There follows a guest post by Dr. David Seedhouse, Honorary Professor of Deliberative Practice at Aston University, who says the underlying problem with the Government’s response to COVID-19 was that ethics was thrown out the window without a second thought, so no one reflected on whether it was justified so egregiously to trample on people’s fundamental rights.
One of the most troubling aspects of the Government’s response to the pandemic was its complete disregard for ethics. It seems not to have occurred to the decision-makers that the instant removal of fundamental civil liberties required – and must always require – the most comprehensive ethical justification.
During the largely self-made crisis, the Government passed sweeping mandates with barely any serious reflection on the impacts on millions of people’s lives, and stubbornly refused to listen to a multitude of far more thoughtful, well-informed alternatives.
Inexcusably, it appears that the main reason the Government and its advisors neglected to consider ethics was brute ignorance – they didn’t think about ethics because they have no idea why it is important. To them ethics is at best a scarcely relevant adjunct to ‘following the science’.
Had they understood ethics – or bothered to ask people who do – they would have been able to approach policymaking in a properly balanced and effective manner.
There are several ways to include ethics in decision-making. Two of these are 1) to apply ethical standards and principles and 2) to deliberate holistically. Both can be undertaken simultaneously.
Ethical standards
A range of carefully considered ethical standards has been developed and fought for in the Western world over the past 70 years and more. Arguably the most fundamental of these is the principle of informed consent to interventions, established in both ethical theory and health care law. It is now regarded as essential that any health care professional – including public health professionals – must fully explain the range of possible interventions available and disclose the reasoning behind any recommendation they make. Anything less is either negligent or coercive.
Holistic deliberation
Beyond the application of fundamental principles, ethics may be seen as a thoughtful, wide-ranging decision-making approach which seeks to balance a variety of factors to reach reasonable conclusions. These conclusions will aways include both evidence and values. Taking one without the other is bound to lead to inadequate choices: the evidence cannot speak for itself and value judgements alone quickly become dogma.
The Government and its advisors failed woefully to take account of either understanding of ethics.
Any robust analysis of a personal or social problem requires the consideration of a range of ideas. However it seems that where public health is concerned, policies are routinely drawn up according to a single imperative – ‘we must reduce disease and therefore save lives’ – but of course this imperative itself requires ethical standards and ethical deliberation because, as we have tragically witnessed, trying to save lives in one way risks lives in other ways.
As soon as you start to think beyond the fear of infection to consider the bigger picture, there is a flood of specific ethical issues.
- Is it ethical to force businesses to close their doors?
- Is it ethical to cause so many people to lose their livelihoods?
- How is it acceptable to override basic human rights with so little public involvement?
- Is it ethical to close schools, particularly when the evidence that this will help control the spread of the virus is unclear? (In 2022 it is now clear that this made little or no difference to ‘stopping the spread’.)
- Do restrictions heighten social inequalities (it is easier to self-isolate in a comfortable home, it is easier to cope if you have a pleasant garden, it is easier to weather financial uncertainty if you have a secure career and savings)?
- Given that governments have borrowed many billions to weather the crisis, and this debt will have to be repaid, is it ethical to cause hardship and suffering to future generations in the interest of existing generations?
There are many other measurable harms that should have been considered. ‘Minimising death’ was only one of many possible rationales. Consequently, the Government’s stubborn failure to reflect in a professional, balanced way caused massive, avoidable damage.
Ethics is ultimately a matter of respecting thoughtful traditions grounded in compassion and human rights, and thinking as deeply as possible about the many effects your choices will have on other people. Ethics is the essence of civilised human co-existence. Over the past two years a handful of people, quite out of their depth, were able to dismiss ethics – along with previous well-documented Government pandemic planning – with what seemed like a mere wave of the hand.
We must ensure that this can never happen again.
Professor David Seedhouse is a member of HART. This article forms part of HART’s developing response to the consultation on the U.K. COVID-19 Public Inquiry.
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Would the very act of enforcing this not be stirring up hatred?
Well I’m feeling pretty stirred up.
I’m thoroughly fed up of these self-righteous, sanctimonious, idiot, wannabe dictators.
