Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
With increasing inoculations and emerging coronavirus variants, governments worldwide are challenged to adopt proper liberty-restricting measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and minimise grave consequences for liberty and well-being caused by over a year-long pandemic. Cameron et al’s proposal of a selective strategy addresses this pressing issue.1 Following Savulescu and Cameron, they argue for limiting the liberty of the elderly. But, instead of claiming not doing so is an instance of wrongful levelling down equality, they argue this discriminative strategy is morally acceptable.2 I argue against the selective liberty-restrictive measures after proposing a revision of the five-limb proportionality test that plays a pivotal role in supporting their argument.
The following is a reconstruction of Cameron et al’s central argument:
(P1) It is ethically acceptable to promote the best outcome.
(P2) One way to promote the best outcome is to maximise utility at the population level without imposing unreasonable costs on the most vulnerable individuals. (p7)
(P3) All else being equal, adopting selective liberty-restricting measures in the COVID-19 pandemic is the best way to maximise utility at the population level without imposing unreasonable costs on the most vulnerable individuals.
(P4) If it is ethically acceptable to …
Footnotes
Contributors The author contributed to the conception, analysis, drafting and revising of the manuscript.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
Linked Articles
- Feature article
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- Ethics of selective restriction of liberty in a pandemic
- Health and human rights are inextricably linked in the COVID-19 response
- Building a multisystemic understanding of societal resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic
- Lockdown, public good and equality during COVID-19
- The unintended consequences of COVID-19 vaccine policy: why mandates, passports and restrictions may cause more harm than good
- Mental health condition of college students compared to non-students during COVID-19 lockdown: the CONFINS study
- Protecting privacy in mandatory reporting of infectious diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic: perspectives from a developing country
- Passport to freedom? Immunity passports for COVID-19
- The COVID-19 pandemic and health inequalities
- Lockdown and levelling down: why Savulescu and Cameron are mistaken about selective isolation of the elderly