In "Pandemic Exposures: Economy, Society, and Covid-19," edited by Didier Fassin and Marion Fourcade. HAU Books/University of Chicago Press (Forthcoming) , 2022
In much of the world, the Covid-19 pandemic brought into sharp relief some fundamental and long-s... more In much of the world, the Covid-19 pandemic brought into sharp relief some fundamental and long-standing tensions among democratic governance, economic reasoning, scientific authority, and moral intuitions. These tensions are especially strong in the United States, given the peculiar coexistence of free market fundamentalism, patriotic communitarianism, libertarianism, social conservatism, positivism, and religiosity so distinctive of this country. The pandemic forced choices whose public expression--which ranged from folksy common sense to austere utilitarian logic--took increasingly stark and dichotomized forms.
The debates over lockdowns, vaccines, and other measures centered on how we weigh lives against economic well-being. They expressed something fundamental about the way Americans think about economics, the public good, and the legitimacy and powers of social agency. Because of the way these arguments tended to portray the responses in sharply dichotomous terms, they often bore a strong resemblance to the so-called "Trolley Problem" in moral philosophy, which I will describe below. Seeing how this problem was brought to bear on real social policy and people's reactions to it on the ground sheds light on some of the characteristic features, and shortcomings, of the utilitarian rationality that underlies it. Looking in turn from the formality of the trolley problem back to the pandemic can also clarify the broader assumptions that underlay the American debates.
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The debates over lockdowns, vaccines, and other measures centered on how we weigh lives against economic well-being. They expressed something fundamental about the way Americans think about economics, the public good, and the legitimacy and powers of social agency. Because of the way these arguments tended to portray the responses in sharply dichotomous terms, they often bore a strong resemblance to the so-called "Trolley Problem" in moral philosophy, which I will describe below. Seeing how this problem was brought to bear on real social policy and people's reactions to it on the ground sheds light on some of the characteristic features, and shortcomings, of the utilitarian rationality that underlies it. Looking in turn from the formality of the trolley problem back to the pandemic can also clarify the broader assumptions that underlay the American debates.