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18 Med., Health Care & Phil. 1 (2015)

handle is hein.journals/medhcph18 and id is 1 raw text is: Med Health Care and Philos (2015) 18:1-2
DOI 10.1007/s11019-014-9617-2
I I)I I ()R 1 \L
Disaster ethics
Bert Gordijn - Henk ten Have
Published online: 6 December 2014
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

One of the first disasters to thoroughly stir the intellectual
world was the Great Lisbon Earthquake in 1755. It had an
in-depth effect on Enlightenment intellectuals, triggering a
wide array of theological, philosophical and scientific
debates. Today we definitely have better scientific theories
about disasters. Also our theological and philosophical
understanding of catastrophes has evolved quite consider-
ably. However, more academic attention for these issues is
most welcome for at least three reasons.
First, though our thinking about disasters has developed
since the Great Lisbon Earthquake, there are still many
open questions. Just to mention a few examples, it still
challenging for scientists to predict particular earthquakes
in terms of time and location. For theologians the problem
of the theodicy is still very much around. Assuming God is
omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, how come
we have to deal with disasters at all? Why would God
allow disasters to happen? Philosophers are still debating
what exactly the concept of disaster involves, and how so-
called human-made disasters can be distinguished from
natural ones. Moreover, the extent of our humanitarian
obligations is still very much on the agenda, both philo-
sophically and politically.
Second, our power to cause human-made disasters has
immensely increased over the last two and a half centuries
starting with the industrial revolution. Due to the accelerated
rise of modern technology both intentional and non-inten-
tional anthropogenic disasters of immense scale are now

B. Gordijn (®)
Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland
e-mail: bert.gordijn@dcu.ie
H. ten Have
Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA

possible. Examples that are currently being discussed are,
amongst others, the possibility of nuclear accidents and/or
war, the risk that artificial superhumanly intelligent beings
might turn against us, potential mishaps with geoengineer-
ing, and the threat of terrorists using biotechnology and
cyber attacks to disrupt large parts of modern societies.
These are all potential threats that have appeared relatively
recently, or have not yet materialized at all, but might very
well do so in the near future. The disconcerting aspect of
these risks is that they are all human-made. We have been
exposed to (the threat of) natural disasters since the begin-
ning of humanity without-obviously-having been erased
by them. However, the abovementioned anthropogenic
disaster risks are novel. We cannot reassure ourselves with
the idea that we-as a species-have survived them since the
beginning of humanity. How clement these novel human-
made disaster risks will turn out to be, is still very much an
open question (Bostrom 2013, pp. 15-16).
Third, compared to the eighteenth century, people in
present-day rich countries seem to have enhanced moral
responsibilities with regard to disasters, wherever on earth
they happen to occur. Both our knowledge about and our
control over actions regarding faraway disasters have
substantially increased. Thanks to the immense develop-
ment of information and communication technologies,
disasters are being better reported nowadays. Therefore, it
is much more difficult to remain blissfully ignorant about
them. Moreover, due to the rapid progress of transportation
technologies, it is nowadays possible to organize a rapid
international response when disasters occur, no matter
where on the planet. This also means that it is more
imperative than ever to sort out the difficult ethical issues
that might occur when healthcare professionals are going to
do research or provide care in disaster situations
(O'Mathna et al. 2014).

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