Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Assistant professor in Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Iran. Tehran.
Abstract
This paper examines the capacity of contemporary political philosophy theories in dealing with the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19). It proposes a special categorization which helps to classify the meaning and understand the diversity of action and practice in the public sphere based on theories of political philosophy.
Based on this, four groups of meta-theories are identified: justice-oriented, tradition-oriented, result-oriented and freedom-oriented. In the next step, the paper identified the most important and better known theories within each of these meta-theories. In an attempt, based on a normative explanation of each of the theories of political philosophy, the theoretical capacity of political philosophy to understand the epidemic situation of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) and then to face it is studied. The research hypothesis is that to the extent that theories of political philosophy shift from justice-oriented holistic epistemology to Freedom-oriented non-holistic epistemology, their inclination toward controlling state management, such as social distancing, diminishes.
Highlights
This paper examines the capacity of contemporary political philosophy theories in dealing with the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19). The purpose of it is to study the diversity of governments' approaches in facing with the pandemic of Coronavirus (Covid-19), considering the talent of political philosophy theories in explaining policy-making logic leads to decision-making systems.
The paper, in its first attempt, has an epistemological approach. Then, based on a comparative methodology, it applies various theories of political philosophy to the situations that have now arisen due to the pandemic of the Coronavirus (Covid-19). Therefore, the comparative approach as the second step of the paper, is grounded in a special epistemological awareness obtained in its first step and during a philosophical study.
It proposes a special categorization which helps to classify the meaning and understand the variety of action and practice in the public sphere based on theories of political philosophy. Based on this, four groups of meta-theories in political philosophy are identified: justice-oriented theories, tradition-oriented theories, result-oriented theories and freedom-oriented theories. In its next effort, the paper identifies the most important and central notion within each of these meta-theories. It comes to the conclusion that in the first group the concept of "fairness", in the second group the concept of "community", in the third group the concept of "utility" and, finally, in the fourth group the concept of "liberty" are the most important inspiring notions. Thus, the paper focuses on these four important concepts that the efforts of contemporary political philosophy to fight against the spreading of Coronavirus (Covid-19), in its four main families of theorizing, can be traced mainly by referring to them.
Given this particular attitude to the disciplines of political philosophy in combating Coronavirus (Covid-19), and based on a chain of normative explanations of each of this main theories, the theoretical capacity of political philosophy to firstly understand the situation of living in the time of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) and secondly to face with it relying on the ability of these theories is studied.
The hypothesis of the article is that to the extent these theories shift from justice-oriented holistic epistemology to Freedom-oriented non-holistic epistemology, their inclination toward controlling state management, such as social distancing, diminishes. It means, from justice to freedom, the desire to formulate central control policies in the fight against Coronavirus (Covid-19), based on authorizing the governments to support the most vulnerable portion of the society replaces with self-control policies that express the natural desire of individuals to avoid the consequences of infection by the disease.
This forms a spectrum on either side of which two distinct sets of policies can be identified in the fight against the epidemic of the Coronavirus (Covid-19): central policies based on the will of governments and decentralized policies based on the will of individuals. The diversity of policies against the virus on this spectrum can be highlighted.
This diversity starts with the policy of strict lockdown of cities, or even countries, and continues to “herd immunity”, which is nature's way of controlling viruses. Between these two poles on this spectrum, different policy approaches can be distinguished. These approaches, gradually moving from government-oriented to non-government-oriented policies, include policies like comprehensive Quarantine System, social distancing, and self-voluntary quarantine.
There is a basic assumption behind this spectrum; an assumption that gives meaning to the rhythm of change in political philosophy, from Freedom-oriented policies to result-oriented policies and then to tradition-oriented policies and then to justice-oriented polices (or in other words from right-to-left politics).
Based on this rhythm of change, one can explain the correlation of policies regarding the outbreak of the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) with the central idea of the four attitudes mentioned in this paper in political philosophy.
Freedom-oriented theories: According to this group of theories in political philosophy, the independent will of citizens is superior to any other will; for this reason, a small government that is limited to its basic tasks is desirable for this group of theories, and they are strongly opposed to large governments. Thus, these theories do not support state-centered intervention to combat the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Result-oriented theories: This group of theories, more than any other issue, thinks about the result and utility of policies and, in their institution, are based on systematic attention to results and functions. The policy-making of result-oriented theories against the pandemic of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) is related to this central principle. A systematic approach to results is not necessarily compatible with supporting the most vulnerable in society; because, in many cases, allocating resources to a small group of society, due to its vulnerability, causes bigger problems for a larger part of society. However, if not paying attention to the weakest part of the society causes problems for the whole society, this group of theories does not have a philosophical and fundamental problem with the intervention of the government.
Tradition-oriented theories: Tradition, as the underlying structure and constructive of the society, determines how governments fight with the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) based on this set of theories. This means that governments, as representatives of the people in the public sphere to protect traditions, have both the talent and ability to intervene in the process of combat the Coronavirus (Covid-19). However, this interference, as assumed, should not jeopardize the integrity of society, as a bearer of continued and valuable traditions.
Justice-oriented theories: This group of theories, because of their special attention to the distribution of opportunities for the promotion of justice and fairness, are systematically interested in government policies. The result of this approach to combating the Coronavirus (Covid-19) is to prioritize the important task of supporting the most vulnerable section of society for the government. In this way, society relies on a broad government to fight the Coronavirus (Covid-19), which primarily finds itself responsible for providing all citizens with a minimum of ability to overcome this pandemic.
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