UK health workers were let down by government during Covid pandemic, say doctors

UK response to the pandemic was not always ‘guided by the science’

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

Health and social care workers were often let down by the government whose claims that it was ‘guided by the science’ when developing policy to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic were questionable, according to an editorial published online today in The BMJ.

Many questions need to be answered when assessing how well the UK responded to the pandemic, says an opinion piece written by editor in chief of The BMJ, Kamran Abbasi, and Martin McKee and Kara Hanson, both from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London.

The BMJ has commissioned a series of articles to examine how evidence was used to shape the UK’s response to the pandemic as well as how information was sometimes “misused, abused, and manipulated” by some parties.

The first two of these articles, published today, question the evidence behind government decisions on how Covid-19 spreads and children and schools.

In the first article, Professor Trisha Greenhalgh at the University of Oxford and colleagues explore how flawed narratives about SARS-CoV-2 transmission arose and became entrenched early in the pandemic, leading to misplaced policies and avoidable deaths.

They say: “At the root of the UK’s limited success in controlling transmission of SARS-CoV-2 lie flawed droplet-but-not-airborne and situationally airborne narratives.

“These narratives, and the false certainty with which they were conveyed, produced ineffective public health measures, contributed to shocking levels of care home deaths, exacerbated toxic discourse on masking, and justified withholding adequate protection from most health and care staff.”

They invite the inquiry "to consider not just those specific flawed decisions but also the culture of premature scientific conclusions and reluctance to engage with uncertainty."

In the second article, Dr Deepti Gurdasani at Queen Mary University of London and colleagues argue that the UK government relied on evidence that downplayed the seriousness of Covid-19 in children, underestimated the benefits of precautionary measures, and overestimated the harms of vaccination.

They say: “Government policy seems to have been based on three assumptions – namely that children had a minimal role in community spread, particularly to vulnerable relatives; that schools were not loci of transmission; and that children were not harmed by infection.

“However, none of these assumptions is true, and this was knowable early on, when key decisions were made.”

They recommend the public inquiry "should explore why the UK was an international outlier in its approach to protecting children and making schools and communities safer."

In the editorial published today, Abbasi and co-authors say The BMJ’s series of articles will help inform the ongoing UK Covid-19 Inquiry being chaired by Heather Hallett.

That inquiry will document decisions made and examine the reasons for them as well as look at international comparisons and consider the experiences of bereaved families.

It will not be easy, warn the editorial authors who say: “One challenge will be getting at the truth, given the government’s track record of rejecting requests under the Freedom of Information Act, refusals by ministers to attend parliamentary committees, and [Boris] Johnson’s habit of not answering the questions put to him in parliament each week. This is a government that is uncomfortable with scrutiny.”

Another challenge that lays ahead for the inquiry will be assessing how the decision-making process was informed and influenced, they add.

“Throughout the pandemic politicians and their scientific advisers insisted that decision making would be ‘guided by the science’” they say. “However, evidence is socially constructed and can be highly contested. Different sources, and indeed types, of evidence are given different weight in developing policy: it is important to consider whose science counts, and why.”

The editorial says there were some successes in how the pandemic was handled, such as the early stages of the vaccine programme, how the NHS responded to rolling it out, and health service innovation.

However, mistakes were also made, they add, saying: “The evidence that SARS-CoV-2 transmits through the air, in crowded and poorly ventilated places, was clear relatively early on. Even now, many policies ignore this vital fact.

“Children have been harmed through Covid affecting them or family members, and through loss of education. The measures that would protect them, such as vaccination and improved ventilation in schools, attract lukewarm support at best.”

They conclude that the UK’s response should have been better, given the death toll was approaching 200,000 deaths in the UK.

“While debate continues about how best to compare the resilience of national health systems to shocks such as pandemics, there is little doubt that the UK’s response fell far short of its potential,” they say.

Each article in The BMJ series will, say the authors, offer messages to help inform the national inquiry, but they add: “One message is universal and unequivocal: scientists and health workers on the front line of the response, and therefore the public, were too often let down by politicians.”