I don’t think it will kill comedy. Maybe public comedy, stand up comedy, comedy shows. But there’ll still be plenty of private comedy. It’ll just be behind close doors, in strict confidence. It’ll be like the Soviet Union, a dreary, fearful place, where technocrats rule everything and keep everyone in fear.
But that’s what Scots voted for, apparently, so…
Scotland doesn’t get to vote for the civil service and neither do the other nations.
The objective will be the same in the rest of the UK. The UK government is happy to block the Scottish Government but not on this.
I’m not sure Scots voted for this, was it in the SNP manifesto? It could be argued that even if it wasn’t in the SNP manifesto Scots should of known what the SNP are like and expected something like this, or the gender self ID law that was blocked by the UK government and opposed by about 70% of the Scottish population, so maybe they’ve only got themselves to blame. If only they could put common sense ahead of their hatred of the Tories/English. I truly despair of the country I’ve lived in for the last 12 years and wonder if I would of been better of staying in England.
Yes but behind closed doors in your own house there could be a snitch that goes and reports you and the law takes on board what that person says, no matter what you have to say. If that person says you were indulging in hate speech then the new laws just accept that. ——It is actually becoming worse than the Soviet Union. This is what the “Progressive” means in “Liberal Progressive”. ——–Slowly progressing bit by bit by bit so you don’t notice. But “progressing” to what? ——The answer is bigger and bigger government having more and more power over you and I
Here’s hoping the SNP are soundly routed in the next General Election, and tyrannical legislation like this is repealed?
But I’m in England, so if the Scots are crazy enough to vote for this, its on them, not me!
We can only assume a Labour led Scotland actually would repeal this!
Whatever, Humza needs to be sent packing, the guy is a moron.
What do Billy Connelly, Kevin Bridges and Frankie Boyle have to say about this?
Off-topic but this just in; Kate announces she’s fighting cancer. I sincerely hope she’s going to make a full recovery, bless her.
*EDIT: “Cancer had been present”, but her chemo is *preventative*.
https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1771235267837321694
i hope so too. she never complains .i admire her.
Yes, same. It sounds positive if she’s emphasizing that the chemo is ”preventative”, so hopefully they got it all via the surgery and it didn’t metastasize. She’s also young, fit and otherwise healthy, so she does have that on her side. Much strength to her for the upcoming awfulness that is chemotherapy though.
Blimey, they jabbed her then.
That’s a brave thing to say, but I was wondering the same thing.
There’s no chance she’ll be unjabbed.
Taking the news of 2021 at face value, yes. It doesn’t say which but some reports highlight it would be Pfizer or Moderna given her age as the Az vaccine was officially dangerous by that point.
https://people.com/royals/kate-middleton-receives-first-dose-covid-vaccine/
And Charles, and the late Queen and, presumably, the Duke of Edinburgh who died not so very long afterwards.
Obviously we have no evidence but I am convinced the Queen was murdered. Perhaps the Davos Deviants are having a clear out of the Windsors.
i read something about the royal family are independent of the government and that is why .if only the queen prince phillip and charles had s aid no to the clot shots and masks imagine it could have all fallen apart their we f plans. i really expected them to have more backbone and refuse to go along with it all..
You would think more likely the saline placebo, but then you also have ole sausage fingers as well.
There’s no way to “fight” cancer. Or any other disease, for that matter. Judging from the story, she first had “preventative” surgery and then, someone fabricated a reason for “preventative” chemotherapy. Let’s hope she’s not going to have a “preventative” burial next. She decidedly doesn’t look good in the video, rather worn and haggard.
We’ve had an extreme outburst of cancer marketing recently. Timeo danae et dona ferentes. And they’re not even bearing gifts.
More off-topic but this situation in Moscow is still ongoing. Multiple casualties;
”Graphic footage from inside the hall showed gunman moving steadily through the venue firing shots and leaving a trail of destruction. People were seen fleeing past dead bodies.
Other video showed a number of people lying motionless in pools of blood outside the hall, though the footage was not immediately verifiable, according to Reuters.
