COVID-19 Pandemic – Philosophical Approaches Nicolae Sfetcu 14.10.2020 Sfetcu, Nicolae, "COVID-19 Pandemic – Philosophical Approaches", SetThings (November 10, 2020), MultiMedia Publishing (2020), ISBN: 978-606-033-419-4, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31039.74405/1, URL = https://www.setthings.com/en/e-books/covid-19- pandemic-philosophical-approaches/ Email: [email protected] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. Translation of: Sfetcu, Nicolae, "Pandemia COVID-19 – Abordări filosofice", SetThings (14 octombrie 2020), MultiMedia Publishing (2020), ISBN: 978-606-033-416-3, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.27611.39205, URL = https://www.setthings.com/ro/e-books/pandemia-covid-19-abordari-filosofice/ Nicolae Sfetcu: COVID-19 Pandemic – Philosophical Approaches Abstract The paper begins with a retrospective of the debates on the origin of life: the virus or the cell? The virus needs a cell for replication, instead the cell is higher on the evolutionary scale of life. In addition, the study of viruses raises pressing conceptual and philosophical questions about their nature, their classification, and their place in the biological world. The subject of pandemics is approached starting from the existentialism of Albert Camus and Sartre, the replacement of the exclusion ritual with the disciplinary mechanism of Michel Foucault, and about the Gaia hypothesis developed by James Lovelock and supported in the current pandemic by Bruno Latour. The social dimensions of pandemics, their relation with the global warming which has led to an increase in infectious diseases, and the deforestation of large areas which have caused viruses to migrate from their native area (their "reservoir") are highlighted. The ethics of pandemics is approached from several philosophical points of view, of which the most important in a crisis of such global dimensions is utilitarianism which involves maximizing benefits for society in direct conflict with the usual (Kantian) view of respect for people as individuals. After a retrospective of the COVID-19 virus that caused the current pandemic, its life cycle and its history, with an emphasis on the philosophy of death, the concept of biopower initially developed by Foucault is discussed, with reference to the practice of modern nation states od control of the populations and the debate generated by Giorgio Agamben who states that what is manifested in this pandemic is the growing tendency to use the state of emergency as a normal paradigm of government. Another interesting and much debated approach is the one generated by the works of Slavoj Žižek, who states that the current pandemic has led to the failure of the current "barbaric" capitalism, wondering if the path that humanity will take is a neo-communism. 2 Nicolae Sfetcu: COVID-19 Pandemic – Philosophical Approaches Another important negative effect is desocialization, with the conclusion of some philosophers that we cannot exist independently of our relationships with others, that a person's humanity depends on the humanity of those around him. The last section is dedicated to forecasting what the world will look like after the pandemic, and there are already signs of a change of paradigm, including the sudden disappearance of the ideology of the "wall": a cough was enough to make it suddenly impossible to avoid the responsibility that every individual has towards all living beings for the simple fact that he is part of this world, and of the desire to be part of it. The whole is always involved in part, because everything is, in a sense, in everything, and in nature there are no autonomous regions that are an exception. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to restore the supremacy that once belonged to politics. One of the virtues of the virus is its ability to generate a more sober idea of freedom: to be free means to do what needs to be done in a specific situation. 3 Nicolae Sfetcu: COVID-19 Pandemic – Philosophical Approaches Introduction COVID-19 has wreaked havoc worldwide, socially and economically. This pandemic has led to physical isolation, but also to an unprecedented removal of knowledge through the avalanche of fake news, misinformation and conspiracy theories. We have become more and more dependent on social media for information, but most of the time this information has nothing to do with the real situation, with the truth. Plato's allegory of the cave in the Republic, (Plato 2008) presented as a dialogue between Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, narrated by the latter, is a conceptual tool to help the reader distinguish between appearance and reality, highlighting the influence of ignorance on our nature. Plato presents a group of people who have lived all their lives locked in a cave with a high wall in front. They can see nothing but the stone wall in front of them. Behind the wall burns a fire that provides enough light to project bright images of external objects on the walls of the cave. Those shadows are the reality of the prisoners. The current epidemic isolation has brought us to the situation where the ordinary individual cannot distinguish truth from falsehood by reason. We are caught in a contemporary version of Plato's allegorical cave, in which natural reality is distorted and darkened by the shadows cast by the media, Facebook and other social networks, which constantly mislead us. Projected visions take us further and further away from the real world. Another kind of Matrix, (Wachowski and Wachowski 1999) in which the senses no longer help the correct analysis or critique of information, thus creating false perceptions without any connection with reality. And this trend is fueled and even forced by leaders around the world. According to Merzouk, the shadows that the inhabitants of Plato's cave see projected on the wall are the weakest form of knowledge: opinion. (Merzouk 2020) Social media abounds with "experts" who offer their opinions. And people end up grouping themselves according to the 4 Nicolae Sfetcu: COVID-19 Pandemic – Philosophical Approaches opinions they consider true, often without any rational foundation, acting according to those opinions, sometimes against their own real interest. Moreover, such insulation is ideal for mass handling. And to induce emotions, and ultimately actions, for or against realities. In his allegory, Plato describes what would happen if one of the prisoners escaped from the cave. After being blinded by the bright light of the Sun, he would discover that reality is not what they thought it was. Like the fire that casts light on the cave walls, the human condition is always linked to the impressions received through the senses. And in the absence of direct senses due to isolation, the impressions offered by the media remain, be it social media or mass- media. Basically, Plato suggests, we cannot break away from the bonds of our human condition, just as the prisoners of the cave could not free themselves from chains. When (if) we still manage to escape from our cave, we will find a transformed world, which many of us will no longer understand - another "realm", the source of a higher reality than the one we knew. No one knows the actual number of people infected with coronavirus. In addition, there are asymptomatic, and even in symptomatic people the disease becomes visible only a few days after infection. So, any of us can be, at some point, a potential vector of the disease. And you can become a victim at any time without knowing it. From a philosophical point of view, you are in what theorists call decision-making in conditions of uncertainty. You can't estimate the odds of being sick or contagious - victim or vector. Justice theorist John Rawls used this model of decisional uncertainty as a thought experiment called the "veil of ignorance", (Rawls 1999) a method of determining the morality of problems. It requires a decision-maker to choose on a social or moral issue and assumes that he has enough information to know the consequences of his possible decisions for everyone, but would not know or take into account that person. The theory holds that not knowing the final 5 Nicolae Sfetcu: COVID-19 Pandemic – Philosophical Approaches position in society would lead to the creation of a fair system, as the decision maker would not want to make decisions that benefit one group to the detriment of another, because the decision maker could theoretically reach any group. (Francis 2020) The thinking experiment proposed by John Rawls states that people who make political decisions imagine that they know nothing about the talents, abilities, tastes, social class and positions they will have in a social order. When such parties select the principles for the distribution of rights, positions and resources in the society in which they will live, this "veil of ignorance" prevents them from knowing who will receive a certain distribution of rights, positions and resources in that society. (Rawls 1999) According to Leslie Francis, the COVID pandemic can be considered a natural version of John Rawls' thought experiment: it puts a veil of ignorance on the state of infection. You know nothing about yourself, whether you are infected or not, or whether you will be infected. And you wonder, what principles would you accept in terms of physical distancing, wearing masks, allowing businesses to reopen or allowing crowds to gather, if you don't know your own situation about COVID infection? (Sfetcu 2020c) Of course, you know some features of your situation that allow you to answer these questions. You know, for example, if your job allows you to work from home, or if you have a safe garden, or if you work for a company that has become a hot spot for infection.