Law and ethics in the time of COVID-19

By Neil Pickering In order to support its Alert Level 4 declaration, the New Zealand government has taken up extraordinary legal powers to control people’s lives.  As Professor Andrew Geddis of the Otago University Faculty of Law is reported to have said: “These give the state extraordinary reach into our lives, and transfer extraordinary power […]

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Oops!  Mistakes and moral responsibility under COVID19

By Neil Pickering I’ve been pondering for some time about the use of the term ‘mistake’ to describe one’s actions, and this has been brought to the fore again by actions of government ministers during the COVID 19 pandemic. The BBC recently reported on the case of Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s chief medical officer.  Calderwood […]

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