COVID-19, uncertainty, and moral experiments

Hist Philos Life Sci. 2021 Jan 13;43(1):8. doi: 10.1007/s40656-020-00360-9.

Abstract

Pandemics like COVID-19 confront us with decisions about life and death that come with great uncertainty, factual as well as moral. How should policy makers deal with such uncertainty? We suggest that rather than to deliberate until they have found the right course of action, they better do moral experiments that generate relevant experiences to enable more reliable moral evaluations and rational decisions.

Keywords: Moral dilemmas; Rationality; Uncertainty.

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19 / epidemiology*
  • COVID-19 / psychology*
  • Humans
  • Morals*
  • Pandemics*
  • SARS-CoV-2 / physiology
  • Uncertainty*