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JOURNAL

The BMJ

DOI

10.1136/bmj-2022.o2066 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

News article

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Guided by the science? Questions for the UK’s covid-19 public inquiry

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

31-Aug-2022

Double burden of paid and unpaid labor leading to poorer mental health in women, review finds

New research reveals unpaid labor is associated with poorer mental health in employed women, but the effects are less apparent for men

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

New research reveals unpaid labour is associated with poorer mental health in employed women, but the effects are less apparent for men

Published in the Lancet Public Health, University of Melbourne researchers have conducted a review – the first of its kind – to bring together and assess the existing evidence examining the gendered association between unpaid labour and mental health. 

Of the 14 studies included – totalling more than 66,800 participants worldwide – five examined unpaid labour (inclusive of care), nine examined housework time and, of these, four also examined childcare.

Researchers found that in addition to the economic penalty women experience shouldering most of the world's unpaid labour load, there is a mental health cost as well.

Overall, in 11 of the 14 studies examined, women self-reported increased depressive or psychological distress symptoms with increasing unpaid labour demands. For men, only three out of a possible 12 studies reported any negative association.

“We found substantial gender differences in exposure to unpaid labour, with women uniformly doing more in every geographical and time setting – in more than 35 countries – around the world,” research lead Jen Ervin said.

“This double burden of paid and unpaid work exposures women to greater risk for overload, time poverty and poorer mental health. Crucially, women are also routinely trading off paid work hours to meet their disproportionally high unpaid labour responsibilities.”

Ms Ervin said the study highlights the need for greater attention and meaningful action to drive greater equity in the division of unpaid labour.

“There is an undeniable mental load that accompanies unpaid labour and family responsibilities. Reducing the disproportionate unpaid labour burden on women, by enabling men to take on their equal share, has the potential to improve women’s mental health,” she said.

In addition, researchers say substantive policy changes, such as universal childcare and normalising flexible working arrangements for men are urgently required to enable real change.

Researchers conclude that this review highlights the need for further high-quality longitudinal research in this area, the need to better understand nuances within different dimensions of unpaid labour, as well as the need for a consistent approach in how unpaid labour is defined and measured.
 

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JOURNAL

The Lancet Public Health

DOI

10.1016/S2468-2667(22)00160-8 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Double burden of paid and unpaid labour leading to poorer mental health in women, review finds

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

31-Aug-2022

Robots can be used to assess children’s mental wellbeing, study suggests

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

 

IMAGE: A TEAM OF ROBOTICISTS, COMPUTER SCIENTISTS AND PSYCHIATRISTS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE CARRIED OUT A STUDY WITH 28 CHILDREN BETWEEN THE AGES OF EIGHT AND 13, AND HAD A CHILD-SIZED HUMANOID ROBOT ADMINISTER A SERIES OF STANDARD PSYCHOLOGICAL QUESTIONNAIRES TO ASSESS THE MENTAL WELLBEING OF EACH PARTICIPANT. THE CHILDREN WERE WILLING TO CONFIDE IN THE ROBOT, IN SOME CASES SHARING INFORMATION WITH THE ROBOT THAT THEY HAD NOT YET SHARED VIA THE STANDARD ASSESSMENT METHOD OF ONLINE OR IN-PERSON QUESTIONNAIRES. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THAT ROBOTS HAVE BEEN USED TO ASSESS MENTAL WELLBEING IN CHILDREN. THE RESEARCHERS SAY THAT ROBOTS COULD BE A USEFUL ADDITION TO TRADITIONAL METHODS OF MENTAL HEALTH ASSESSMENT, ALTHOUGH THEY ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONAL MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT. view more 

CREDIT: RACHEL GARDNER

Robots can be better at detecting mental wellbeing issues in children than parent-reported or self-reported testing, a new study suggests.

A team of roboticists, computer scientists and psychiatrists from the University of Cambridge carried out a study with 28 children between the ages of eight and 13, and had a child-sized humanoid robot administer a series of standard psychological questionnaires to assess the mental wellbeing of each participant.

The children were willing to confide in the robot, in some cases sharing information with the robot that they had not yet shared via the standard assessment method of online or in-person questionnaires. This is the first time that robots have been used to assess mental wellbeing in children.

The researchers say that robots could be a useful addition to traditional methods of mental health assessment, although they are not intended to be a substitute for professional mental health support. The results will be presented today (1 September) at the 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) in Naples, Italy.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, home schooling, financial pressures, and isolation from peers and friends impacted the mental health of many children. Even before the pandemic however, anxiety and depression among children in the UK has been on the rise, but the resources and support to address mental wellbeing are severely limited.

