Gregory Pence on Liberty and Privacy

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Gregory Pence on Liberty and Privacy

The chapter on liberty and privacy has focused on philosophical questions that reflect on bioethical issues linked to the Pandemic. The central philosophical positions on liberty discussed in this chapter include Foucault and Agamben on domination and control. Agamben and Foucault both focus on the broader controls that began during the pandemics and their wide repercussions. The main idea on liberty and privacy is that there are socially constructed mechanisms for normalizing individuals, controlling deviance, and shaping how individuals can be channeled into acceptable forms (Pence, 2021). Foucault and Agamben have extensively offered contrasting approaches to theorize life and illustrate how individuals can resist power control.

The great personal liberty of citizens in the west has led to problems during the pandemics. Tensions exist during pandemics between protecting the most fragile and individual liberty. Foucault offers accounts of the relations of power that are said to influence contemporary thought and regulate modern individuals. Foucault argues that the state used epidemics to gain new powers (Pence, 2021). The prevailing norms and practices of the modern world strive to build docile bodies that must be observed, trained, and above all submissive to the existing powers. Foucault illustrates how institutions control people using four basic ways; genetically, spatially, organically, and combinatorially. Agamben reacts to his nation’s months-long lockdowns by supporting the ideas of Foucault and claiming that the Italian prime ministers were using the Pandemic to illegitimately have more powers over the Italian state (Pence, 2021). Libertarianism brings similar ideas to those of Agamben and Foucault. The libertarian movement condemned the harsh measures put by New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo which concentrated on his over-reaching individual liberties, his distrust of building consensus, and lack of accountability. The chapter has also discussed some of the problems linked to contract tracing and why it failed in the United States and worked in other countries. Another significant issue in modern bioethics is genetic information collected during pandemics. Therefore, there is a challenge in controlling pandemics and protecting individual privacy and liberty.

References

Pence, G. E. (2021). Pandemic Bioethics. Broadview Press.