Publication details
Problém svobody a legitimity povinného nošení roušek v době plošných protiepidemických opatření
| Title in English | The Problem Of Freedom And Legitimacy Of The Mandatory Wearing Of Face-masks In The Time Of Mass Anti-epidemic Measures |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2020 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | As a result of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, our society is facing new challenges and problems affecting all areas of society. Widespread anti-epidemic measures aimed at reducing the virulence and reproductive number of the virus create the need for a new question about the forms of political and civil liberties. After all, the technology that regulates each person enters the life of every citizen to a different extent, directs us to a certain way of behaving, and restricts certain ways of behaving (unless they are directly prohibited). Some of the measures arouse strong criticism from the public, which sometimes grows into active resistance. The forms of this "resistance" vary, from the introduction of consistent arguments against measures to the phenomenon "pseudo-mask", which is simply symbolic expressions of resistance to the general restraint of individuals. The debate on the legitimacy of anti-pandemic measures leads to a broader question of the legitimacy of the interventions of public authorities and public institutions in our lives and also of the role of technology in this intervention. The lecture will show that the technology of hygienic measures can be understood as an active factor in the formation of an ethical and social universe and that it fundamentally influences its final form. The lecture will focus on examining one specific measure, namely the mandatory wearing of face-masks. The aim is to examine whether and how it affects an individual's personal freedom, to present the main lines of thinking about freedom, to introduce the face-mask as a technical artifact that relevantly enters the ethical and political universe and then evaluate the impact of wearing a face-mask on personal freedom. |
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