Moral Dilemmas during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Types, Solutions, Consequences
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2024.3.2540Keywords:
moral dilemma, moral choice, rationality, freedom, decision-making, COVID-19, utilitarianism, deontologyAbstract
The article analyzes the differences between real and hypothetical moral dilemmas and compares empiricist and rationalist approaches to their existence. The author describes the spectrum of dilemmas in the context of a pandemic and reviews the ways of solving dilemmas and their consequences in the medical and public spheres. The study bases on the analysis of publications from 2020-2023 on the topic of decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic (91 articles from WoS, Scopus, eLIBRARY.RU and ResearchGate) along with socio-economic statistics.
The author concludes that the empiricist approach, which recognizes the existence of moral choice, involved nursing staff solving the dilemma of bed allocation and ventilator use, which, in the absence of clear guidelines, increased mortality, exacerbated the shortage of medical resources, and had negative psychological consequences. The rationalist approach was implemented in the form of protocols and the use of artificial intelligence (AI), that is, a combination of the rigor of state and social controls and strict pandemic discourse. This led to a lack of moral choices and adherence to constraints.
The article concludes by describing the advantages of interpreting dilemmas as situations with an unambiguously computable solution rather than as moral choices under extraordinary circumstances. The author proposes a discussion on the permissibility of restricting freedom of choice, discrimination of certain categories of citizens, possible dehumanization, and risks of using protocols and AI.
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