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1 results

  • Trading Off Lives and Livelihoods

  • Greg Bognar
  • Journal:
    Social Philosophy and Policy / Volume 41 / Issue 2 / Winter 2024
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    06 February 2025, pp. 350-369
    Print publication:
    Winter 2024
    • Article
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  • Public health emergencies sometimes require the restriction of civil liberties through social distancing: lockdowns, quarantines, the closure of public spaces and institutions, and so on. Social distancing measures can decrease mortality and morbidity, but they also cause social and economic harm. Policymakers have to make trade-offs between “lives and livelihoods,” while introducing only minimally necessary restrictions on civil liberties. Traditionally, cost-benefit analysis has played a central role in formulating these trade-offs. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that the trade-offs should instead be made on the basis of contractualist moral theory. In this essay, I argue against the use of contractualism for this purpose.