COVID-19 has become a twisted real-time thought experiment, and social media is the platform where the experiment plays out (including us weirdos on CB). Seemingly overnight, we've all been tasked with the great burden to become medical and ethical experts and solve this gigantic moral dilemma. However, this is an empirical matter that we obviously aren't in a good position to solve without foreseeing the vast array of unintended consequences down the road.

So what's the utilitarian approach to all of this? I ask because I think that's where a lot of people's minds are going. How can we maximize the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people??

I'm not sure what the answer is, but here's one way I've looked at it. Whatever pandemic control/mitigation measure we each think should be taken, we're all constructing "Utility Monsters" - those who lay claim to gaining the most utility as a result certain actions, as well as those who claim to know how utility could be maximized overall in our global society. The flaw with this approach is it ruthlessly exploits groups of people at the expense of others who claim the utility trophy (e.g. older/susceptible people vs. people greatly affected by the economic collapse).

It's like something straight out of my Ethics class at BYU, except we're all kind of being jerks and a lot more is at stake. What a trip.