Our aim in this brief essay is not to defend a particular policy or attitude toward lockdown measures in the United States or elsewhere, but to consider the scope and limits of different types of arguments that can be offered for them. Understanding the complexity of these issues will, we hope, go some way to helping us understand each other and our attitudes toward state responses to the pandemic

Barry, Christian

Lazar, Seth

English

PhilPapers

Christian Barry and Seth Lazar May 22, 2020Justifying Lockdownethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2020/justifying-lockdown/Anti-lockdown protest at the Governor’s Residence in St Paul, Minnesota. Photocredit: Lorie Shaull via Wikimedia CommonsThroughout most of the world, significant restrictions have been placed on freedoms tomove about, to associate in public, and to be in many public spaces. These practices areoften collectively referred to as “lockdown.” Few of us enjoy lockdown, and a smallminority is furiously protesting against it. In the United States, which currently hasmany more COVID-19 infections than any other country in the world, some protestorshave been gathering to call for these lockdowns to end, and for a return to work.  And inmost places governments are indeed beginning to relax, to varying degrees, the verysubstantial restrictions that lockdown has involved.For many, a first reaction to the protests was shock at how reckless they seemed, giventhe continued prevalence of the virus there.  There are clear and legitimate concernsabout whether the relaxation of lockdown restrictions is premature in the Unites Statesand many other parts of the world. But the question such protestors and others areraising—how the often very significant costs that are being coercively imposed uponpopulations can be justified—is a sensible one that deserves a reasoned response.Without such a response, we will not be able to think clearly about the conditions under121/7which relaxing these restrictions is justified, or about when, should things take a turnfor the worse, they should be reinstated. Our aim in this brief essay is not to defend aparticular policy or attitude toward lockdown measures in the United States orelsewhere, but to consider the scope and limits of different types of arguments that canbe offered for them. Understanding the complexity of these issues will, we hope, gosome way to helping us understand each other and our attitudes toward state responsesto the pandemic.What arguments can be presented for why, given the significant costs a lockdown mayimpose, it can nevertheless be required? The first thing to note is that, while there is nodoubt that COVID-19 will get us all if it can, it is equally clear that its effects varysignificantly across individuals—some of those infected will have only relatively mildsymptoms or show no symptoms at all, while for others it will result in severerespiratory problems or be fatal. But, to be effective, any measures taken to combat apandemic impose costs on us all—whether it is wearing a mask when you go out,running an app that potentially undermines your privacy, working from home or,indeed, not being able to work at all. So the question, more precisely, is this: under whatcircumstances can some people be expected, even compelled, to bear costs for the sakeof others? Philosophy offers two broad toolkits to draw on to answer this question: onefocused on moral philosophy and what we owe to each other; the other focused onpolitical philosophy and the design of just institutions and social structures. Here weconsider only the arguments from moral philosophy. We think there are three mainkinds.In Our Best Interest? The Paternalistic Argument The first argument is that, while the actual benefits and burdens of lockdown will falldifferently on different people, when we consider them in prospect—from thebeginning, without knowing for sure what will happen—any given person stands tobenefit from the policy. In other words, the risks of alternatives to lockdown, for a givenperson, are greater than the risks of lockdown itself. We might then argue that it ispermissible to oblige people to remain at home, or to use a privacy-invading trackingapp, or to wear a mask outside the home, on the grounds that the expected benefit tothem of doing so outweighs the expected cost to them. This is one argument for policiessuch as mandatory vaccination: for each person, the risks of receiving the vaccine areless than those of forgoing it, even though there are a few people who may be madeworse off through an adverse reaction to the vaccine.This type of argument is fundamentally paternalistic—we (the government) can forceyou to do something because it is in your prospective interest to do so. The paternalisticargument is consistent with the fact that some people—including the elderly, those withunderlying health conditions, and health workers—may stand to benefit even more, exante, than, for example,  young and healthy people working in businesses that aredeemed “nonessential.” This might be justified on the grounds that we should, forexample, give the most vulnerable extra weight in our deliberations. Or it might beremedied by seeking to ensure that more of the expected costs fall on those who are2/7expected to benefit more, while offsetting the costs to those that benefit least.The paternalistic argument for lockdown has two premises. Its first, empirical, premiseis that it is indeed in the interest of each person to be compelled to restrict theiractivities via lockdown. Its second, moral, premise is that when restricting people is intheir best interest, we are permitted to do so. Both of these premises can be contested.It is possible that many young people have relatively little to fear from COVID-19, butface very real costs from the lockdown. Indeed, unlike in the case of mandatoryvaccination,  there simply do not exist clear models of how communities will fare withand without lockdown measures that we can use to claim with sufficient confidence thatall will be made better off, in prospect, relative to alternatives. The moral premise canbe challenged because it sits uneasily with other values, such as commitment toindividual freedom. After all, if one wants to run the risk of continuing to go to work,even though  it may exceed the risk of remaining at home, then on what grounds shouldothers, or