Julian Baggini reflects on life in the time of coronavirus

What a difference a month makes
The last time I wrote I had not long been out of an intensive care unit, recovering from pneumonia, looking forward to a return to normal life. Now there is no normal life to go back to. It turns out I was just ahead of the curve with my self-isolation, lucky to get into an acute respiratory ward before the crisis struck.

One of the most common words I hear to describe these days is “strange”. Whether or not you are frightened or anxious, which many are, we all seem unable to quite believe what’s going on. On my daily permitted exercise walks I see streets that are usually log-jammed almost devoid of cars. On colder days it’s like walking through a ghost town. With the recent warm sunshine people are sitting outside their front doors, on balconies or simply at open windows, as though the whole population was under house arrest – which in a sense, it is.

Many people have said to me that we need philosophy at this time. There certainly seems to be a demand: I’ve written several pieces relating to the crisisand have been called to talk on BBC Radio Four three times. But philosophy isn’t doing much to help us solve the crisis or deal with our immediate needs. It can and should, however, help us in at least three ways.

First, Covid-19 has shaken us up. The courses through life many were more or less serenely following have been disrupted, and this is prompting some deep reflection and questioning. Some, working from home, have a distance from their usual working life that is leading them to wonder whether they want to go back. Many of the self-employed and small business owners are wondering if they can continue. Some are finding that life in close quarters to partners or family reminds them how important these bond are, while others are discovering that they can no longer pretend their relationships have a future. It’s likely that at no time in recent history have so many people at the same time been asking “What’s It All About?”

Second, the crisis has exposed issues in our society that we’ve known about for decades but have failed to address: the importance of universal healthcare; the need to properly fund public services; how low-paid workers, often in the gig economy, are vital to sustain the comfortable lives of the many; the extent of inequality and how all social problems hit disadvantaged groups the most; the interconnectedness and interdependence of the modern world. Philosophy should help us think through these issues too.

Third, our mortality has rarely been so evident. Coming to terms with that is another of philosophy’s tasks. I should note here that I don’t endorse the current Stoicism revival. At the risk of infuriating any Stoics out there, indifference to much of what makes life wonderful is not a price worth paying to buy indifference to life’s ending. I also think that what’s true in Stoicism isn’t distinctively Stoic and what’s distinctively Stoic isn’t true. But that’s more for another time.

If you’re interested in what we can and cannot take from Stoicism I can recommend my better half’s More Than Happiness. The second book I have co-authored with her, which was due to be published this week, has been delayed because of the lockdown. We’re hoping for a late July release but want to get some material out there earlier, since it deals with what philosophy has to say about a variety of life situations, including anxiety, fear, loneliness, illness, death, mortality. I’ll keep you posted.

One final piece I’ve written is a review of Jonathan Sacks’s Morality. Sacks is concerned about the need for a shared morality in a pluralist world. I think the pandemic has demonstrated that our common humanity alone is sufficient for us to agree on enough shared vales to live together, if we have the will to. Religious or non-religious, people have been motivated to help others not by moral precepts or sacred teachings, but out of what Adam Smith called “moral sympathy”. That is one cause for hope in dark times.

I hope you and all close to you stay safe. Stay in and read, that’s what I say. As to what you read, I couldn’t possibly comment…

Until next month, if nothing prevents.

Best wishes
Julian Baggini is the author of Atheism: A Very Short Introduction, How the World Thinks, and other books.