It’s a real busy traffic day. You are at an intersection and the light is red. You see a vehicle approaching the same light from your right. The red light before you turns green. You can tell by that vehicle’s speed and position that they will not have time to stop before entering the intersection. Obviously you have the right of way to proceed through the intersection. You exercise your right of way and go on through the green light.

A terrible accident now occurs from the inevitable collision. Since it is a busy traffic day, several vehicles crash together. Many are injured and one is killed: the driver of the vehicle going through a red light.

Here lies the moral question. In all probability, the killed driver was distracted, ran a red light, unintentionally. Clearly an accident. You, however, saw the car coming, and knew that if you exercised your “right” there would be a collision. You proceeded through the light and, bang!

Now, perhaps you had the legal right to do what you did. That’s up to lawyers to argue about. But ethically and morally, are your hands so clean? The driver of the other car did not foresee the situation. You did, and could have prevented a terrible situation. It does look like you cared more about exercising your “rights” than about the well-being of others.

If all you care about is “your” rights, then maybe you don’t deserve any rights.  After all, the Ninth Amendment states that you can’t use one right to take away another right from someone else. The preamble of the Constitution states that that document was to promote the general welfare. Taking a life is not in the interest of the general welfare.

Now put this in the context of coronavirus and see what you figure out.