Professor Hatice Gunes, who leads the Affective Intelligence and Robotics Laboratory in Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology, has been studying how socially-assistive robots (SARs) can be used as mental wellbeing ‘coaches’ for adults, but in recent years has also been studying how they may be beneficial to children.

“After I became a mother, I was much more interested in how children express themselves as they grow, and how that might overlap with my work in robotics,” said Gunes. “Children are quite tactile, and they’re drawn to technology. If they’re using a screen-based tool, they’re withdrawn from the physical world. But robots are perfect because they’re in the physical world – they’re more interactive, so the children are more engaged.”

With colleagues in Cambridge’s Department of Psychiatry, Gunes and her team designed an experiment to see if robots could be a useful tool to assess mental wellbeing in children.

“There are times when traditional methods aren’t able to catch mental wellbeing lapses in children, as sometimes the changes are incredibly subtle,” said Nida Itrat Abbasi, the study’s first author. “We wanted to see whether robots might be able to help with this process.”

For the study, 28 participants between ages eight and 13 each took part in a one-to-one 45-minute session with a Nao robot – a humanoid robot about 60 centimetres tall. A parent or guardian, along with members of the research team, observed from an adjacent room. Prior to each session, children and their parent or guardian completed standard online questionnaire to assess each child’s mental wellbeing.

During each session, the robot performed four different tasks: 1) asked open-ended questions about happy and sad memories over the last week; 2) administered the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ); 3) administered a picture task inspired by the Children’s Apperception Test (CAT), where children are asked to answer questions related to pictures shown; and 4) administered the Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) for generalised anxiety, panic disorder and low mood.

CAPTION

Robots can be better at detecting mental wellbeing issues in children than parent-reported or self-reported testing, a new study suggests.

CREDIT

Rachel Gardner

Children were divided into three different groups following the SMFQ, according to how likely they were to be struggling with their mental wellbeing. Participants interacted with the robot throughout the session by speaking with it, or by touching sensors on the robot’s hands and feet. Additional sensors tracked participants’ heartbeat, head and eye movements during the session.

Study participants all said they enjoyed talking with the robot: some shared information with the robot that they hadn’t shared either in person or on the online questionnaire.

The researchers found that children with varying levels of wellbeing concerns interacted differently with the robot. For children that might not be experiencing mental wellbeing-related problems, the researchers found that interacting with the robot led to more positive response ratings to the questionnaires. However, for children that might be experiencing wellbeing related concerns, the robot may have enabled them to divulge their true feelings and experiences, leading to more negative response ratings to the questionnaire.

“Since the robot we use is child-sized, and completely non-threatening, children might see the robot as a confidante – they feel like they won’t get into trouble if they share secrets with it,” said Abbasi. “Other researchers have found that children are more likely to divulge private information – like that they’re being bullied, for example – to a robot than they would be to an adult.”

The researchers say that while their results show that robots could be a useful tool for psychological assessment of children, they are not a substitute for human interaction.

“We don’t have any intention of replacing psychologists or other mental health professionals with robots, since their expertise far surpasses anything a robot can do,” said co-author Dr Micol Spitale. “However, our work suggests that robots could be a useful tool in helping children to open up and share things they might not be comfortable sharing at first.”

The researchers say that they hope to expand their survey in future, by including more participants and following them over time. They are also investigating whether similar results could be achieved if children interact with the robot via video chat.

The research was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

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A team of roboticists, computer scientists and psychiatrists from the University of Cambridge carried out a study with 28 children between the ages of eight and 13, and had a child-sized humanoid robot administer a series of standard psychological questionnaires to assess the mental wellbeing of each participant. The children were willing to confide in the robot, in some cases sharing information with the robot that they had not yet shared via the standard assessment method of online or in-person questionnaires. This is the first time that robots have been used to assess mental wellbeing in children. The researchers say that robots could be a useful addition to traditional methods of mental health assessment, although they are not intended to be a substitute for professional mental health support.

CREDIT

Rachel Gardner

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Can Robots Help in the Evaluation of Mental Wellbeing in Children? An Empirical Study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Sep-2022

Scientists discover compound found in trees has potential to kill drug-resistant bacteria

An organic compound could become a critical tool in the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a new study suggests

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH

Researchers have found a naturally occurring compound, known as hydroquinine, has bacterial killing activity against several microorganisms.

