COVID-19 Response: Kantian Ethics Vindicated?
Hello,
I'm new to this group, please forgive me if this discussion already exists. As the global response to COVID-19 has unfolded I've been wondering how societies recent actions might inform the debate about normative ethics, more specifically, between Kantian Ethics and Utilitarianism.
It seems to me that a Utilitarian approach to the pandemic would be to literally do nothing. If approximately 5% of the population (a high estimate) eventually succumb to COVID-19, 95% of us would be better off just going about business as usual. The greater good for the greater number of people would clearly be served by simply letting the most susceptible die.
Kantian ethics, on the other hand, would lead us to take the same actions currently being taken by most societies around the world. Our actions meet the standard of the categorical imperative, they are: Universal (or at least they are intended to be), Humane (the majority of society is sacrificing for the most vulnerable, clearly treating them as ends in and of themselves) and Autonomous, (the primary method for eliciting cooperation is stating that we as a society have a moral responsibility to one another, convincing, not compelling).
I have often heard that when circumstances are at their most dire (such as in warfare of triage medicine), we turn to Utilitarian ethics. I am aware that in areas with severe outbreaks, considerations about who has the greatest expectation of recovery are factors in deciding who can receive medical treatment. However, I feel the broader response has been far more humane, namely, how can we save the most lives, no matter who they are or what their circumstances.
I'm curious to hear any thoughts or criticisms along these lines. Thanks, stay safe!
I'm new to this group, please forgive me if this discussion already exists. As the global response to COVID-19 has unfolded I've been wondering how societies recent actions might inform the debate about normative ethics, more specifically, between Kantian Ethics and Utilitarianism.
It seems to me that a Utilitarian approach to the pandemic would be to literally do nothing. If approximately 5% of the population (a high estimate) eventually succumb to COVID-19, 95% of us would be better off just going about business as usual. The greater good for the greater number of people would clearly be served by simply letting the most susceptible die.
Kantian ethics, on the other hand, would lead us to take the same actions currently being taken by most societies around the world. Our actions meet the standard of the categorical imperative, they are: Universal (or at least they are intended to be), Humane (the majority of society is sacrificing for the most vulnerable, clearly treating them as ends in and of themselves) and Autonomous, (the primary method for eliciting cooperation is stating that we as a society have a moral responsibility to one another, convincing, not compelling).
I have often heard that when circumstances are at their most dire (such as in warfare of triage medicine), we turn to Utilitarian ethics. I am aware that in areas with severe outbreaks, considerations about who has the greatest expectation of recovery are factors in deciding who can receive medical treatment. However, I feel the broader response has been far more humane, namely, how can we save the most lives, no matter who they are or what their circumstances.
I'm curious to hear any thoughts or criticisms along these lines. Thanks, stay safe!
Comments (13)
Utilitarianism will win every time.
You call it enforcement, Kantian ethics calls it constraint. There is, then, at least something prohibitive.
“...although they themselves recognize its authority; and when they do obey it, to obey it unwillingly (with resistance of their inclination); and it is in this that the constraint properly consists....”
(The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, 1780, in T.K. Abbott, 1895)
Why would you have to?
Ahhh.....I see. Because you can’t express why you wouldn’t do something, you’ve been given tacit permission to do it? Another win for utilitarianism, then?
Fascinating.
Not really. I’m just demonstrating that Kantian deontology faces its own form of enforcement, that’s all. There are worse things than being led away in handcuffs.
Why is it obvious to you that there'd be less happiness with 5% dead and 95% employment as opposed to 1% dead and 50% employment. Sounds like a value question.
If 5% died, that would cause unspeakable suffering for the remaining 95% simply because everyone would have close friends and relatives among the dead. So for purely utilitarian reasons that would be intolerable.
From a Kantian perspective it’s possible to turn the argument on its head and say that people’s concrete and personal livelihood is being sacrificed to save unspecified people in society. We don’t know who might contract the virus so if there were no measures, no particular person would be treated as a means to someone else’s end. As it now is, real named persons are being laid off for the benefit of an abstract and unknown entity, a purely potential society of people who might or might not get sick. All the lockdown measures do nothing to help people who are already sick, and only they are concrete persons in the Kantian sense.
The interesting utilitarian dilemma is how to balance the measures so that as few people as possible will suffer the loss of life and livelihood. If the measures are too harsh that may cause a lot of death from other reason than the virus itself since poverty also kills. Incidentally, that is also a Kantian dilemma since poor people may be viewed as sacrificed for the benefit of sick people.