Distributive justice and the harm to medical professionals fighting epidemics

The exposure of doctors, nurses and other medical
professionals to risks in the context of epidemics is
significant. While traditional medical ethics offers the
thought that these dangers may limit the extent to
which a duty to care is applicable in such situations, it
has less to say about what we might owe to medical
professionals who are disadvantaged in these contexts.
Luck egalitarianism, a responsibility-sensitive theory
of distributive justice, appears to fare particularly bad
in that regard. If we want to maintain that medical
professionals are responsible for their decisions to help,
cure and care for the vulnerable, luck egalitarianism
seems to imply that their claim of justice to medical
attention in case of infection is weak or non-existent.
The article demonstrates how a recent interpretation
of luck egalitarianism offers a solution to this problem.
Redefining luck egalitarianism as concerned with
responsibility for creating disadvantages, rather than
for incurring disadvantage as such, makes it possible to
maintain that medical professionals are responsible for
their choices and that those infected because of their
choice to help fight epidemics have a full claim of justice
to medical attention.