In the Covid-19 crisis, misfortune becomes injustice, as inaction makes governments passively unjust. Political philosopher Judith Shklar helps us to understand why the line between “natural” and “human-made” crises is highly artificial.

Of the metaphors circulating in the media to describe the Covid-19 pandemic, the one I find most helpful deploys the image that the whole world is experiencing the same storm, but groups of us are in very different kinds of boats trying to weather it.