It should go without saying that we live in unprecedented times. The range of problems with which our society is confronted at the moment is both breathtaking and unnerving. Given this alarming range of problems, it would seem that we have neither the time nor the energy to devote to navel-gazing or empty philosophical reflection. Now must be a time for action. Imagining alternative ways of living and of engaging with the world—these are luxuries that we can scarcely afford at the moment. Philosophical questioning, we are told, is an extravagance of the privileged few who needn’t worry about putting food on the table, fighting off a deadly virus, or securing the economic future for themselves and for their children.
All of these problems, whether of sustenance, health, or of future economic prospects are practical in nature, and practical problems call for solutions in which philosophical reflection has no place. It would seem that our times would be the least favorable for philosophizing. Whatever the problem—be it climate change, social unrest, personal economic difficulties, issues with one’s health—all of them would seem to deliver us already within the domain of practical concern. Take, for example, a problem that all of us must contend with today, which has enormous implications not only at the level of each and every individual’s immediate way of life, but which also concerns our society’s approaches to public health, the economy, leisure, travel and education: COVID-19. What room for philosophizing is there in such a situation? If there has ever been a purely practical problem, isn’t this it?
This is a problem that calls for a level of expertise which we, as individuals, often do not possess. COVID-19 is a public health crisis that demands special expertise to manage. As such, it would seem that virologists, physicians, and epidemiologists should be given the proper authority to solve this problem, deploying their scientific and technical expertise unimpeded by the political or social concerns of the populace. If these problems carry an absolute priority for all, then we must submit ourselves to the process of solving them, whatever that might entail. And indeed, when the pandemic reached the shores of Europe or the US, this was most people’s attitude to the crisis.
The pandemic has generated all manner of obstacles for the European and American ways of life, and so our first and foremost concern should be deal with this very real practical problem, putting empty philosophical reflection to the side. Stores and restaurants must be shuddered; sporting events cancelled; schools closed for the remainder of the year; travel must stop. If ending the epidemic takes absolute priority, then there is no reason whatsoever to violate the directives of public health officials to stay home and avoid social contact with others. Case closed.
However, as time went by, many people began to feel that the imperative to stay home in order to slow the spread of the virus conflicted with other imperatives. In April 2020, we saw protests from those who were calling for the economy to be reopened. They asserted that their livelihoods were at risk, and that some of them could lose everything if we continued on the course and remained in lockdown. In May of 2020, we also saw in the media that people had cavorted carelessly at a pool party at the Lake of the Ozarks in the Midwest of the U.S. In the days hence, there was no shortage of attempts from legacy media elites to shame those who made this choice to violate the imperative of social distancing. By prioritizing their own short-term enjoyment, these people were putting us all in danger, it was said, since there was no doubt that this congregation of people would result in exponential spread of the virus.
In late May, another protest broke out. This one had vastly greater intensity than the first, and was completely unprecedented in its size, scope, and duration. This time the catalyst was police violence. A black man, George Floyd, had his life taken from him by a police officer who knelt on his neck for no less than 9 minutes, apparently without cause. The same media elites who participated in the efforts to shame the partygoers and the lockdown protesters as selfish or stupid united in a chorus of affirmation and admiration for the thousands who were in the streets protesting the death of George Floyd.
Above all, what these events demonstrate is that our values and imperatives are often balanced one against another, and sometimes it is not easy to decide which should be given priority. What explains these shifting imperatives—staying home to prevent viral spread, protesting the closure of the economy, enjoying oneself at a pool party, protesting police violence—if not assumptions about the ultimate meaning, value and purpose of one’s existence?
