should especially note David Levy's generosity in making available the scans of Rawls' copy of The Ethics of Competition and other essays, and for accompanying encouragement. 1 For [Rawls], as for the Marxists, positivists, and Utilitarians, moral systems are creations of hum...

I aim to identify and describe some basic elements of a Rawlsian approach that may help us to think conscientiously about how, from the standpoint of justice, we should treat the disabled. Rawls has been criticized for largely ignoring issues of this sort. These criticisms lose their appeal, I suggest, when we distinguish between a Rawlsian standpoint and the limited project Rawls mainly undert...

Whether the prices of certain orphan treatments are justified is highly controversial. One argument is that such therapies should not be funded through the public purse or private health plans because a patient with a rare disease requires more than their 'fair share' of a limited health care budget. Orphan medications can also be denied because they fare poorly in the cost-effectiveness assess...