Antimicrobial resistance has become one of the greatest threats to public health globally. It occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines, making it difficult to treat infections. Because of this, there is a pressing need for the development of new antimicrobial drugs to combat infections.

A new study by scientists from the University of Portsmouth and Naresuan and Pibulsongkram Rajabhat Universities in Thailand explored whether hydroquinine, which is found in the bark of some trees, could inhibit any bacterial strains. Hydroquinine is already known to be an effective agent against malaria in humans, but until now there has been little investigation into its drug-resistant properties.

The findings, published in the Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease journal, suggest the antimicrobial properties of the organic compound make it a potential candidate for future clinical investigation. 

Dr Robert Baldock from the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, said: “Using bacterial killing experiments, we found  that hydroquinine was able to kill several microorganisms including the common multidrug-resistant pathogen pseudomonas aeruginosa.

“Characteristically, we also discovered that one of the main mechanisms used by these bacteria to escape killing activity of the drug was upregulated with treatment - indicating a robust response from the bacteria.

“By studying this compound further, our hope is that it may in future offer another line of treatment in combatting bacterial infections.”

Drug-resistant bacteria occur in more than 2.8 million infections and are responsible for 35,000 deaths per year. Common antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” cause diseases including sepsis, urinary tract infections, and pneumonia. Statistics show bloodstream infections with the bacteria - P. aeruginosa are associated with high mortality rates of between 30 and 50%. 

The study recommends further investigation into the antimicrobial resistance properties and side effects of hydroquinine.

Dr Jirapas Jongjitwimol from the Department of Medical Technology at Naresuan University added: “Our future research aims to uncover the molecular target of hydroquinine. This would help our understanding of how the compound works against pathogenic bacteria and how it could potentially be used in a clinical setting.”

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JOURNAL

Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease

DOI

10.3390/tropicalmed7080156 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

settings Open AccessArticle Hydroquinine Possesses Antibacterial Activity, and at Half the MIC, Induces the Overexpression of RND-Type Efflux Pumps Using Multiplex Digital PCR in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

The impact of megafires on estuaries from Australia’s ‘Black Summer’

Estuaries are one of the most valuable biomes on Earth, and megafires – like Australia’s 2019/20 Black Summer fires – represent an emerging threat to estuarine and coastal ecosystems.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

 

IMAGE: THE BURNT ZONE REACHES ALL THE WAY TO THE EDGE OF THE WATER AT CLYDE RIVER/BATEMANS BAY. view more 

CREDIT: JOHN TURNBULL

Australian researchers have explored the impact of bushfires on estuaries in New South Wales, Australia's largest state, finding fires can increase the load of fire-derived pollutants with potentially profound environmental effects. 

Estuaries (where the river meets the sea) are some of the most valuable habitats on earth. As well as being biologically diverse and productive places, they are where ports are located, and a significant portion of the world’s population is concentrated. 

Published today in Environmental Pollution, the researchers say their findings prompt a call for riverside vegetation to be prioritised for protection in fire management plans, and for bushfires to be considered in catchment management plans. These plans are developed to protect the environment and regulate resources, such as fish and water, from the whole catchment area (from tributaries to estuaries).   

Unlike regular bushfires, megafires such as those that occurred during Australia’s 2019-2020 ‘Black Summer’, can surround estuaries. 

Following the Black Summer fires, the research team measured a rapid increase in the concentration of nutrients, metals and pyrogenic carbon (carbon formed by fires) in nearshore areas that could affect the behaviour, survival and reproduction of estuarine species.

“In some catchments, more than 90 percent of the vegetation was burnt, and the fire went right down to the waters edge, leading to a massive amount of pollution in the form of sediment, metals and nutrients entering our waterways,” said senior author Professor Emma Johnston, a marine ecosystems expert and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Sydney.

The researchers found that the material from the Black Summer fires contained traces of metals including copper and zinc, and nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus that sunk onto estuarine sediments.

“If there is consistent flushing of the estuary then these trace elements will prime them for productivity. However, if water flow is low and flushing is minimal, they can cause microalgae to breed exponentially, leading to plankton blooms that deplete oxygen supplies and kill fish, with a domino effect on the entire ecosystem,” said Professor Johnston.

