In war, a certain amount of lives lost is deemed morally acceptable in the defence of certain social values. More often than not, it's the young who lose their lives so the rest of society may flourish. During the COVID pandemic, the young are once again in the firing line - with their biographical rather than biological lives sacrificed. Should we be less accepting of this ethical assumption, and is it time for older generations to consider putting the young first, asks Hugo Slim.
As the UK enters its second national lockdown, the ethical decision-making in the COVID crisis is surprising to someone like me who works on the ethics of war. Politicians typically accept a large number of deaths of their own and other people in war, but they are placing an extraordinarily high value on individual human lives in the COVID pandemic, even as they frame the crisis as comparable to war. Prioritizing the biological life of mainly older people is affecting the life chances of younger people as movement restrictions shrink the economy.
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