‘Is Ordering Takeout Unethical?’ A Medical Ethicist Answers Some of the Most Common Moral Questions Around Coronavirus

March 17, 2020

(TIME) – An epidemic is a test not just of our mettle but our morals. In a time of lockdowns and quarantines, restaurant closings and shuttered schools, the temptation is often to bend the rules, relying on the familiar just-this-once or it-couldn’t-hurt dodge. Even when we’re trying to behave well, there are moral conundrums that present themselves—situations in which we have to choose between one of two options and neither one is risk-free. TIME spoke to Arthur Caplan, director of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, about some of the most common moral dilemmas associated with the coronavirus.