Introduction

Abstract

First paragraph: This book started its life in what we now, in hindsight, refer to as the first lockdown. In April 2020, we collected some early reflections from philosophers and political theorists on the ethical dimensions of the developing COVID-19 pandemic and published them on Justice Everywhere, the blog we help run (Bhattacharya and Niker 2020). We soon noticed a few common themes running through the contributions. One was the idea that although the pandemic itself was unprecedented, many of the issues it has raised link to long-running questions of justice and political contestation. A second was the impulse to draw on these moral ideas and political debates to try to create a better society as we attempt to overcome the current crisis and to envisage the world beyond it.