the state, override his or her free choice? Indeed, this is precisely theargument that many of the protesters are making.Note, also, that for the paternalistic argument to hold, not only must the proposedrestrictions actually achieve the stated prospective benefits but they must also benecessary to achieving them. If we could attain these benefits by exiting lockdown tosome degree, then these restrictions would no longer be justified. However, even if itwould once have been possible to achieve these benefits without lockdown—for exampleby using more targeted measures such as widespread testing, tracing, and isolation—that option may now be off the table. What is possible and necessary to minimize therisks of COVID-19 at any given moment will depend on what has been done previously.Our Willingness to Bear Costs for Others: The Altruistic Argument The second argument appeals to our altruism—our willingness to bear costs for the goodof others—rather than to prudential concern for how to promote our own interests.There are two key variants of this argument. The first says that some should bear costsfor the sake of others whenever that is the best way to reduce the overall costs borne.This assumes a pretty demanding form of altruism, where each of us views costs borneby everyone else as weighing just the same as the costs to ourselves. Most of us are notquite so altruistic. And we might sensibly question whether such costs can be coercivelyimposed on us, even if we were inclined to assume them voluntarily. The second,weaker version of this argument is that it is okay for some to bear some costs for thesake of realizing much greater benefits for others. So, while the costs of lockdown forsome people are no doubt substantial, they pale in comparison (one could argue) withthe costs to others of allowing the pandemic to spread unchecked. (New York GovernorAndrew Cuomo made this argument.)This second variant of the second argument is hard to argue against when it comes to atleast some measures, such as apps supporting contact tracing, which are notparticularly burdensome. For most people, the privacy costs of using any particular app3/7are going to be relatively small. So surely one could be required to bear a cost asnegligible as that if the use of the app has the (even relatively slim) prospect of savinglives. But, of course, for some people the costs that lockdown imposes may far exceedthe privacy costs of using an app and, when they do, the force of this argument iscorrespondingly diminished.As we have seen, this argument does not depend on an appeal to individual prudence.So, unlike the paternalistic argument, it cannot plausibly be defeated if people decidefor themselves to reject the prospective benefits of lockdown. It does involve asubstantial moral commitment—the idea that one person can be morally required tobear costs in order to help others at risk of serious harm. The authors endorse thismoral commitment. But we recognize that it is controversial and that many will notaccept it (including, clearly, some who are currently protesting the lockdowns in theUnited States). Yet even if this commitment is accepted, the force of this argument willcontinue to weaken as the costs that some people must bear increase relative to thebenefits conferred on others.“Don’t Tread On Me:” The Argument for Preventing Excessive HarmThe first argument justified lockdown by appealing to each person’s best interest. Thesecond argument appealed instead to their altruistic concern for others. The thirdargument relates to the limits of what we can do to others. It posits that governmentscan limit people’s freedoms when necessary to prevent them from imposing excessiverisk of harm on others. (The philosopher Helen Frowe has recently made thisargument.)  This kind of argument is common: it underlies prohibitions on speeding, oron selling unlicensed medicines or unpasteurized milk, and so on. Many of the U.S.activists protesting stay-at-home orders seem to endorse a “don’t tread on me” ethos.This third argument offers a twist on that ethos, essentially saying that the governmentcan “tread” on you (in this case, making you stay home) so that you do not go treadingon others.This sort of argument is most forceful when the risks that one is prevented fromimposing are significant, and the associated costs are relatively modest. So how greatare the risks? Suppose we want to know whether continued stay-at-home orders arejustified. We would have to ask, for each person, how much more likely it is that theywould catch COVID-19 should they not remain at home, and how likely it is that theywould pass it on, and to how many people. Then, when we know how many subsequentcases of the disease could be traced back to this person’s infection, we would have tofigure out the likely outcomes for those patients.Determining the risks attached to being infected with COVID-19 is very difficult. Forone, we do not currently know how many people have been infected with the virus. Weknow that a substantial number of those confirmed to have COVID-19 needhospitalization, and that, although the case mortality rate (the number of thoseconfirmed to have COVID-19 who die) varies widely across countries, it is quite high insome places, including in the United States where it is currently 5.98 percent.  In the34/7absence of stay-at-home orders, as well as an adequate regime of testing, tracking andisolating, it seems likely that the disease will return to what appears to be its stablereproduction rate: that is, each person will, on average, infect two to three others. They,in turn, will infect another two to three people until the chain of transmission isbroken.  