Salus populi suprema lex

Abstract

The COVID-19 epidemic has brought to the fore tensions between values that are synthesized in a classic ethical-political dilemma: “security-freedom” or “health as a common good-the safeguard of individual liberties”. As it is a socio-sanitary emergency, the measures for its containment involve costs and sacrifices. Also, restrictions on basic rights and freedoms. Determining who has to bear the costs and what their magnitude should be becomes a pressing question with moral implications. In this article, an exercise in philosophy applied to public health is presented on the occasion of this pandemic and, in turn, a genealogy of the relationship between health and solidarity based on the Ciceronian maxim salus populi suprema lex esto.