I've just been thinking about the ethical and relational frameworks that have been showing up in economists' writing about the cost/benefit and timing of restrictions. It seems like there are two main framings:

1. utilitarian
2. libertarian

>

1. Util: 'Should we impose huge costs on the whole of society rather than letting a small number die?'

Note how context-invariant that argument is... it's an argument against protecting any minority ever, if it would impose even a small cost on a large number of people. >

2. Lib'n: 'We need to have a conversation about the rights and freedoms that are being restricted' and very often, the nanny state objection 'by public health experts who are totalitarian by nature / only care about diseases.'

Like, yes, but getting sick also limits freedoms. >

I think both perspectives afford useful insights, but it's really striking how these arguments completely overlook communitarian ethics, affect, embodiment, relationality. >

On that broader view, a restriction is only meaningful *because* it costs me something, and that enlivens the public debate about freedoms, etc, and it is meaningful to me *because* it's a thing I do to protect unknown others, not just to protect myself. >

For some reason (neoliberalism), we've accepted a state of affairs where economists are the key commentators on what kind of society we are working to create, via the job market, fiscal policy, budgets, and so on.

So their ethically impoverished view on the world matters. -end-