Burden allocation answers the fair worry that unconditional standing means every personal choice obligates everyone else to absorb unlimited consequences. It does not — that would collapse standing into unrestricted cost transfer. A participant retains full standing, and yet the ecology may still hold that a foreseeable burden created by a choice remains partly the chooser’s, that scarce resources may be prioritized elsewhere, and that a benefit may carry conditions directly related to the resource being allocated.
The decisive limit is that consequence may never become expulsion. Someone who smokes does not lose healthcare standing; but under genuine scarcity, allocation may still distinguish cases by prognosis, urgency, or expected benefit — not because the person is worth less, but because a scarce resource must be allocated somehow. Burden allocation is what lets a society hold two things at once: real accountability for costly choices, and a standing that survives them.