The history of ethics begins with a person faced with a dilemma, one of those terrible problems that often manifests itself as a life crisis. In a primitive, tree-lined world where all beings were held together it must not have been easy to light that spark but in the end it set a fire that reaches us to this day.
Today we have a problem, it seems like we have a lot but we can leave it at one of the big ones. We prefer our well-being over that of others. It is as simple as that. As you can see it is not a new issue, in the past it received other names and negative considerations: selfishness, capital sins, ingratitude, vice... Our era calls it well-being, and sells it to us as synonymous with happiness, something good, beautiful, desirable and ethically untainted. We are being lied to and it is very difficult to realize this because no one becomes aware, without suffering, of that which can make them lose their privileges.
This explains why we can watch the news without vomiting after the experience, nor experiencing a catharsis or a fall from the horse. We see the boats full of inmigrants, the distant fires, the catastrophes of others as those who hear the rain, corroborating how miserable the god who allows that disaster must be, and smiling inwardly for being one day drier and more indoor instead of soaking wet like all those miserable ones.
Ethics emerges as a reflection on the various problems that we are constantly encountering. In this way we build a network of values that allow us to sustain a bearable life. We seek the good, the virtue, the way to live better and be happy or what is the same avoid issues. Something that in the end is inevitable no matter how much money, education or resources we have.
A few years ago I was invited to a cocktail party with renowned scientists and personalities. My friend Alex Jadad asked us all what was most important to us. He started with the Nobel Prize winner next to him and continued the run until he finished with the bartender. When it was my turn I didn't know what to say to him. It took me years to forge an answer and it was never very solid since there are questions that go far beyond words or what we can think of with our strength.
The most important thing changes according to the circumstances as Ortega y Gasset knew well. It is not the same for the adolescent as for the first-time mother; it is not the same for the military man in combat as for the skilled trader. That is why it is necessary to be humble when responding. But you have to respond, because by doing so you give yourself permission to walk in one direction and perhaps get out of the single mindedness of the crowds behind that golden calf that promises them wellbeing.
In our societies institutions and public services seem to melt away without us apparently knowing why. Globalisation and the market are stealing jobs from us by giving us trinkets in return. What does it matter to me if I'm an unemployed kid if I still live at home with my parents, with all the comforts and few obligations, and on top of that I wear brand name shoes and have a cool mobile phone...
Education is slowly deteriorating, little by little. So is the National health system. Everything becomes a commodity, academic titles, health... Society loses the ability to train itself, to educate itself integrally, to develop its reflection and research skills. It also delegates care, attention to the sick, the handling of daily inconveniences. If we are stung by a wasp we will go without hesitation to the emergency room, if we get a pimple as well. And we go more and more if our boyfriend leaves us or we have problems at work.
In this way, everything melts into a shapeless magma easily manipulated by terrible forces that shape entire societies at will. Without the solidity of the institutions, everything becomes fluid, as Zygmunt Bauman rightly pointed out in his essays, and we are crushed by the globalised dynamics that some call capitalism and others free market.
Within the health sector, each person is interested in different professional groups and categories, and within these, in turn. Young people against veterans, doctors against nurses, and everyone against everyone. The same thing is repeated in the other institutions which produces a terrible roar of complaint and discontent, preventing at the same time the structural changes that would allow adaptation to the present moment.
These days we live in times of epidemics and everything has become a little crazy. Politicians do not seem to be getting it right, society continues to do what it can, and we health workers keep putting out fires that do not compete with forces we do not have and means that will never come.
The verb to prioritise is the basis of all philosophical systems from yours in your home to mine in my health centre. That's why in the difficulty it's important to focus on what really deserves it, leaving the rest in the background. Let's not expect them to prioritise for us, we're not going to like it.