One consequence of the lockdowns that many countries have introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is that people have become more vulnerable to loneliness. In this contribution, I argue that even if this does not render lockdowns unjustified, it is morally incumbent upon states to make reasonable efforts to protect their residents from loneliness for as long as their social confinement measures remain in place. Without attempting to provide an exhaustive list of ways in which this might be done, I identify four broad measures that I believe many, if not most, states ought to take. These require states to (i) help ensure that people have affordable access to the internet, as well as opportunities for learning how to use this medium so as that they can digitally connect to others; (ii) help people to have harmonious and rewarding intimate relationships; and try to make (iii) non-human companionship as well as (iv) various non-social solutions to loneliness widely available.
For many, this is a price worth paying in order to protect vulnerable populations from a virus as contagious and deadly as COVID-19 including the elderly, heart-patients, and those with respiratory diseases. In this contribution, I will not seek to evaluate this claim even though I am sympathetic to it. What I want to do instead is argue that even if lockdowns are justified in order to reduce the spread of viruses such as COVID-19, it is morally incumbent upon states to make reasonable efforts to prevent and alleviate any feelings of loneliness that this type of confinement might cause or amplify among their residents. Without attempting to provide an exhaustive list of ways in which this might be done, I identify four broad measures that I believe many, if not most, states ought to take. These require states to (i) help ensure that people have affordable access to the internet, as well as opportunities for learning how to use this medium so as that they can digitally connect to others; (ii) help people to have harmonious and rewarding intimate relationships; and try to make (iii) non-human companionship as well as (iv) various non-social solutions to loneliness widely available.
Intimate Relationships Bradbury And Karney Pdf Download
Another measure that I believe many, if not most, states ought to take in order to protect their residents from loneliness under lockdown is to help their residents have harmonious and rewarding intimate relationships. Even when people are living with a partner, research suggests that they will often feel lonely nonetheless when the quality of their intimate relationship is poor (Tilburg, 2007, 33). This is especially problematic during a lockdown as the social restrictions that apply during lockdowns might make it illegal for people to meet with friends and relatives. Apart from the fact that this may render it difficult for them to fill (part of) the social void that is left by their dysfunctional intimate relationships, it might prevent them from discussing their relationship sorrows with others insofar as they are unable to call their friends or relatives at home without being overheard by their partner or running the risk thereof.
In order to address this problem, governments could help to familiarize their residents with some of the insights that social psychologists have gathered into how dysfunctional relationships can be avoided and, insofar as such relationships have already materialized, healed.3 For [End Page 7] example, they might spread this information by launching social media campaigns and by creating websites, none of which needs to be particularly expensive. Another important measure is for them to offer affordable online relationship counselling services to couples. Besides helping people to improve the quality of their intimate relationships, such measures may help some couples to prevent their dysfunctional relationships from degenerating into abusive ones. (Whilst preventing domestic abuse is always important given the impact of such abuse upon the victims, notice that this is so even more under lockdown because of the already mentioned restrictions that people suffer on their freedom of movement and freedom of association, apart from the fact that the stress of lockdowns combined with the increased time that couples spend together have been found to raise the prevalence, frequency, and severity of intimate partner violence within various countries.)4
I have identified four broad measures that I believe many, if not most, states ought to take in order to protect their residents from loneliness during lockdown. These measures require them to (i) help ensure that people have affordable access to the internet, as well as opportunities for learning how to use this medium so as that they can digitally connect to others; (ii) help people to have harmonious and rewarding intimate relationships; and try to make (iii) non-human companionship as well as (iv) various non-social solutions to loneliness widely available. Some readers might find these measures under- and/or over-inclusive and/or reject some of the more specific policy proposals that I have made. Even when this is the case, I hope to have shown that there are ways in which states can protect their residents from loneliness during lockdown, and that there are good grounds for thinking that they have moral duties to implement at least some anti-loneliness measures. 2ff7e9595c
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