In response to the COVID-19 crisis, we are all told that we have duties to maintain social distance, remain at home, and so on. But surely we do not all have identical duties, and hence, do not share identical responsibilities in this crisis.
To capture this idea, we propose a technical constraint on the allocation of responsibility for responding to this crisis. Before assessing individual duties of various kinds, we must first assess each individual’s causal standing relative to possible courses of action and allocate responsibility proportionally. Call this proportionality constraint the Peter Parker Principle (PPP), because, as we learn from Spider-Man, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
We must consider the totality of responses required to address the COVID-19 crisis, from short-range goals such as the production and delivery of masks, test swabs, and ventilators, to longer-range aims such as the development and distribution of treatments and vaccines. Accomplishing each of these goals will require various interlinking forms of causal standing, including technical abilities, administrative and informational reach, and industrial and financial capacity. Because individual agents may possess causal standing with respect to one goal but not another, we must allocate responsibility accordingly—proportional to each individual’s corresponding causal standing. As a result, some individuals will be required to advance multiple goals simultaneously, but everyone will have some part to play. We all have a duty to respond, although surely not to respond in every possible way.
Finally, to avoid free-riding problems, PPP demands full participation from all individuals. We argue that in the current crisis, we share common goals––and thus classes of corresponding duties––to reduce harm, end the crisis, and protect essential workers in the meantime. Following this reasoning, we focus on responsibilities that stem directly from each individual’s ability to advance these goals.
Reducing Harm
First, there is a class of duties to reduce harm, which involves all of the now-familiar injunctions: keep six feet of distance from others, wash your hands with soap for twenty seconds, and so on. The virus that causes COVID-19 is highly contagious, and the disease is asymptomatic for long enough that we may, at any time, be acting as unaware carriers of it. As such, the effects of any one person’s noncompliance are at best difficult for us to gauge accurately.
But by refusing to stay inside or cancel nonessential travel, I directly endanger everyone I encounter (e.g., I endanger my bus driver when entering within six feet of her while boarding). Even more subtly, I also indirectly endanger those who come into contact not with me but with my social footprint (e.g., I endanger the elderly woman en route to the food bank who grabs the bus handrail after I do).
However, no one (Robinson Crusoes aside) can totally self-isolate. Thus, PPP tells us that those who come into greater social contact with others, or hold more social influence, have proportionally more impact on the goals of harm reduction, and therefore have even stronger duties to promote and follow the protocols associated with these goals. In particular, Kirk Ludwig argues that politicians have a special institutional role to play:
In the context of societies in which there are organized groups (governments) whose purpose is to collectivize agency for the public good, there is already an organized division of responsibilities due to the at least tacit agreement on a division of roles for the purposes of efficient and effective action. That places different burdens on different people in virtue of their different role responsibilities, and greater burdens on those in executive roles. (Personal correspondence)
We hold, uncontroversially, that politicians have harm-reducing duties to spread accurate information about the disease and close down non-essential public spaces. But we also propose that they have more radical harm-reducing duties to provide housing for the homeless, ensure housing stability via rent and mortgage freezes, and release prisoners. However, we argue that because governmental structures themselves do not charge politicians to take on duties beyond the commonly agreed-upon conceptions of the public good, Ludwig’s thinking does not go far enough.
Ending the COVID-19 Crisis
Second, there is a class of duties associated with proactively ending the crisis itself, most notably duties to develop and distribute treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. Here as well, politicians are specially charged with ensuring that such problem-solving efforts are adequately directed and funded. But even though much power is located outside of official government channels, operating beyond its regulatory purview, clearly that power ought to be mobilized, too.
Wealthy philanthropists Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and Bill Gates received praise for partnering to fund $25 million worth of coronavirus research. But given that the combined net worth of these three individuals exceeds $150 billion dollars, they could do much more during this crisis. PPP says that because they have an outsized ability to contribute to change, they have a correspondingly outsized duty to do so. On the other hand, as underpaid graduate students, we (the authors) have quite limited financial capacity and may struggle to donate even a few dollars to relief funds. Our giving may even be supererogatory once we consider the level of financial capacity that the full participation of billionaires would come to. Ultimately, PPP applies pressure over and above that currently applied by our formal political institutions––most notably to billionaires, who are under-taxed by our inadequately progressive system.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has already flouted duties relating to his informational reach, having received 1.7 million likes for his March 6th tweet, “The coronavirus panic is dumb.” This comment was dangerous and ignorant, not only encouraging people to shirk newly instated social-distancing guidelines, but also blatantly disregarding his own financial duties as one of the wealthiest individuals in the world. Given his $30 billion net worth, Musk has the financial capacity to contribute much more. And what about the industrial capacity of his Tesla factories, which could be converted to create much-needed ventilators?
Per Ludwig, governments instantiate a collective solution intended to advance the public good by assigning individuals particular roles and responsibilities. But clearly, this does not mean that government projects exhaust our public-facing duties. To the extent that a government can claim to be democratic, it must aim to advance the common conception of the public good. But we argue that our current collective duties outstrip those that would fall out of this common conception. Although, in accordance with the current common conception of the public good, Musk is not being legally compelled by the government to take any action at all, PPP holds that his problem-solving duties do extend far beyond his present degree of participation, just in virtue of his ability to contribute. By looking at the varied and interconnected ways in which potentially transformational power is concentrated in our society, we see just how dramatically these duties fall disproportionately upon the wealthy and powerful.
