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Quarantine, isolation and the duty of easy rescue in public health

We address the issue of whether, why and under what conditions, quarantine and isolation are morally justified, with a particular focus on measures implemented in the developing world. We argue that the benefits of quarantine and isolation justify some level of coercion or compulsion by the state, b...

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Autores principales: Giubilini, Alberto, Douglas, Thomas, Maslen, Hannah, Savulescu, Julian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6001516/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28922559
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12165
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author Giubilini, Alberto
Douglas, Thomas
Maslen, Hannah
Savulescu, Julian
author_facet Giubilini, Alberto
Douglas, Thomas
Maslen, Hannah
Savulescu, Julian
author_sort Giubilini, Alberto
collection PubMed
description We address the issue of whether, why and under what conditions, quarantine and isolation are morally justified, with a particular focus on measures implemented in the developing world. We argue that the benefits of quarantine and isolation justify some level of coercion or compulsion by the state, but that the state should be able to provide the strongest justification possible for implementing such measures. While a constrained form of consequentialism might provide a justification for such public health interventions, we argue that a stronger justification is provided by a principle of State Enforced Easy Rescue: a state may permissibly compel individuals to engage in activities that entail a small cost to them but a large benefit to others, because individuals have a moral duty of easy rescue to engage in those activities. The principle of State Enforced Easy Rescue gives rise to an Obligation Enforcement Requirement: the state should create the conditions such that submitting to coercive or compulsive measures becomes a fundamental moral duty of individuals, i.e. a duty of easy rescue. When the state can create such conditions, it has the strongest justification possible for implementing coercive or compulsive measures, because individuals have a moral duty to temporarily relinquish the rights that such measures would infringe. Our argument has significant implications for how public health emergencies in the developing world should be tackled. Where isolation and quarantine measures are necessary, states or the international community have a moral obligation to provide certain benefits to those quarantined or isolated.
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spelling pubmed-60015162018-06-21 Quarantine, isolation and the duty of easy rescue in public health Giubilini, Alberto Douglas, Thomas Maslen, Hannah Savulescu, Julian Dev World Bioeth Articles We address the issue of whether, why and under what conditions, quarantine and isolation are morally justified, with a particular focus on measures implemented in the developing world. We argue that the benefits of quarantine and isolation justify some level of coercion or compulsion by the state, but that the state should be able to provide the strongest justification possible for implementing such measures. While a constrained form of consequentialism might provide a justification for such public health interventions, we argue that a stronger justification is provided by a principle of State Enforced Easy Rescue: a state may permissibly compel individuals to engage in activities that entail a small cost to them but a large benefit to others, because individuals have a moral duty of easy rescue to engage in those activities. The principle of State Enforced Easy Rescue gives rise to an Obligation Enforcement Requirement: the state should create the conditions such that submitting to coercive or compulsive measures becomes a fundamental moral duty of individuals, i.e. a duty of easy rescue. When the state can create such conditions, it has the strongest justification possible for implementing coercive or compulsive measures, because individuals have a moral duty to temporarily relinquish the rights that such measures would infringe. Our argument has significant implications for how public health emergencies in the developing world should be tackled. Where isolation and quarantine measures are necessary, states or the international community have a moral obligation to provide certain benefits to those quarantined or isolated. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2017-09-18 2018-06 /pmc/articles/PMC6001516/ /pubmed/28922559 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12165 Text en © 2017 The Authors Developing World Bioethics Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Articles
Giubilini, Alberto
Douglas, Thomas
Maslen, Hannah
Savulescu, Julian
Quarantine, isolation and the duty of easy rescue in public health
title Quarantine, isolation and the duty of easy rescue in public health
title_full Quarantine, isolation and the duty of easy rescue in public health
title_fullStr Quarantine, isolation and the duty of easy rescue in public health
title_full_unstemmed Quarantine, isolation and the duty of easy rescue in public health
title_short Quarantine, isolation and the duty of easy rescue in public health
title_sort quarantine, isolation and the duty of easy rescue in public health
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6001516/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28922559
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12165
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