The coronavirus pandemic should have been an Iwo Jima moment for utilitarian bioethicists with their flag fluttering proudly on a blood-soaked hilltop. After all, the emergency seemed quite propitious for calculating the greatest good of the greatest number. However, as Oxford medical ethicist Charles Foster wryly observes, politicians everywhere embraced a “crude vitalism” instead. 

This was best expressed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in March. He told the media — and voters: “My mother is not expendable. And your mother is not expandable…We’re not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable. We’re not going to put a dollar figure on human life.” Out the window went utilitarian policies. 

Is the same dynamic being played out in the simmering debate over immunity passports? Read below. 

Michael Cook
Utilitarians believe that it would be immoral not to use them.
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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

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