论文标题
前线上的功利主义：共同-19，公共道德和“隐藏的假设”问题
Utilitarianism on the front lines: COVID-19, public ethics, and the "hidden assumption" problem
论文作者
论文摘要
我们应该如何看待公民的偏好？尽管自动政策对制作相对简单，但社会最佳政策通常需要进行更详细的检查。在本文中，我们确定了一个问题，该问题在公共政策的福利主义建模中受到了很少的关注，我们将其命名为“隐藏的假设”问题。隐藏的假设可以具有欺骗性，因为它们没有明确表达，社会计划者（例如，政策制定者，监管机构，立法者）可能不会给予他们所需的批判性关注。我们认为，道德专业知识在公共话语中具有直接的作用，因为很难在公共卫生政策或医疗保健优先级等主要问题上采取立场，而不会对人口伦理有争议。然后，我们假设伦理学家最适合评估这些隐藏的假设，因此可以在公共政策辩论中发挥至关重要的作用。
How should we think of the preferences of citizens? Whereas self-optimal policy is relatively straightforward to produce, socially optimal policy often requires a more detailed examination. In this paper, we identify an issue that has received far too little attention in welfarist modelling of public policy, which we name the "hidden assumptions" problem. Hidden assumptions can be deceptive because they are not expressed explicitly and the social planner (e.g. a policy maker, a regulator, a legislator) may not give them the critical attention they need. We argue that ethical expertise has a direct role to play in public discourse because it is hard to adopt a position on major issues like public health policy or healthcare prioritisation without making contentious assumptions about population ethics. We then postulate that ethicists are best situated to critically evaluate these hidden assumptions, and can therefore play a vital role in public policy debates.
