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Pandemic Ethics: Good Reasons to Vaccinate: COVID19 Vaccine, Mandatory or Payment Model?
The best chance of bringing the Coronavirus pandemic to an end with the least loss of life and the greatest return to normality seems to be the introduction of an effective vaccine. But how should such a vaccine be distributed? To be effective, particularly in protecting the most vulnerable in the population, it would need
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Guest Post- Pandemic Ethics: Your Freedom Really Matters. So What?
Written by Farbod Akhlaghi (University of Oxford) The coronavirus pandemic rages on. To the surprise of many, the enforcement of mask wearing, imposition of lockdowns, and other measures taken to try to halt the pandemic’s march have been met with some heavy and vocal resistance. Such resistance has materialised into protests in various countries against
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Pandemic Ethics: Testing times: An ethical framework and practical recommendations for COVID-19 testing for NHS workers
Dr Alberto Giubilini, Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities was part of an independent rapid-response project to develop an ethical framework for COVID-19 swab testing for NHS workers. Following a stakeholder consultation, the expert group have published a report identifying ethical considerations and providing
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Guest Post: Is it Wrong to Lower Your Chances of Doing What You Ought to Do?
Written by Farbod Akhlaghi (University of Oxford) Suppose you have a moral obligation to take care of your ailing parent tomorrow. If you did something that would lower your chances of fulfilling that moral obligation – like going out partying all night tonight – would you thereby have done something morally wrong? We do things
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Video Series: Why Parental Status Matters When Allocating Scarce Medical Resources
Which patients should we treat, if we can’t treat them all? The Covid-19 pandemic has brought questions about how to allocate scarce medical resources to the forefront. In this Thinking Out Loud interview with Katrien Devolder, Philosopher Moti Gorin (Colorado State University) argues that parents (or primary caregivers) of a dependent child should (sometimes) get
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Pandemic Ethics: Moral Reasoning in a Pandemic [Guest Post]
Cross-Posted with The Boston Review By Professor Frances Kamm, Harvard University Policy discussions during the pandemic have raised concerns for me, as a moral philosopher, about how policy analysts and policy makers are thinking about deaths from COVID-19 and the right way to combat them. The policy discussions I have in mind have ranged from
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The Urge to Destroy is Also a Creative Urge
Written by Neil Levy Statues are the latest front in our ongoing culture wars. Symbolism (as all sides agree) is not the be all and end all of politics, but it does matter. Those who want the statues to fall argue that they are harmful, because they commemorate racists (and worse) and thereby contribute to
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Rhodes Must Fall: Oxford’s Institutional Response
Written by Ben Davies I recently watched an excellent panel discussion, ‘Statues, Slavery and the Struggle for Equality’ with Labour MP Dawn Butler, historian David Olusoga, philosopher Susan Neiman, chaired by writer Yassmin Abdel-Magied. The discussion was wide-ranging but, as the title suggests, included a focus on the recent resurgence of demands to remove various
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The Utilitarian Truth-Seeker
Written by Stefan Schubert Utilitarianism is often associated with two psychological features. First, acceptance of instrumental harm for the greater good. The utilitarian is famously willing to kill one to save five in the trolley problem. Second, impartial beneficence. The utilitarian is equally concerned with everyone’s well-being, irrespective of their gender, nationality, or species. And
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Video Series: (Un)fair Access to Covid-19 Treatment in Mexico?
Widespread corruption and racism in Mexico created extra hurdles for the development of Mexico’s recently published federal guidelines for deciding who gets to access scarce medical resources (e.g. ventilators in the case of Covid-19). Dr César Palacios-González (Oxford), who helped develop these guidelines, talks about these challenges.