Hence, it is not unduly alarmist to say that if one individual infects a couple ofother people directly, he or she would be indirectly responsible for a great manysubsequent infections, with a pretty good chance that some of those will be hospitalized,or die. The risks that we impose if we infect others with COVID-19 are thus very high.And, if the virus continues its path unabated, the probability that your carelessness willlead to someone dying of COVID-19 is also high. So, by keeping people at home we arepreventing them from imposing a very significant risk on others.Although this is an appealingly simple argument, with a strong connection to the “HarmPrinciple” at the heart of modern liberalism (that the state should interfere only toprevent us harming others), there are some interesting objections that require furtherthought. First, the probability that you will cause any particular person’s  death remainsvery low. One question that philosophers have not yet adequately answered is whetherwe should care more about the net total risk imposed on others or about the riskimposed on each particular person. Second, one might argue that if Person A infectsPerson B, and Person B infects Person C, then A is not responsible for C’s infection tothe same degree as she is responsible for B’s. Perhaps the longer the causal chainbetween A and whoever ends up having an adverse reaction to COVID-19, the less theharm they suffer should count against A’s moral balance sheet. Third, if everyone else isrefusing to self-isolate, then one’s own contribution to the causal chain might beirrelevant: that is, if A does not infect B and thus B does not infect C, perhaps Person Dwill infect B, who will then infect C—that is, everyone will end up getting the diseaseanyway, so why should A be held to account for his part in it? Finally, one could arguethat it is possible for any given individual to protect themselves from risk, by strictlylimiting the contacts they have with others. Could not one say, then, that everyone whogoes out into the world voluntarily assumes the resulting risk, and that in cases whererisk-imposition is mutual, it is permissible?We think that the most plausible resolution to these open questions is that, while therisk you expose each individual to does matter, the net overall risk is also veryimportant. At the end of the day, if you knew that your action would kill one person outof a hundred, you would not (or should not) care much that you do not know which ofthe hundred people you expose to risk it will eventually be—simply knowing that oneperson will be killed should make you reconsider your action. And while we do thinkthat the intervening agency of others can reduce your accountability for secondary andtertiary transmissions, what matters most here is foreseeability. If the chain oftransmissions can be stopped by staying home, then it does not much matter whetherthat chain would involve other people’s voluntary choices.  Third, although there isdefinitely a collective action problem here, that does not get us off the hook. If wecannot control the behavior of others, we can at least signal a willingness to cooperateand work together for the best overall outcome. Certainly, actively advertising a5/7willingness to undermine our collective defense, by protesting against lockdown, wouldbe wrong. Lastly, if it was possible to avoid exposure to risk without the cooperation ofothers, then the argument from reciprocity might work. But it clearly is not: mostpeople, especially the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, simply cannot unilaterallyprotect themselves from risk.It seems clear that when COVID-19 is prevalent, lockdown substantially reduces the riskthat you as an individual will cause severe harm to other people, and that this can giveyou a strong reason to endure the costs that lockdown involves. But much still dependson how severe those costs are. The least we can say is that you are plausibly required tobear a much greater cost to avoid imposing severe risks of harm on others, than you arein order to benefit them (the second argument).The three arguments we have outlined above are distinct, but they are also compatiblewith one another. It should be clear that none of them provides a decisive reason forcontinuing lockdown in the absence of a vaccine, and all of them depend on empiricalpremises that we have not supported here. The application of each argument dependscrucially on contextual factors. In particular, we need to recall the perspective ofpolitical philosophy, and note that the costs weighed against the reduced risk, in eachcase, are not a fixed quantity. In a just society the costs of lockdown will be fairly sharedso that they are borne by those best able to do so, and will be unduly burdensome fornobody. And where costs are unavoidable, they can potentially be offset by other means—for example by planning a recovery that puts young people at the center of theeconomy, or repays the debt to the young by taking real action on climate change. In anunjust society, without adequate redistributive institutions, the individual costs oflockdown will be much higher for the most disadvantaged. However, they are also likelyto bear the greatest costs from lifting lockdown as well. In such circumstances theamount of cost that the advantaged can be required to bear can clearly increase, tomake up for the injustice of the society from which they benefit. So arguments frombillionaires to end the lockdown because it constrains their freedom are particularly ill-judged.Paul Ramsey said, of the ethics of war, “what justifies, limits.”  The same is true for themeasures taken to address the COVID-19 pandemic. By looking at these arguments tojustify the imposition of costs on all for the benefit of some, we can determine the limitsof those cost impositions. Now that national and local governments around the worldare emerging from lockdown and starting to consider other, less invasive measures forcontrolling the pandemic, the key question they need to ask is whether we have reachedthese limits. Some have presented our plight in these epoch-defining times as being agrand trolley problem—do you sacrifice the young for the sake of the old, or the old forthe sake of the economy. There are unavoidable costs to bear, and someone must bearthem. But to view the justification of lockdown—and its ending—in this way is to ignoreour moral agency, both in diminishing the overall costs that will have to be borne, andthe fact that, at the end of the day, the virus can spread only if we spread it to oneanother.46/7—Christian Barry and Seth LazarChristian Barry is Professor of Philosophy and Head of School in Philosophy at theAustralian National University, and Co-Editor of the Journal of Political Philosophy. Seth Lazar is a Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University, andleader of the multidisciplinary Humanizing Machine Intelligence research project,which studies and develops democratically legitimate artificial-intelligence systems.NOTES7/7

