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Is the Prisoner’s Dilemma an Adequate Concept for Ethical Analysis in Healthcare? An Original Institutional Economic Rejoinder

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Abstract

In a recent manuscript, Rogowski and Lange (J Bus Ethics 177:63–77, 2022) evaluate whether the prisoner’s dilemma can be used as a legitimate framework with which to examine health-related economic ethics decisions. In this commentary, I build upon Rogowski and Lange (J Bus Ethics 177:63–77, 2022) using the original institutional economics literature to argue a more subtle, but critical point. Except in extreme circumstances, the use of the prisoner’s dilemma does not qualify as a legitimate, comprehensive framework in which to address most health-related economic ethics problems. Indeed, the intentional characterization of the prisoner’s dilemma as a robust health economic ethics framework is often used to mask the absence of a formal ethical framework. However, this distinction may provide a more concrete, and appropriate, justification to use the prisoner’s dilemma to assess a wider array of health-related economic ethics problems.

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Acknowledgements

The author is extremely grateful to Dr. Julie Nelson (Economics and Business Ethics Section Editor) and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments which greatly improved this manuscript.

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  1. College of Health and Human Sciences, University of Akron, Mary Gladwin Hall 101, Akron, OH, 44325-3700, USA

    Dan Friesner

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  1. Dan Friesner
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Correspondence to Dan Friesner.

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No funding was received for conducting this study. The author has no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article. The manuscript was largely completed while the author was a faculty member at North Dakota State University.

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Friesner, D. Is the Prisoner’s Dilemma an Adequate Concept for Ethical Analysis in Healthcare? An Original Institutional Economic Rejoinder. J Bus Ethics (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-023-05470-5

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