Virtual-Penn Bioethics Seminar Series (PBS): "The Ethics of Using Coercion to Achieve Public Health Aims" - Maxwell J. Smith, PhD

The Ethics of Using Coercion to Achieve Public Health Aims
 

Maxwell J. Smith, PhD

Associate Professor
CIHR Applied Public Health Chair in Ethics and Health Emergencies
Western University - Canada

Measures used in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and isolation and quarantine, were commonly characterized as 'coercive'. For some, this was akin to calling such measures bad or wrong. For others, it meant such measures warranted greater ethical scrutiny and stronger ethical justification. Finally, some simply disagreed that such measures were coercive. So, what does it mean for a public health measure to count as coercive, and when, if ever, is coercion ethically justified to achieve public health aims?

This presentation helps to answer these questions by examining prominent philosophical accounts of coercion and bringing them to bear on public health activities, as well as by reporting results from a scoping review of how coercion is defined in the public health literature. It concludes by identifying key ways in which public health activities complicate conventional thinking about coercion, suggesting profitable areas for future research.

Virtual, via Zoom