IS THE IMMUNITY PASSPORT POLICY DISCRIMINATORY?
2024, 104, No. 1
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Abstract
Immunity passports (IPs) were one of the most important policies aiming at public health protection during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the discussion regarding this policy, several ethical, legal, and philosophical objections have been raised that seem to put the legal and moral permissibility of IPs into question. One of those concerns is the main topic of the proposed analysis, namely the one that suggests that IPs have a discriminatory character. The primary purpose of the paper is to investigate, develop, and evaluate intuitions behind the mentioned concern in light of the current philosophical understanding of discrimination. These intuitions have been extracted from the general discussion on the policy in question and classified into three separate arguments: direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, and discrimination in a global perspective. The author will claim that the first argument is prima facie sound, with two strategies of counter-argumentation identified; the second argument is sound, although the scope of its application remains partially undetermined; and the third argument is not sound, as it does not involve a threat of discrimination.
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