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Neglected topics

 

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I recently declined to edit a textbook on pandemic ethics (I’m writing another ethics-related book at the moment). Had I agreed, though, I wanted to include chapters on neglected topics, such as:

  • social forces like nationalism that affect the likelihood of pandemics
  • the moral reasoning of marginalized populations, such as migrant agricultural workers
  • how big pharma conceives of pandemic ethics
  • ethical responses to disinformation
  • moral courage and moral distress in a pandemic
  • the ethics of gain of function research

We need to move beyond the usual ethics suspects (e.g., allocation of scarce resources) into these thorny social questions.

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What is Pandemic Ethics?

A pandemic is pervasive in scope and touches virtually every human-made system. In this guidance, we focus on ethics in a government’s or an employer’s actions in a pandemic.

Public health ethics addresses the relationship between those governing or administrating and the population or employees they serve. They are best summarized by the Public Health Code of Ethics of the American Public Health Association.

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