Ethics during a pandemic : some ethical issues amidst the Covid-19 Crisis in the Philippines as seen through Kant's writings

Abstract EN

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic is undeniably a serious health issue, not to mention the economic, social, political, legal, and ethical issues that accompany it.

This paper explores the ethical issues related to the COVID-19 crisis in the Philippines.

It presents a broad, but not exhaustive, spectrum of ethical issues that span from the violation of quarantine protocols, refusal of hospitals to admit patients, discrimination against and harassment of healthcare workers and COVID-19 patients, propagation of misinformation, to the selling of overpriced medical products and equipment.

Methodology: As philosophical research, this study utilizes a qualitative approach and primarily employs an interpretative analysis of Kant’s select writings.

Results: The author argues that certain ethical issues which arose during the COVID-19 outbreak in the Philippines violate Kant’s Universal Law and Law of Humanity as an End by Itself.

He further argues that the stark disregard of quarantine protocols is an incident that attests to the pervasiveness of elitism in the Philippines whereby the rich and powerful people enjoy an unusual aberrant brand of democracy.

Summary: It is morally imperative that vaccines against COVID-19 must be given for free to Third World countries which are highly vulnerable to human rights abuses.