The Common Good and Individual Rights in Pandemic Times: The Case of Sweden’s COVID-19 Strategy

Abstract

AbstractIn this chapter I intend to problematize the relationship between conceptions of the common good and individual rights in pandemic strategies, using the Swedish COVID-19 pandemic strategy as an example. The common good can be understood as either utility-based or rights-based. A utility-based conception of the common good aims at maximizing good consequences for society as a whole, while a rights-based conception of the common good aims at protecting important individual rights. It would perhaps be natural to assume that a utility-based conception of the common good would justify a pandemic strategy that is restrictive of individual rights, such as freedom of assembly and freedom of movement, for the sake of securing collective goods such as public health. Likewise, it would perhaps be natural to assume that a rights-based conception of the common good would justify a more permissive pandemic strategy, emphasizing individuals’ right to freedom as a central aspect of the common good that the strategy should protect. However, as the case of Sweden suggests, a pandemic strategy might be utility-based and permissive at one and the same time. Moreover, its very permissiveness makes the strategy morally problematic from a rights-based perspective, as it allows the pandemic to spread and threaten the basic well-being of a large number of people.KeywordsCommon goodUtilityRightsCOVID-19Sweden