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

Sven Nyholm; Kritika Maheshwari

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-08424-9_8

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

Sven Nyholm, Kritika Maheshwari

OFR - Ethics Institute

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › Academic › peer-review

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.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Values for a Post-Pandemic Future
Editors	Matthew J. Dennis, Georgy Ishmaev, Steven Umbrello, Jeroen van den Hoven
Place of Publication	Cham
Publisher	Springer
Chapter	8
Pages	147-162
Number of pages	16
Edition	1
ISBN (Electronic)	978-3-031-08424-9
ISBN (Print)	978-3-031-08423-2, 978-3-031-08426-3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08424-9_8
Publication status	Published - 13 Sept 2022

Publication series

Name	Philosophy of Engineering and Technology
Publisher	Springer
Volume	40
ISSN (Print)	1879-7202
ISSN (Electronic)	1879-7210

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
7We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer and to the editors of this volume. Sven Nyholm’s work on this article is part of the research program Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies, which is funded through the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO grant number 024.004.031).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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978-3-031-08424-9_8Final published version, 389 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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Offsetting Present Risks, Preempting Future Harms, and the Ethics of a ‘New Normal’. / Nyholm, Sven; Maheshwari, Kritika.
Values for a Post-Pandemic Future. ed. / Matthew J. Dennis; Georgy Ishmaev; Steven Umbrello; Jeroen van den Hoven. 1. ed. Cham: Springer, 2022. p. 147-162 (Philosophy of Engineering and Technology; Vol. 40).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › Academic › peer-review

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

Abstract

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Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

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