How to Balance Individual and Collective Values After COVID-19? Ethical Reflections on Crowd Management at Dutch Train Stations

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Abstract

This chapter explores the shift in the balance of individual versus collective values instigated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The incredible viral spread rate among the population and its relatively high fatality rate has initially resulted in an assertion of the primacy of collective values (such as collective safety, collective responsibility, conformism). In contrast, individual rights and values (such as the individual counterparts of autonomy, freedom, responsibility, and privacy) took a ‘back seat’ for the good of the collective. However, as the pandemic extended over the months, there emerged a pressure to reject the primacy of collective values and restore the importance of individual values. If we are to return to a healthy and prosperous living within a well-functioning society, this balance shift between collective and individual values will have to be re-negotiated and resolved to reach a societally acceptable balance position. We conduct this ethical exploration, first, by following the ethico-philosophical discussion on the balance between individual and collective values generally, as well as in times of crisis, with special focus on the COVID-19 crisis. Second, we explore this topic through the lens of recent changes to how particular technologies were and are used before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. More precisely, we identify and explore broad trends we see relevant to ethics – with a particular focus on crowd management and nudging and on the balance shift between individual and collective values. Finally, by exploring findings from a sociophysics case study dealing with crowd management of people before and during the pandemic, we argue that some sociophysical phenomena can be used as proxies for ethical principles. Here, distance is used as a conceptual proxy for individual and collective responsibility, having in mind COVID-19 distancing rules and recommendation. With all the above, we identify several broad trends that have been instigated by the pandemic that are relevant to ethics. These changes relate to future crowd management, nudging, and control; individual (per-person) tracking; insistence on the importance of collective values in times of crisis, and the rejection of this infringement upon individual rights. In this regard, we assert that such value changes are an opportunity to rethink and (re)set balance points between individual and collective rights for each particular society.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationValues for a Post-Pandemic Future
EditorsMatthew J. Dennis, Georgy Ishmaev, Steven Umbrello, Jeroen van den Hoven
Place of PublicationCham
PublisherSpringer
Chapter12
Pages215-232
Number of pages18
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-031-08424-9
ISBN (Print)978-3-031-08426-3, 978-3-031-08423-2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Publication series

NamePhilosophy of Engineering and Technology (POET)
PublisherSpringer
Volume40
ISSN (Print)1879-7202
ISSN (Electronic)1879-7210

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgements This work is part of the HTSM research programs “SRCrowd: Individual and collective agency in Socially Responsible nudging of Crowd”, and “HTCrowd: a high-tech platform for human crowd f ws monitoring, modeling and nudging” with project numbers 18754, 17962, and the VENI-AES research program “Understanding and controlling the f w of human crowds” with project number 16771, all nanced by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

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