In the middle of March we were suddenly no longer allowed to visit our parents in the nursing home. Churches, concert halls and gyms closed their doors and parents had to teach their children at home. But were (and are) the restrictions also justified? The term ‘intelligent lockdown’ called for by Prime Minister Rutte has sometimes been criticised (‘are there also dumb lockdowns’?). How intelligent is this lockdown?

In the new Ethical Annotation The Intelligent Lockdown, Prof. Rutger Claassen(Philosophy and Religious Studies ) gives the reader philosophical depth and nine criteria to answer the question ‘How intelligent is the lockdown?’. According to him, all three dimensions of our freedom (personal, collection, moral) are affected by ‘intelligent lockdown’. These dimensions of freedom have a long tradition in philosophical thinking; the light in which they must be seen during a lockdown is new, Claassen says.

Ethical Annotations

With the Ethical Annotations series, the Ethics Institute makes insights from philosophical ethics on topical issues accessible to a wide audience of students, policy makers, business leaders, politicians, journalists, activists, and other citizens.