Social ethical reflection on covid-19 epidemic from the perspective of caring ethics

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 has caused global concern and called for emergency response measures. In this continuous epidemic crisis, ethics has suffered unprecedented huge impact and challenges. It is the responsibility of contemporary ethics to reflect on the moral dilemma existing in itself and in the world. Therefore, ethics must stand the test and provide legitimate reasons for how to give full play to relevance and availability in this global crisis. The theory of rule ethics, which focuses on the realization of moral obligations and rights, is obviously unable to adapt to the response to the demand for ethical responsibility in special periods. The ability to take moral actions against others requires the intervention of "empathy" and "care" factors to realize the possibility of changing from heteronomy to self-discipline. Caring ethics emphasizes that "empathy" and "care" should be wisely regarded as an important value under the COVID-19 epidemic, so as to minimize the possible of the COVID-19 spread and its mutation and escalation in daily interpersonal communication, and create more meaningful ethical relationships with others by being responsible for and caring for others. At the same time, caring ethics further emphasizes that ignoring the cognition may lead to continuous psychological impact, making it difficult to reconstruct a harmonious social psychological situation. © 2023, Editorial department of Chinese Medical Ethics. All rights reserved.