On the Relative Importance of Death: COVID-19 and the Hierarchy of Goods

Oct 26, 2020 by

by Joseph Thomas White, Public Discourse:

If the state seeks to protect the human body, it should do so in view of a more ultimate flourishing of the whole human person, for the sake of a civic society that promotes the free pursuit of spiritual goods. In a public health crisis, the ways we pursue these goods can be altered temporarily, but if the alterations threaten to radically alter the long-term pursuit of these goods, we must question these new policies.
All human beings naturally associate in social groups and depend upon the common good, the collective life of the whole. These groups and common goods take various forms, from the family and clan to the city or the nation-state. The government of any people has the basic responsibility to safeguard and nurture the common good, which entails the promotion of a range of particular goods, from physical utilities like water and electricity to cultural goods such as education, work, participation in the market, the cultivation of the university and the arts, the defense of the family as the first cell of society, and the protection and promotion of healthy and true religious practices.

Most fundamental of all is the state’s obligation to protect human life. This is the most basic good in civic society, without which all the others erode. Accordingly, any given culture must protect innocent life, and have some form of collective policing against crime and violence. Accordingly, the state has the right to punish crimes against life, and may also legitimately organize a military to protect the civic populace, even by means of just war.

In the face of a collective health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, many public goods are put in jeopardy. First among these is bodily life and health: the illness appears to be approximately five times more deadly than the average annual influenza, and it poses a particular risk to the elderly and those with various pre-existing medical conditions. Nevertheless, other goods are at stake as well, including the right to work, the economic well-being of societies, the ongoing work of education, freedom of movement and self-expression, and public gathering for the worship of God.

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