A recent edition in a major paper ran two pieces on what philosophers have to say or might say in light of the Coronavirus pandemic currently afflicting the world. One piece looked at philosopher and cognitive scientist Patricia Churchland's account of altruism (the self-suppressing concern some of us show whenever we exhibit concern for others) as an evolutionary development in about 5% of mammals (including human beings) as the writer puts it, a capacity which, in humans reaches what may, perhaps, be its apogee (at least thus far) in extending that concern beyond the parent-offspring caring relation of animal mothers sometimes animal fathers to one's wider family and one's group (seen in primates and certain other social mammals like dogs and wolves, elephants and dolphins) to one's nation or even one’s species (which can, in some human belief systems, extend beyond to include all living things, e.g., Buddhism).

Alongside this article about Churchland’s effort to explain morality qua altruism was a second by the novelist and philosopher Rebecca Goldstein (Plato at the Googleplex) discussing and exploring how three great moral philosophers in the western tradition would might have approached the demands on each of us created by the current pandemic. Goldstein examines John Stuart Mill's "rule utilitarianism" (which grounds moral judgments, i.e., choosing the right actions, in our ability to follow rules likely to produce the greatest good for the greatest number) as well as Kant's argument that actions must be chosen based on whether or not they are good in themselves and not for their consequences such as maximizing goodness in the world (Mill's test of morally right behavior).

As Goldstein points out, Kant's argument for good acts is that they can only be deemed morally good to the extent performing them expresses a good will, which is to say acting from the desire to do the right thing, regardless of their outcomes. Such a desire must involve acting for only one of two possible reasons (one of two related principles(or maxims). . .