Justifying Lockdown

Throughout most of the world, significant restrictions have been placed on freedoms to move about, to associate in public, and to be in many public spaces. These practices are often collectively referred to as “lockdown.” Few of us enjoy lockdown, and a small minority is furiously protesting against it. In the United States, which currently has many more COVID-19 infections than any other country in the world, some protestors have been gathering to call for these lockdowns to end, and for a return to work.1 And in most places governments are indeed beginning to relax, to varying degrees, the very substantial restrictions that lockdown has involved

The Australian National University

Christian Barry and Seth Lazar May 22,2020Justifying Lockdownethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2020/justifying-lockdown/Anti-lockdown protest at the Governor’s Residence in St Paul, Minnesota. Photo credit:Lorie Shaull via Wikimedia CommonsThroughout most of the world, significant restrictions have been placed on freedoms tomove about, to associate in public, and to be in many public spaces. These practices areoften collectively referred to as “lockdown.” Few of us enjoy lockdown, and a smallminority is furiously protesting against it. In the United States, which currently has manymore COVID-19 infections than any other country in the world, some protestors havebeen gathering to call for these lockdowns to end, and for a return to work.  And in mostplaces governments are indeed beginning to relax, to varying degrees, the verysubstantial restrictions that lockdown has involved.For many, a first reaction to the protests was shock at how reckless they seemed, giventhe continued prevalence of the virus there.  There are clear and legitimate concernsabout whether the relaxation of lockdown restrictions is premature in the Unites Statesand many other parts of the world. But the question such protestors and others areraising—how the often very significant costs that are being coercively imposed uponpopulations can be justified—is a sensible one that deserves a reasoned response.121/7Without such a response, we will not be able to think clearly about the conditions underwhich relaxing these restrictions is justified, or about when, should things take a turn forthe worse, they should be reinstated. Our aim in this brief essay is not to defend aparticular policy or attitude toward lockdown measures in the United States orelsewhere, but to consider the scope and limits of different types of arguments that canbe offered for them. Understanding the complexity of these issues will, we hope, gosome way to helping us understand each other and our attitudes toward state responsesto the pandemic.What arguments can be presented for why, given the significant costs a lockdown mayimpose, it can nevertheless be required? The first thing to note is that, while there is nodoubt that COVID-19 will get us all if it can, it is equally clear that its effects varysignificantly across individuals—some of those infected will have only relatively mildsymptoms or show no symptoms at all, while for others it will result in severe respiratoryproblems or be fatal. But, to be effective, any measures taken to combat a pandemicimpose costs on us all—whether it is wearing a mask when you go out, running an appthat potentially undermines your privacy, working from home or, indeed, not being ableto work at all. So the question, more precisely, is this: under what circumstances cansome people be expected, even compelled, to bear costs for the sake of others?Philosophy offers two broad toolkits to draw on to answer this question: one focused onmoral philosophy and what we owe to each other; the other focused on politicalphilosophy and the design of just institutions and social structures. Here we consideronly the arguments from moral philosophy. We think there are three main kinds.In Our Best Interest? The Paternalistic Argument The first argument is that, while the actual benefits and burdens of lockdown will falldifferently on different people, when we consider them in prospect—from the beginning,without knowing for sure what will happen—any given person stands to benefit from thepolicy. In other words, the risks of alternatives to lockdown, for a given person, aregreater than the risks of lockdown itself. We might then argue that it is permissible tooblige people to remain at home, or to use a privacy-invading tracking app, or to wear amask outside the home, on the grounds that the expected benefit to them of doing sooutweighs the expected cost to them. This is one argument for policies such asmandatory vaccination: for each person, the risks of receiving the vaccine are less thanthose of forgoing it, even though there are a few people who may be made worse offthrough an adverse reaction to the vaccine.This type of argument is