Supporting Essential Laborers
Third, there is a class of duties to support laborers providing essential services, especially as they are faced with increasingly dangerous conditions as the pandemic worsens. Workers at grocery stores and hospitals were already essential before the crisis, but this truth has only grown more apparent since. Thus, the duties in this category are duties to support these front-line workers, not duties for them to support us.
As a society, we have shared duties to make the conditions of essential labor, and hence our own continued survival, both possible and humane. This requires providing workers with sufficient protections and benefits. So our duties include, but are not limited to, providing mutual aid to essential workers, increasing the minimum wage and providing additional hazard pay during the crisis, offering extended paid sick leave and health care, improving the safety and functionality of working conditions by avoiding hoarding or shopping during peak hours, and equipping workers with adequate protective gear. Although it’s apparent that many of these duties follow from PPP now, we think current conditions should motivate the permanent implementation of these long-overdue changes after the COVID-19 crisis has passed.
Importantly, while all of us are tasked with duties towards essential workers, PPP counsels that the vast majority of this burden be upshifted to those with problem-solving positions, such as CEOs, hospital administrators, and supply-chain managers.
Masking Harm-Reduction as Problem-Solving and Labor-Supporting Means
In just the past few weeks, public discourse on harm-reducing duties has greatly improved. But public discourse about problem-solving and labor-supporting duties is notably lacking. There are several issues with this absence. First, even if everyone self-isolated to the best of their ability, this precaution wouldn’t actually stop the virus, given not only our nature as social creatures, but also the highly specialized and interdependent infrastructure of global capitalism. Few of us could (or should!) feasibly become subsistence farmers or fallout shelter dwellers for the indefinite duration of the crisis. As such, we need to continue going to supermarkets to procure essential supplies, to hospitals to receive essential treatment, and so on, thereby continually re-risking exposure for both ourselves and the vulnerable workers we encounter. Risk mitigation cannot substitute for the elimination of the underlying source of that risk.
Further, in focusing almost exclusively on harm-reducing duties, our public discourse passes off these duties as effective problem-solving and labor-supporting measures, oversimplifying our understanding of how to reach the end point of the COVID-19 crisis. Many of our current predictive models focus on two primary variables: social distancing and viral spread measures. But with hospital workers comprising a significant proportion of hospitalized cases, it should be clear that other variables––such as whether medical professionals are provided adequate protective equipment and paid sick leave––are also incredibly important for understanding how the course of this pandemic can be changed for the better. Ultimately, these oversimplifications not only hamstring our understanding, but also overlook differentially vulnerable populations and mask harm-reducing strategies as crisis-ending measures.
Social distancing is not a solution, but rather a way of rendering the COVID-19 crisis more manageable. While we should blame those who fail to take their duties to reduce harm seriously, and thereby exacerbate the problems we currently face, we should shift our focus onto those who shirk their problem-solving and labor-supporting duties. Criticisms of spring break beachgoers are perhaps warranted, but PPP suggests that we direct the brunt of our criticism towards governors, billionaires, and business owners who have yet to respond adequately to the crisis.
Finally, the lack of public discourse about duties to end the crisis and to support essential laborers also produces a lack of open coordination among those tasked with these duties. This silence enables those who do make even minimal efforts to self-present as vigilante heroes and serves to let those who can’t even rise to that low bar off the hook entirely. Public discourse should not celebrate uncoordinated philanthropy, which is inherently antidemocratic and standardly fails to meet the duties that fall out of PPP anyways. Instead, we should demand greater openness and coordination among those with problem-solving and labor-supporting causal standing.
Takeaways
Will my individually staying at home reduce further harms associated with the pandemic? Yes, absolutely! We are all called upon to follow harm-reducing measures that will help slow the spread of coronavirus, protect our vulnerable communities, and save our fragile healthcare infrastructure from collapse. Per PPP, virtually everyone’s causal standing is such that they can make some meaningful contribution to the goals of harm reduction and are thus charged with changing their behaviors accordingly. With that being said, harm reduction is still an arena in which powerful individuals, such as political officials, have an outsized role to play.
Should workers who provide essential services continue to go to work if able? It’s complicated! Though we desperately rely on these laborers to help supply our fundamental material needs, they are often compelled (by income, employment-based healthcare, etc.) to continue operating in increasingly dangerous working conditions. They should be able to strike or call out of work as needed. At the bare minimum, these workers should be granted extra protections and benefits. We must not overlook our duties to them, the front-line workers who carry out the essential labor that keeps our society functioning. Appropriately, PPP advises that those with the most duties toward these workers are, in fact, their employers.
Finally, will fulfilling duties to reduce harm and to maintain essential services end this pandemic, or adequately protect workers? No! While harm-reduction is undeniably important, it isn’t a substitute for problem-solving and labor-supporting efforts from those privileged few who are disproportionately capable of bringing about significant systemic change. PPP calls upon politicians, CEOs, billionaires, and others in power to finally recognize and fulfill their larger social duties. Only by doing so can they help shift the problem-solving and labor-supporting burdens away from those whose duties do not extend so far.
Acknowledgements: Many thanks to our colleagues at Indiana University, especially Luke Capek, Kjell Fostervold, Katrina Haaksma, Kirk Ludwig, and Elizabeth Williams, for their thoughtful feedback.
Zara Anwarzai
Zara Anwarzai is a PhD candidate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Indiana University Bloomington. Her current work focuses on expertise and skilled action. She has additional research interests in collective action in contexts like workplace organizing and climate change, as well as interests in the philosophy of technology.
Ricky Mouser
Ricky Mouser is a PhD student in philosophy at Indiana University Bloomington. His current research explores the relationship between moral skepticism and skepticism about other minds, but he also has interests in philosophy of language and aesthetics.
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