Author: TheConversation

By Jaime Ahlberg, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Florida As people rush to stockpile provisions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, stores have placed restrictions on the purchase of basic goods and medicines. When supply chains are vulnerable to spikes in demand, one person’s stockpiling can mean another person’s shortage. As a philosopher who has studied ethical action in difficult circumstances, I know that when many people fail to act ethically, it can seem that each individual has less of an obligation to act well. At this time, American political philosopher John Rawls’ theory of justice can offer...

By Maria Ivanova, Associate Professor of Global Governance and Director, Center for Governance and Sustainability, John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston The first Earth Day protests, which took place on April 22, 1970 brought 20 million Americans – 10% of the U.S. population at the time – into the streets. Recognizing the power of this growing movement, President Richard Nixon and Congress responded by creating the Environmental Protection Agency and enacting a wave of laws, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. But Earth...

By Bhaskar Chakravorti, Dean of Global Business, The Fletcher School, Tufts University As we practice social distancing, our embrace of social media gets only tighter. The major social media platforms have emerged as the critical information purveyors for influencing the choices people make during the expanding pandemic. There’s also reason for worry: the World Health Organization is concerned about an “infodemic,” a glut of accurate and inaccurate information about COVID-19. The social media companies have been pilloried in recent years for practicing “surveillance capitalism” and being a societal menace. The pandemic could be their moment of redemption. How are...

By Carl Kurlander, Senior Lecturer, University of Pittsburgh The fear and uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic may feel new to many of us. But it is strangely familiar to those who lived through the polio epidemic of the last century. Like a horror movie, throughout the first half of the 20th century, the polio virus arrived each summer, striking without warning. No one knew how polio was transmitted or what caused it. There were wild theories that the virus spread from imported bananas or stray cats. There was no known cure or vaccine. For the next four decades, swimming...

By Richard Gunderman, Chancellor’s Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University He survived the last great plague in London and the city’s Great Fire. He was imprisoned and persecuted for his religious and political views. There was no happy ending for the journalist Daniel Defoe, author of “A Journal of a Plague Year.” When he died in 1731, he was mired in debt and hiding from his creditors. Yet Defoe, born in 1660, left behind a work of fiction that is one of the most widely published books in history and – other than the Bible –...