Moral Challenges of Societies During Pandemics

Abstract

Introduction: The difference between an epidemic and a pandemic is not the severity of the disease, but the degree of its spread. Pandemics, unlike epidemics, cut across international borders. In this article, the moral challenges of societies during the occurrence of pandemic diseases (such as Covid-19, Sars, etc.) have been investigated. Material and Methods: Conceptual analysis method is used in this article. Related keywords were used in the search of materials and 44 articles were collected from Sciencedirect, Pubmed, Proquest and Elsevier databases and their examples were used according to the purpose. Conclusion: In this study, ethical challenges are divided into three categories: challenges related to sharing facilities, challenges related to providing or not providing medical services, and the challenge of how to react when faced with a controversial and possibly unethical situation. Then these challenges were examined from the perspective of ethical theories. The result of the analysis indicated that the philosophies of utilitarianism, virtuism, and truth-orientedness are not suitable for reasoning, justifying, and acting in difficult situations during pandemics. The philosophy of Justicialism, deontologism, and truth-orientedness are better, and with the help of a combination of the three mentioned theories, a model can be presented for three types of difficult situations in pandemic diseases.

Keywords

• ethical challenges
• epidemic
• pandemic
• ethical theories