fundamentally paternalistic—we (the government) can forceyou to do something because it is in your prospective interest to do so. The paternalisticargument is consistent with the fact that some people—including the elderly, those withunderlying health conditions, and health workers—may stand to benefit even more, exante, than, for example,  young and healthy people working in businesses that aredeemed “nonessential.” This might be justified on the grounds that we should, for2/7example, give the most vulnerable extra weight in our deliberations. Or it might beremedied by seeking to ensure that more of the expected costs fall on those who areexpected to benefit more, while offsetting the costs to those that benefit least.The paternalistic argument for lockdown has two premises. Its first, empirical, premise isthat it is indeed in the interest of each person to be compelled to restrict their activitiesvia lockdown. Its second, moral, premise is that when restricting people is in their bestinterest, we are permitted to do so. Both of these premises can be contested.It is possible that many young people have relatively little to fear from COVID-19, butface very real costs from the lockdown. Indeed, unlike in the case of mandatoryvaccination,  there simply do not exist clear models of how communities will fare withand without lockdown measures that we can use to claim with sufficient confidence thatall will be made better off, in prospect, relative to alternatives. The moral premise can bechallenged because it sits uneasily with other values, such as commitment to individualfreedom. After all, if one wants to run the risk of continuing to go to work, even though  itmay exceed the risk of remaining at home, then on what grounds should others, or thestate, override his or her free choice? Indeed, this is precisely the argument that many ofthe protesters are making.Note, also, that for the paternalistic argument to hold, not only must the proposedrestrictions actually achieve the stated prospective benefits but they must also benecessary to achieving them. If we could attain these benefits by exiting lockdown tosome degree, then these restrictions would no longer be justified. However, even if itwould once have been possible to achieve these benefits without lockdown—forexample by using more targeted measures such as widespread testing, tracing, andisolation—that option may now be off the table. What is possible and necessary tominimize the risks of COVID-19 at any given moment will depend on what has been donepreviously.Our Willingness to Bear Costs for Others: The Altruistic Argument The second argument appeals to our altruism—our willingness to bear costs for the goodof others—rather than to prudential concern for how to promote our own interests.There are two key variants of this argument. The first says that some should bear costsfor the sake of others whenever that is the best way to reduce the overall costs borne.This assumes a pretty demanding form of altruism, where each of us views costs borneby everyone else as weighing just the same as the costs to ourselves. Most of us are notquite so altruistic. And we might sensibly question whether such costs can be coercivelyimposed on us, even if we were inclined to assume them voluntarily. The second, weakerversion of this argument is that it is okay for some to bear some costs for the sake ofrealizing much greater benefits for others. So, while the costs of lockdown for somepeople are no doubt substantial, they pale in comparison (one could argue) with thecosts to others of allowing the pandemic to spread unchecked. (New York GovernorAndrew Cuomo made this argument.)3/7This second variant of the second argument is hard to argue against when it comes to atleast some measures, such as apps supporting contact tracing, which are not particularlyburdensome. For most people, the privacy costs of using any particular app are going tobe relatively small. So surely one could be required to bear a cost as negligible as that ifthe use of the app has the (even relatively slim) prospect of saving lives. But, of course,for some people the costs that lockdown imposes may far exceed the privacy costs ofusing an app and, when they do, the force of this argument is correspondinglydiminished.As we have seen, this argument does not depend on an appeal to individual prudence.So, unlike the paternalistic argument, it cannot plausibly be defeated if people decide forthemselves to reject the prospective benefits of lockdown. It does involve a substantialmoral commitment—the idea that one person can be morally required to bear costs inorder to help others at risk of serious harm. The authors endorse this moralcommitment. But we recognize that it is controversial and that many will not accept it(including, clearly, some who are currently protesting the lockdowns in the UnitedStates). Yet even if this commitment is accepted, the force of this argument will continueto weaken as the costs that some people must bear increase relative to the benefitsconferred on others.