Pandemic Justice post #1- The Social Contract (historical inspiration)

I have started writing a new book about pandemic justice and plan to post some substantive chunks of the "ideas-in-progress" here on my blog over the coming months.

The book will examine what kind of social contract could be the basis for "reasonable agreement" among persons vulnerable to infectious (and chronic) disease. The recent COVID-19 pandemic is both the catalyst for my writing this book, and it is the focal point or central "case study" the book addresses.

For the past 20 years my research has focused on genetics, scientific innovation and chronic disease (especially among the elderly). The skill-set I have developed for tackling those issues will, I believe, be an asset for theorizing about the demands of pandemic justice. And while COVID-19 is a kind of "test-case" for the book, my focus is much more expansive, focusing heavily on insights learned from public health interventions dealing with clean drinking water and sanitation, the 1918 flu pandemic, small pox, HIV/AIDS, measles, mumps and rubella, and Ebola.

The new book is an exercise in non-ideal theory. Rather than theorizing the ideal- e.g. what does justice require in a closed society with no disease and 100% compliance with the demands of justice- I will be theorizing the non-ideal. That is, what does justice require in a globalized, interconnected world where we are vulnerable to over 1400 different infectious diseases?

This is a project I am very excited about undertaking. And I hope it will help temper some of the emotive and irrational responses we have taken to the current pandemic. My days of research are now spent combing through the scientific literature on the case fatality ratio for COVID-19, the benefits and harms of the lockdown measures, and reading about past and current pandemics. For the first two months of this research I myself have been locked down in my home. My eldest son spent nearly 3 months locked down in California while visiting there for an internship, my elderly mother has been quarantined (isolated from family) for over 2 months in a nursing home, and my two younger sons have been at home with me doing school work remotely. So personally I have witnessed this pandemic impact my own family and loved ones. And I have been following closely the public policies, arguments and media coverage of this crisis. From the first reports of deaths in China and the Diamond Princess, to studies on gender differences and asymptomatic cases, to the financial and psychological costs of "shelter-at-home" orders and the "Open it Up!" protests against such orders, the COVID-19 crisis is a fascinating example of the myriad of complexities that arise in non-ideal justice. So I have made this topic (and new book) my top research priority.

In this post I start by detailing the historical, theoretical basis of my account of pandemic justice-- the social contract tradition.


THE SOCIAL CONTRACT TRADITION (HISTORICAL INSPIRATION)


The social contract tradition has had a long and influential impact on the history of Western political thought. Thomas Hobbes penned Leviathan during the turbulent era of the English Civil War in an attempt to reveal the folly of opposing the rule of an absolute sovereign that provided security and peace. In Hobbes’s eyes, the execution of King Charles I in 1649 risked civilization reverting back to the kind of life humans had in the original state of nature (before any government). Hobbes famously characterized such life as “nasty, brutish and short”.

John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government was also written during a time of civil and political unrest. The “Glorious Revolution” of 1688-89 resulted in The Bill of Rights which entrenched in constitutional law the principles of frequent parliaments, free elections and freedom of speech within Parliament. Locke’s arguments concerning “natural rights” and consent provided an intellectual framework for thinking about the basis of legitimate, limited government. A framework that rejected the starting assumptions of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha (Natural Power of Kings 1680) which defended the divine right of kings.

Jean Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract was written during the opulence and stark inequality of the 18th century. Rousseau died in 1778 and his ideas had a profound influence on the French Revolution (which began in 1789). The slogan of the decade long revolution was “Freedom, Equality and Fraternity”, all values embodied in Rousseau’s political writings. The life prospects of the average French peasant was very unequal compared to that of the aristocracy. And rather than taking such inequality as a “given”, Rousseau offered a multi-faceted diagnosis of the cause of such inequality in his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (1755). Rousseau argued that man is by nature good, but is corrupted and depraved by society. The rise of private property, the Arts and Sciences, and language and socialization had perverted our innate motivation for self-preservation (amour de soi) into the depraved motive of amour-propre. The latter entailed a fixation with self-love, vanity and pride. Recognizing that it was not possible to revert back to the simple life in the original state of nature, Rousseau’s The Social Contract canvassed the path forward to the realization of moral freedom for all. A society governed by “the general will”, where legitimate authority “comes from all” and “applies to all”.

The threats of social unrest, unlimited government and inequality that these social contract theorists theorized about are examples of the “non-ideal” empirical realities which preoccupied the original social contract theorists. These masterful works in the canon offered humanity lofty moral and political aspirations to guide our collective lives, but these aspirations were offered as practical and feasible solutions to what they believed where among the most pressing societal problems of their day. Hobbes sought to provide a justification for the state that could be stable in a time of religious animosity and disagreement. And he took the foundations of his arguments to be informed by, and complementary to, the “scientific method” that was emerging from the scientific revolution of his day. Hobbes believed that the rigour employed to study the natural world could also be applied to the study of the social sciences of man. Locke’s account of private property, rebellion and limited government impacted the founding of liberal constitutions. And Rousseau’s critique of private property and his idea of democratic sovereignty inspired revolutionaries and democratic theorists for centuries.

There would be no Leviathan had Hobbes ignored the pressing challenges of his day, nor a Second Treatise of Government if Locke was content to theorize (as Plato was) the ideal form of government versus offering a theory of government that took seriously the real threats to “life, liberty and property” of his contemporaries. And Rousseau’s The Social Contract, while bold and ambitious in its political aspirations, would not have been written had Rousseau not been passionately concerned with the creation and persistence of inequality. By theorizing about the non-ideal circumstances and predicaments of their day, these social contract theorists offered us some of the most significant works in political theory. In this new book I detail an account of “pandemic justice” that draws inspiration from these earlier social contract theorists by taking seriously the predicaments the world has been thrust into in the year 2020 by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

In my next post I will detail the contemporary, ideal account of the social contract tradition, highlighting what I take to be its deficiencies for tackling the problem of pandemic justice.

Cheers,
Colin