Offsetting Present Risks, Preempting Future Harms, and the Ethics of a ‘New Normal’

Abstract

The ongoing pandemic has led some people to speak about a ‘new normal’, since we have temporarily had to radically change how we live our lives to protect ourselves and others from the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That expression – ‘a new normal’ – has been also be used in other contexts, such as in relation to societal disruptions brought about by things like new technologies or climate change. What this general idea of a ‘new normal’ means is unclear and hard to characterise, and there are diverging views about how to respond to a new normal, but one feature of a desirable new normal that most people would agree on is that it should be ‘safer’: safer technologies, safer institutions, and so on. But it is also important to consider what other ethical considerations and principles should be part of an ethics of a new normal. And it is also interesting to explore similarities and differences among different types of cases that can be classified as situations where we face a new normal. In this chapter, we will discuss the general idea of an ethics of a new normal, and consider what ethical distinctions, values, and principles are likely to be relevant in most instances where we face a new normal, including ethical considerations related to risk mitigation and ways of offsetting potential harms.