It also entails the necessity of balancing the potential benefits and harms of any action. In the broadest sense, beneficence is limited in its imperative. For instance, most of society would regard it as foolish to send all their income to relieve poverty in Appalachia or to build flood control systems in China. In medicine, beneficence is usually directed to our efforts on behalf of our patients, but public health measures, research projects, and CME programs can all be viewed as influenced in part by the principle of beneficence. The ethical principle of justice involves giving to each individual in society that which they can legitimately claim.
Most societies proclaim the equal worth of all citizens and pass laws to support that claim.
Yet those same societies have clear disparities in wealth, education, and possessions. Or to each an equal share, or according to their contribution. Health care in the US is a limited resource and is distributed to its citizens in a complicated manner governed by competing philosophies of justice. As it applies to individual patients, the principle of justice suggests that each of our patients have a right to expect an equal effort on their behalf. A child in our care from a welfare family should get care that is of the same quality as the child from a wealthy family.