“Don’t Tread On Me:” The Argument for Preventing Excessive HarmThe first argument justified lockdown by appealing to each person’s best interest. Thesecond argument appealed instead to their altruistic concern for others. The thirdargument relates to the limits of what we can do to others. It posits that governmentscan limit people’s freedoms when necessary to prevent them from imposing excessiverisk of harm on others. (The philosopher Helen Frowe has recently made this argument.) This kind of argument is common: it underlies prohibitions on speeding, or on sellingunlicensed medicines or unpasteurized milk, and so on. Many of the U.S. activistsprotesting stay-at-home orders seem to endorse a “don’t tread on me” ethos. This thirdargument offers a twist on that ethos, essentially saying that the government can “tread”on you (in this case, making you stay home) so that you do not go treading on others.This sort of argument is most forceful when the risks that one is prevented fromimposing are significant, and the associated costs are relatively modest. So how greatare the risks? Suppose we want to know whether continued stay-at-home orders arejustified. We would have to ask, for each person, how much more likely it is that theywould catch COVID-19 should they not remain at home, and how likely it is that theywould pass it on, and to how many people. Then, when we know how many subsequentcases of the disease could be traced back to this person’s infection, we would have tofigure out the likely outcomes for those patients.Determining the risks attached to being infected with COVID-19 is very difficult. For one,we do not currently know how many people have been infected with the virus. We knowthat a substantial number of those confirmed to have COVID-19 need hospitalization, andthat, although the case mortality rate (the number of those confirmed to have COVID-194/7who die) varies widely across countries, it is quite high in some places, including in theUnited States where it is currently 5.98 percent.  In the absence of stay-at-home orders,as well as an adequate regime of testing, tracking and isolating, it seems likely that thedisease will return to what appears to be its stable reproduction rate: that is, each personwill, on average, infect two to three others. They, in turn, will infect another two to threepeople until the chain of transmission is broken.  Hence, it is not unduly alarmist to saythat if one individual infects a couple of other people directly, he or she would beindirectly responsible for a great many subsequent infections, with a pretty good chancethat some of those will be hospitalized, or die. The risks that we impose if we infectothers with COVID-19 are thus very high. And, if the virus continues its path unabated,the probability that your carelessness will lead to someone dying of COVID-19 is alsohigh. So, by keeping people at home we are preventing them from imposing a verysignificant risk on others.Although this is an appealingly simple argument, with a strong connection to the “HarmPrinciple” at the heart of modern liberalism (that the state should interfere only toprevent us harming others), there are some interesting objections that require furtherthought. First, the probability that you will cause any particular person’s death remainsvery low. One question that philosophers have not yet adequately answered is whetherwe should care more about the net total risk imposed on others or about the riskimposed on each particular person. Second, one might argue that if Person A infectsPerson B, and Person B infects Person C, then A is not responsible for C’s infection to thesame degree as she is responsible for B’s. Perhaps the longer the causal chain between Aand whoever ends up having an adverse reaction to COVID-19, the less the harm theysuffer should count against A’s moral balance sheet. Third, if everyone else is refusing toself-isolate, then one’s own contribution to the causal chain might be irrelevant: that is, ifA does not infect B and thus B does not infect C, perhaps Person D will infect B, who willthen infect C—that is, everyone will end up getting the disease anyway, so why should Abe held to account for his part in it? Finally, one could argue that it is possible for anygiven individual to protect themselves from risk, by strictly limiting the contacts they havewith others. Could not one say, then, that everyone who goes out into the worldvoluntarily assumes the resulting risk, and that in cases where risk-imposition is mutual,it is permissible?We think that the most plausible resolution to these open questions is that, while the riskyou expose each individual to does matter, the net overall risk is also very important. Atthe end of the day, if you knew that your action would kill one person out of a hundred,you would not (or should not) care much that you do not know which of the hundredpeople you expose to risk it will eventually be—simply knowing that one person will bekilled should make you reconsider your action. And while we do think that theintervening agency of others can reduce your accountability for secondary and tertiarytransmissions, what matters most here is foreseeability. If the chain of transmissions canbe stopped by staying home, then it does not much matter whether that chain wouldinvolve other people’s voluntary choices.  