Fire Carbon

The study also revealed how much pyrogenic carbon was deposited in estuaries – the bushfires’ calling card.

“We’ve not been concerned about pyrogenic-carbon in these waters before, but now that climate change is increasing the extent and severity of wildfires around the world, we suddenly need to know what concentrations of pyrogenic carbon cause harm. That should be the subject of further study,” Professor Johnston said. 

CAPTION

Post-fire rainfall and runoff leads to input of ash, nutrients and metals in impacted estuaries.

CREDIT

John Turnbull

Impact and Actions

With current climate projections suggesting megafires like Black Summer will occur more frequently in Australia and around the world, the authors say governments must factor our vital estuary habitats into their fire prevention and management plans.

“Considering that excessive nutrient input is one of the main stressors on estuaries, the changes found in our study might have serious implications due to its potential to alter ecological and physico-chemical processes,” said lead author Thayanne Barros, PhD candidate from the University of New South Wales.

Among the actions the authors propose are maintaining natural vegetation buffers to prevent fires from reaching the edge of estuaries, and ecotoxicological assessments of wildfire impacts on estuarine areas.

Post-fire rainfall and runoff leads to input of ash, nutrients and metals in impacted estuaries. Photo credit: John Turnbull

The author’s concern about the impact of fires on waterways is shared by an international research consortium, of which Professor Johnston is a member. The consortium’s new paper names wildfires as one of 15 emerging threats to ocean biodiversity. 

CAPTION

Post-fire rainfall and runoff leads to input of ash, nutrients and metals in impacted estuaries.

CREDIT

John Turnbull

About the study

The researchers studied six estuaries on the New South Wales coast, at the mouths of the rivers Hastings; Karuah; Georges; Shoalhaven; Clyde; and Moruya immediately before the fires. 

Ms Barros said: “We had just finished collecting samples for a different project when the fires started, so we saw a unique opportunity to conduct a Before-After-Control-Impact study in these areas. The initial samples became our ‘before the fires’ dataset and when the fires ceased we collected the samples for our ‘after the fires dataset’.”

To investigate the potential impacts of bushfires on estuaries, the researchers decided to focus on the soft sandy bottom of the estuaries since this habitat is an important source and sink of elements and plays a major role in global biogeochemical cycles, simultaneously supporting high biodiversity and productivity. 

They analysed the sediments to check for changes in nutrient concentrations, sediment silt content, metals, and different forms of carbon, including pyrogenic carbon (formed by fires) in order to directly link changes in carbon concentration to the bushfires.

Estuaries were categorised according to the percentage of the catchment vegetation that was burnt and the proximity of the burnt zone to the waterway.

The study shows that in those estuaries with a large proportion of the catchment burnt and little gap between the fire and the waterway, the concentration of different forms of carbon, nutrients, metals and silt content significantly increased after the fires. While no significant changes were detected in the unburnt estuaries or those that retained a buffer zone.

The study was a collaboration between researchers at the University of Sydney, CSIRO, Macquarie University, University of New South Wales and received funding support from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

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JOURNAL

Environmental Pollution

DOI

10.1016/j.envpol.2022.119571 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Wildfires cause rapid changes to estuarine benthic habitat

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Sep-2022

Would helping only the least advantaged benefit society as a whole?

Study on social justice in chain-connected and close-knit societies finds that helping the least advantaged section of society may not necessarily benefit everyone

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WASEDA UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: STUDY ON SOCIAL JUSTICE IN CHAIN-CONNECTED AND CLOSE-KNIT SOCIETIES FINDS THAT HELPING THE LEAST ADVANTAGED SECTION OF SOCIETY MAY NOT NECESSARILY BENEFIT EVERYONE. view more 

CREDIT: WASEDA UNIVERSITY

John Rawls, one of the 20th century’s most notable political philosophers, proposed a theory of distributive justice known as justice as fairness. According to his theory, once a society successfully guarantees equal basic rights and liberties for everybody, the next step should be to properly regulate any ensuing social and economic inequalities. One of the principles he proposed to do this was the difference principle. Rawls’s difference principle states that inequalities can be justified only if they provide the greatest benefit to the least advantaged group in society. Rawls argued that if a society is chain connected (meaning that the betterment of the least advantaged group leads to the betterment of all other groups in society) and close-knit (i.e., changes in the condition of one group necessarily changes that of all others), the concern that benefiting the least advantaged may not lead to improving society as a whole is nullified, because benefiting one group would, by default, benefit others. In this process, societies could eventually reach an optimal state.

