Erschienen in:
25.08.2020 | COVID-19 | Symposium: COVID-19
Zur Zeit gratis
Humiliating Whistle-Blowers: Li Wenliang, the Response to Covid-19, and the Call for a Decent Society
verfasst von:
Jing-Bao Nie, Carl Elliott
Erschienen in:
Journal of Bioethical Inquiry
|
Ausgabe 4/2020
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Abstract
The ethical experience and lessons of China’s and the world's response to COVID-19 will be debated for many years to come. But one feature of the Chinese authoritarian response that should not be overlooked is its practice of silencing and humiliating the whistle-blowers who told the truth about the epidemic. In this article, we document the humiliation of Dr Li Wenliang (1986–2020), the most prominent whistle-blower in the Chinese COVID-19 epidemic. Engaging with the thought of Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit, who argues that humiliation constitutes an injury to a person’s self-respect, we discuss his contention that a decent society is one that abolishes conditions which constitute a justification for its dependents to consider themselves humiliated. We explore the ways that institutions humiliate whistle-blowers in Western countries as well as in China.