Third, although there is definitely a collectiveaction problem here, that does not get us off the hook. If we cannot control the behavior35/7of others, we can at least signal a willingness to cooperate and work together for thebest overall outcome. Certainly, actively advertising a willingness to undermine ourcollective defense, by protesting against lockdown, would be wrong. Lastly, if it waspossible to avoid exposure to risk without the cooperation of others, then the argumentfrom reciprocity might work. But it clearly is not: most people, especially the mostdisadvantaged and vulnerable, simply cannot unilaterally protect themselves from risk.It seems clear that when COVID-19 is prevalent, lockdown substantially reduces the riskthat you as an individual will cause severe harm to other people, and that this can giveyou a strong reason to endure the costs that lockdown involves. But much still dependson how severe those costs are. The least we can say is that you are plausibly required tobear a much greater cost to avoid imposing severe risks of harm on others, than you arein order to benefit them (the second argument).The three arguments we have outlined above are distinct, but they are also compatiblewith one another. It should be clear that none of them provides a decisive reason forcontinuing lockdown in the absence of a vaccine, and all of them depend on empiricalpremises that we have not supported here. The application of each argument dependscrucially on contextual factors. In particular, we need to recall the perspective of politicalphilosophy, and note that the costs weighed against the reduced risk, in each case, arenot a fixed quantity. In a just society the costs of lockdown will be fairly shared so thatthey are borne by those best able to do so, and will be unduly burdensome for nobody.And where costs are unavoidable, they can potentially be offset by other means—forexample by planning a recovery that puts young people at the center of the economy, orrepays the debt to the young by taking real action on climate change. In an unjustsociety, without adequate redistributive institutions, the individual costs of lockdown willbe much higher for the most disadvantaged. However, they are also likely to bear thegreatest costs from lifting lockdown as well. In such circumstances the amount of costthat the advantaged can be required to bear can clearly increase, to make up for theinjustice of the society from which they benefit. So arguments from billionaires to endthe lockdown because it constrains their freedom are particularly ill-judged.Paul Ramsey said, of the ethics of war, “what justifies, limits.”  The same is true for themeasures taken to address the COVID-19 pandemic. By looking at these arguments tojustify the imposition of costs on all for the benefit of some, we can determine the limitsof those cost impositions. Now that national and local governments around the worldare emerging from lockdown and starting to consider other, less invasive measures forcontrolling the pandemic, the key question they need to ask is whether we have reachedthese limits. Some have presented our plight in these epoch-defining times as being agrand trolley problem—do you sacrifice the young for the sake of the old, or the old forthe sake of the economy. There are unavoidable costs to bear, and someone must bearthem. But to view the justification of lockdown—and its ending—in this way is to ignoreour moral agency, both in diminishing the overall costs that will have to be borne, andthe fact that, at the end of the day, the virus can spread only if we spread it to oneanother.46/7—Christian Barry and Seth LazarChristian Barry is Professor of Philosophy and Head of School in Philosophy at the AustralianNational University, and Co-Editor of the Journal of Political Philosophy. Seth Lazar is a Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University, and leader of themultidisciplinary Humanizing Machine Intelligence research project, which studies anddevelops democratically legitimate artificial-intelligence systems.NOTES7/7

https://philpapers.org/archive/BARJL-2.pdf

Justifying Lockdown

Abstract

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The Australian National University