Matt Beard, Eleanor Gordon-Smith, Bryan Mukandi (2020) | The Ethics of the Pandemic

Festival of Dangerous Ideas

In stripping away so much of ordinary life, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed a lot about us – not all of it pretty. It’s also confronted us with brutal ethical choices. Who deserves to be saved when you're running out of ventilators? How much are we willing to give up so others can get by? Who gets to decide and what beliefs are shaping their decisions? Step back from the day-to-day dilemmas of the pandemic to understand the crucial lessons and hidden costs of our choices.

Matt Beard is an Australian moral philosopher at The Ethics Centre and a regular writer on philosophy and ethics.

Eleanor Gordon-Smith is a writer and radio broadcaster working at the intersection of academic ethics and the muddy chaos of life between real humans.

Bryan Mukandi is an academic philosopher and health humanities researcher, with a background in the practice of medicine in a resource-poor, sub-Saharan African context.