A leading American philosopher and bioethicist looks at the unexamined assumptions that underlie different public policy approaches to the Covid-19 pandemic

This virus infects young and old, rich and poor, politicians and labourers, the able-bodied and the disabled, people of every nation and race. It does have different effects on different people – older persons and those with diabetes or heart conditions fare worse. Mercifully, children do not seem to become so sick. But no one who has not been infected is immune.

This is a pandemic, affecting everyone, and so cities, nations, and the world must respond collectively to the threat. And everyone agrees that, in deciding how best to respond to the pandemic, we must consider the common good. But what is “the common good”? Put somewhat simply, there are four different ways of thinking about the common good, which you might call utilitarian, liberal, authoritarian, and holistic.

Most of the time, societies and governments are not aware of their implicit understanding of where the common good lies. But under pressure the underlying ethical stances emerge and form public policy. How the responses to the pandemic are framed reveal which notion of the common good underlies them.