However, in this article, which was published online on July 26, 2022 and is to appear in Volume 84, Issue 4 of the Journal of Politics in October 2022, Associate Professor Hun Chung of Waseda University argues that Rawls’ conjectures are incorrect. “Political philosophy serves as the foundation for a society’s basic political and economic institutions, and can have a profound impact on people’s lives,” Chung explains. The purpose of his study is to make policymakers aware of the possible gaps in such well-established theories.

Chung considers a close-knit and chain-connected society with three groups: the most advantaged, the least advantaged, and the middle group, as proposed by Rawls. He starts from a hypothetical position where all the groups are at the same level of economic benefit, after which society develops economically and inequalities grow. As the situation of the most advantaged group improves, the benefits are expected to trickle down to all the others. During the process, the difference principle requires society to choose the point at which the economic benefit to the least advantaged group is maximized. Given that society is chain connected and close-knit, Rawls claims that every new stage in implementing the difference principle is better than the preceding stage for every group, till an optimum point is reached. However, Chung finds that in the practical implementation of the difference principle, there can be cases where the expectations of the least advantaged group fall with the increase in benefits for the privileged, even when such steps are necessary to achieve a final social state prescribed by the difference principle. Therefore, the conjecture that every step in implementing the difference principle leads to Pareto improvements (i.e., a change that hinders no one and benefits at least some one) over the previous one is negated.

Next, Chung examines the proposal that the difference principle eventually leads to a Pareto optimal state (which is a balanced state, where any further improvement in one group’s state would necessarily lead to a decline in another group’s state). Even after the difference principle is fully implemented and the economic benefits to the least advantaged group have been maximized, he finds that there may be situations where the other groups may further improve their situations without worsening the situation of the least advantaged group. In short, the difference principle may fail to lead to a Pareto optimal state.

Some people might think that the lexical version of Rawls’s difference principle (which Rawls himself considers and eventually rejects on grounds of redundancy) could solve the problem. To this, Chung argues that although the lexical difference principle (unlike the original difference principle) does lead to a Pareto optimal social state, it can, at best, serve only as a partial solution to the problem as its practical implement still does not guarantee Pareto improvements at all stages of its implementation. Furthermore, the lexical difference principle has its own critical flaws by failing to provide continuous ethical judgments, meaning that it can generate vastly different ethical evaluations to vanishingly small ethical differences. This would violate Aristotle’s well-known principle that requires us to “treat like cases alike,” which means that extremely small differences between any two cases should not have evaluations that widely differ.

In sum, Chung has shown that improvements in the situation of the least favored group does not necessarily entail betterment of all groups at every stage, or even a Pareto optimal state even when society is chain connected and close-knit. Chung’s analysis provides enough scope to reconsider the implementation of the difference principle while making policies on a just and fair society. “My research can make policy designers become self-aware of the potential and unintended (negative) effects of certain policies that aim to improve the situation of a specific targeted social group,” Chung concludes.

Chung’s reassessment of Rawls’s theory of distributive justice goes to show that while the heart is in the right place, the head needs to be as well; more consideration might be needed when using theory for policy implementation to improve the quality of life for all social groups.

 

CAPTION

In a recent paper, Waseda University’s Associate Professor Hun Chung explains how helping the least advantaged group in a society does not automatically benefit other groups and lead to an optimal social state.

CREDIT

Hun Chung, Waseda University

 

Reference

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/716968

Authors: Hun Chung

Affiliations: Waseda University

 

About Waseda University
Located in the heart of Tokyo, Waseda University is a leading private research university that has long been dedicated to academic excellence, innovative research, and civic engagement at both the local and global levels since 1882. The University ranks number one in Japan in international activities, including the number of international students, with the broadest range of degree programs fully taught in English. To learn more about Waseda University, visit https://www.waseda.jp/top/en

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JOURNAL

The Journal of Politics

DOI

10.1086/716968 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Chain Connection, Close-Knitness, and the Difference Principle