It was not immediately clear how many people had been injured and who the gunmen were, but Russian news agencies said 50 ambulance crews had been sent to the scene. Riot police units have also reportedly been sent to the area as people were evacuated.
“A terrible tragedy occurred in the shopping center Crocus City today,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. “I am sorry for the loved ones of the victims.” Mr Sobyanin said all necessary assistance would be provided to those injured during the incident.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/moscow-crocus-city-hall-shooting-b2517256.html
https://twitter.com/RadioGenoa/status/1771238097214128302
It seems ISIS have taken responsibility for this terrorist attack;
”BREAKING:
The official ISIS outlet “Al-Amaq” takes responsibility for the terror attack in Moscow & claims the group was particularly targeting an event for Christians at the shopping mall.
Tomorrow is the 5th anniversary of the fall of the Caliphate after the Battle of Baghuz”
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1771290089353551991
https://twitter.com/community_notes/status/1771287127533191561
There have been at least two terrorists arrested so no doubt we’ll know more info in the morning, presumably in the Round-Up.
I expect we will shortly see a lesson in how Putin deals with Islamist terrorists.
I doubt if it will be legislation to brand them Extremists which also names an “extreme right wing organisation” for balance and so he can’t be called WAYCIST.
Not so sure! A new Navalny anti putin group is way more likely!
Democracy in Russia, been there,tried it,doesn’t work, break out the kalashnikovs !
Well I have not looked into this yet. But these Islamic State people better have blown themselves up or shot themselves because if they haven’t they will soon be cursing their mothers for having given them birth. I am not a big fan of places like Russia but at least they are not a bunch of wimps in situations like this. ——-Shamima Begun would not be trying to get back into Russia, she would realise she would be better of in a tent in the dust in Syria.
https://www.farminguk.com/news/farmers-can-now-get-up-to-11-600-per-ha-for-planting-woodland_64360.html
No wonder they are planting on the moors now.
https://www.farminguk.com/news/scientists-to-harness-gene-editing-power-to-transform-uk-potato-sector_64355.html
Gene editing our bloody spuds now. FFS!
In the uprun to the neverendum, people warned that the outcome would gene-edited crops in the UK (among other things). The real point of this is obviously getting Patented Genes™ into all potatoes via natural cross-pollination and then, harvest license fees from everybody growing any. As to other outcomes, let’s hope they don’t accidentally turn them into mosquitos.
https://www.farminguk.com/news/next-few-weeks-crucial-for-growers-as-survey-shows-big-crop-falls_64354.html
Looks like bread prices could rise towards year end. No need to worry we can always import.
Making fun of is not HATE. A joke is not HATE. —-Governments , especially totalitarian ones like the SNP need to use the law to enforce their tyranny and that is what is happening here. ——A great way around this would be to get lots of people up on stages everywhere to make fun of themselves. People in wheelchairs, black people, women , trans, people from different cultures etc etc all poking fun at themselves. The government can hardly charge them with HATING themselves can they? Or we can all make SNP jokes, like for example “What is the difference between an SNP person and a plank of wood”—“I don’t know, what is the difference between an SNP person and a plank of wood” ——–“The Grain” ha ha ha ah hoh hoh haa ha jeez. ——-So will the SNP now make being in the SNP a “protected characteristic”? ——-Probably. ——-The SNP are actually pretty funny, or at least they would be if they were not so PATHETIC
Let’s face it, if you live north of the border in Humza’s fiefdom, there’s not much to laugh about anyway. Cold, dreer, depressed, drug-dependent and now joyless.
“Hate speech” laws won’t stop hate, they simply stop people talking about it.
Talking about things is classed as a therapy (talking therapy) so in the absence of this therapeutic outlet the hatred will fester inside and become magnified and is more likely to manifest itself in violence.
Doubtlessly “Punch a TERF!” will continue to be freedom of expression, just referring to guy who said so as guy will become a hate crime. This is perfect bubble gum legislation — can be stretched to cover anything SNP or Greens don’t like. I wouldn’t be surprised when statements like “There is no climate crisis” would end up being prosecuted as hate crime against future generations.