ETHICS AND PESTILENCE
Discerning the Greater Common Good and Mutual Reciprocity
Keywords:
Ethics, Good, Morality, Reciprocity, Species-centricityAbstract
This article explores the question of ethics in times of pestilence as during Covid-19, via the ideas of Simon Blackburn, Jean Paul Sartre, and Henry Louis Gates Jr; it employs the representational notions of Gayatri Spivak and Stuart Hall as ways of seeing, so as to map and evaluate Biblical-Hebrew Exodus stories in relation to the current Covid-19 pandemic. This exploration also attempts to respond principally to the questions: what then is the place of the greater common good as ethic in the current experience? And what kind of ethics could be delivered in such a context? The article simultaneously argues that there is a close similarity between the Egyptian plague experience and the current pestilence, and that social action based on the ethics of common good and bio-centric mutual reciprocity are adequate responses for restoring current society to its ethical orientation and practice. In its conclusion, the article points to ideas that make transparent the article’s significance.
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