Taking Advantage of Crises

Abstract

Crises furnish opportunities for political change. This fact raises neglected normative questions. How should the various possible ways of taking advantage of crises be evaluated? And should such an evaluation be “special?” Namely, should strategies that take advantage of crises, like deliberately playing on people’s fears or rushing through policy changes, be evaluated differently from when essentially the same strategies are used independent of any crisis? To clarify the terrain, we provide an analysis of the concept of taking advantage of a crisis. We then set out an evaluative framework that specifies the different respects in which various strategies that take advantage of crises are pro tanto good and bad. Finally, we argue that strategies that take advantage of crises are normatively special. For they are worse across certain normative dimensions—in virtue of the additional vulnerabilities that crises induce—than essentially the same strategies used independent of any crisis.