If protecting the individual’s body from disease is what is most important, then experts can tell us what measures are necessary to accomplish this. When we submit ourselves to the directives of these experts, we implicitly affirm that physical health is a fundamental value that supersedes all others. This makes sense, insofar as good bodily health seems to be a condition for the other values that concern individual human beings. Of course, this value of health is one among many values. If one’s livelihood and the accumulation of wealth is what is most important, then the advice of epidemiologists and public health officials should take a back seat to economic activity. If short-term hedonistic enjoyment is what is ultimately valuable, then the imperative to stay home is equally invalid, since these competing values are impossible to realize simultaneously. If fighting against police violence and racism is supremely important, then, once again, this will take precedence over concerns about the pandemic. People may die from the viral spread that occurs as a result of the protests—many of whom did not themselves chose to protest—but the value of the transforming society, it is believed, exceeds that of the infirm and the elderly who will may have to pay with their lives for this to happen.
Whether people are balancing these values against one another in an explicit way, considering carefully which imperatives take priority over the others, or whether they are acting impulsively without regard for such considerations, it does not change the fact that what we see in this equation are values in competition. It scarcely needs to be said that the value of prosperity or hedonistic enjoyment is one that is predicated upon being healthy enough to enjoy it. The fact that in death it matters very little whether one was a king or a pauper demonstrates very plainly the way that values are sometimes layered one upon another. In this case, the one value (wealth or physical pleasure) would seem to presuppose the other (health). However, even here, things are not so clear. Some would argue that an eat-drink-and-be-merry attitude is precisely the appropriate response to a fatalistic, hopeless situation.
Implied in the competition of values are beliefs and suppositions about the nature of human existence. If human beings are exclusively corporeal beings—that is, if our fundamental defining attribute is that we exist as living bodies who are vulnerable to death and disease—then this definition clearly has implications not only for how we think about ourselves in the abstract, but for the kinds of choices that we make from day to day. If on the other hand, human beings are not purely corporeal, if we have some invisible, spiritual nature that equally defines us, then, likewise, this will also determine how we conduct ourselves. In other words, how we understand what we are in our innermost being and existence has enormous implications for how we relate to ourselves, how we relate to other human beings and how we relate to nature. With these kinds of questions, we pass beyond what we call ‘ethical’ considerations concerning how we understand what is valuable and right to ‘metaphysical’ considerations about the kind of beings that humans are. Both metaphysical definitions of human being—that we humans are basically embodied creatures with no invisible spiritual features which are irreducible to our physical embodiment or that we humans also carry an irreducible and essential spiritual dimension within us—these definitions orient us within the world and provide us with the foundation of our values.
Understanding this, we can raise some interesting ‘philosophical’ questions about, for example, the protests surrounding the death of George Floyd. Are these protests really only about the lack of physical safety that afflicts black people in American cities because of police violence? It should be clear that, at least with regard to the cumulative impact on the total population, the physical dangers of the virus vastly exceed those of police brutality. (Incidentally, the epidemiological data about the impact of the virus even suggests that black people are dying from the disease in somewhat higher numbers than whites.) If the physical dangers are the only consideration, because the virus clearly represents a greater threat than police violence to human bodies, black or otherwise, would it not be necessary to reject the urge for protest?
On what basis, then, does the moral legitimacy of the protests rest? The murder of Floyd obviously says something about the lack of physical safety that afflicts the poor and minorities in this country. However, the fact that so many would risk a new wave of deadly viral infection in order to protest police violence and repression tells us that their concerns, whether they understand this clearly or not, outstrip the concerns of the physical body as such. As such, the moral legitimacy of the protests seems to be based upon the belief that dignity is more important than safety. After all, where in the physical body does dignity reside? It is, we might say, a feature of the soul which is clearly irreducible to the living body or its parts. Indeed, in many cases, it can be seen that dignity can to some extent survive the physical degradation of the body. One can have a physical disability, for example, and be no less deserving of dignity and respect. This belief in dignity thus rests upon a still deeper assumption about the nature of the human being—that we are more than the bodies that we inhabit, and that being physically embodied and existing as a living organism is insufficient as a definition of human being.
Allen Thomas Jones Ph.D 