The Ontological Nature and Cause of COVID-19: A Philosophical Analysis

In this chapter, the ontological nature and cause of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is investigated. The outbreak of the novel COVID-19, coupled with the fact that a global pandemic occurs virtually every century, has brought to the fore the need to interrogate the ontological nature and cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been different conspiracy theories flying all over the globe about COVID-19 since its outbreak in Wuhan city of China and subsequent global spread. One matter of considerable public concern about the theories is the uncorroborated claim that the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is manufactured in a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a biological weapon. This implies that the coronavirus is an artificial creation rather than a natural occurrence. Against this background, it is argued that the coronavirus is a natural phenomenon and that the resultant COVID-19, like other previous pandemics, is a privation of being. This chapter draws heavily on metaphysical works of Aristotle, Saint Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas to show that four types of cause, namely, material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and final cause, are ontological components of every being in the natural world and that COVID-19 is not a being per se but rather a privation of being or good in a being. It is contended further that COVID-19 lacks a formal cause, and thus it cannot exist in isolation from a being (a human person or an animal) that has a formal cause. COVID-19 and other pandemics originally occur when a being is corrupted or its good nature is deprived of. It is concluded that to forestall further pandemic outbreak, humanity must stop upsetting and disrupting the natural order of things by desisting from eating certain animals and birds that are unfit for human consumption, or eating foods contaminated by such animals and birds.