Abortion and the ethics of lockdowns
I am opposed to enforced lockdowns to protect us against viruses.
Don't get me wrong: if there's a dangerous virus on the loose, then I highly recommend locking yourself down (other things being equal, that is - if it'll cost you your livelihood, then it may be wiser not to, depending on how dangerous the virus is.....but you're probably in the best position to make that judgement).
And if you know that you have a dangerous virus - or even if it is reasonable to believe you do (and the reasonableness of believing you have it may sometimes depend on just how dangerous it is) - then I think you have a duty to lock yourself down and that others may be entitled to make sure you lock yourself down (so, if you have - or, depending on how dangerous the virus is, reasonably believe you have it, then you no longer have the right not to be locked down).
What I am opposed to - and I think careful ethical reflation vindicates my position - is forcing those who do not have a virus, or who reasonably believe themselves not to have it, to lock down. What I am opposed to, then, is what's happened and happening in response to the covid virus. What has muddied the moral waters in this particular case and blinded many to the injustice of it all, is that governments have made us do what it was probably sensible for many of us to do (though by no means most - for many the lockdowns have made their situations considerably worse than it would have been had they caught the virus.....especially if they've caught it anyway!). (An aside: most of those making these decisions are in jobs that are among the safest - the experts...and they're not ethics experts.....are academics in tenured positions).
Anyway, here's why I think these lockdowns are unjust. The philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson came up with a famous thought experiment involving a violinist. There's a violinist who needs the use of someone else's kidneys - yours, specifically - for 9 months or he'll die. The society of music lovers take it upon themselves to kidnap someone - you - and hook you up to this violinist. When you come around the doctor who hooked you up explains the situation. Are you entitled to unhook yourself and leave?
Virtually everyone's intuitions deliver the same verdict: of course you can. It would be very generous of you to stay for 9 months and allow the violinist the use of your kidneys. But it is well beyond the call of duty and you're within your rights to leave. The violinist is innocent and his life is in danger. But nevertheless, he's not entitled to restrict your freedom for 9 months so that he may live.
Now imagine you get pregnant through no fault of your own - you have been raped, say. Do you have to go through with the pregnancy, at considerable cost in terms of your own comfort and freedom, or are you entitled to abort? Well, the situation seems relevantly analogous to the previous one. Yes, the child (if child it be) is innocent and depends for its life upon your body, but that was true of the violinist as well. And so it seems that we can reasonably take the judgement about the violinist case and apply it to this one: you are obviously entitled to abort. The innocent foetus is not entitled to the use of your body for 9 months - not, then, entitled to restrict you for 9 months, even though its life depends on it.
What's the moral of these cases? Well, that a person's right to life does not amount to a right to restrict the freedom of another person for 9 months. YOu could save a life by restricting your freedom for 9 months. But you do not have to - no one has the right to make you. If you unhook, then your behaviour has resulted in an innocent person dying who otherwise would have lived; but your behaviour did not violate that person's right to life. My right to life does not give me a right to restrict your freedom for 9 months.
Apply that to lockdowns. There's a virus on the loose. And it kills some of those who get it. Well, do we have to give up 9 months freedom in order to prevent those people from being killed? Is that what having a right to life amounts to? No, that's what we just learned from Judith Jarvis Thomson's thought experiments.
If it helps, just imagine that pregnancies are like viruses and can be caught just by going out and going about your everyday business. Would women who go out now have to endure their pregnancies or would they be entitled to abort? I think they'd obviously be entitled to abort. And it'd be quite unjust to insist that women lock themselves down or else go through pregnancies to avoid innocent people from being killed. Again: an innocent person's right to life is not a right to have from others everything they need to stay alive. Among us there are those who, through no fault of their own, are liable to die if they get covid. I may be one of them. But my right to life does not extend to entitling me to restrict your freedom so that I may not get covid and die from it, anymore than a foetus's right to life extends to restricting the freedom of the woman it is inhabiting.
Thus, as I see it widely shared intuitions about Thomson's violinist and abortion cases imply that enforced lockdowns are unjust. They violate our rights. They greatly restrict our freedom and impose costs and burdens on us for the sake of preventing innocents from dying. We have a right to life, but my right to life does not entitle me to restrict your freedom to go about your life as normal for months on end, even if your doing those things means I may die, as seems obvious in the pregnancy case (where it will definitely result in a death!). It is not my fault there is a virus on the loose. And it is not yours either. And even if I happen to have given it to you while freely going about my business - so, not intentionally or knowingly - and you die from it, then I did not violate your right to life (and nor you mine if the reverse happens), anymore than a woman who is pregnant by rape violates the right to life of the unborn child inside her if she decides to have an abortion.
Note Thomson's position is not absolutist (and nor is mine). If you only have to give up, say, 10 minutes of your time to save the violinist, then probably you ought and maybe others can make you stay; so she is not saying that the right to life of another doesn't place any restrictions on our freedom. The point is that there are limits - even if we can't come up with a crystal clear rule that describes them - on the amount of restriction, cost and burden another person's right to life can impose on another. And it seems pretty obvious that the costs and burdens of a pregnancy exceed that limit, as - I think even more plausibly - do the costs and burdens of lockdowns.
Don't get me wrong: if there's a dangerous virus on the loose, then I highly recommend locking yourself down (other things being equal, that is - if it'll cost you your livelihood, then it may be wiser not to, depending on how dangerous the virus is.....but you're probably in the best position to make that judgement).
And if you know that you have a dangerous virus - or even if it is reasonable to believe you do (and the reasonableness of believing you have it may sometimes depend on just how dangerous it is) - then I think you have a duty to lock yourself down and that others may be entitled to make sure you lock yourself down (so, if you have - or, depending on how dangerous the virus is, reasonably believe you have it, then you no longer have the right not to be locked down).
What I am opposed to - and I think careful ethical reflation vindicates my position - is forcing those who do not have a virus, or who reasonably believe themselves not to have it, to lock down. What I am opposed to, then, is what's happened and happening in response to the covid virus. What has muddied the moral waters in this particular case and blinded many to the injustice of it all, is that governments have made us do what it was probably sensible for many of us to do (though by no means most - for many the lockdowns have made their situations considerably worse than it would have been had they caught the virus.....especially if they've caught it anyway!). (An aside: most of those making these decisions are in jobs that are among the safest - the experts...and they're not ethics experts.....are academics in tenured positions).
Anyway, here's why I think these lockdowns are unjust. The philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson came up with a famous thought experiment involving a violinist. There's a violinist who needs the use of someone else's kidneys - yours, specifically - for 9 months or he'll die. The society of music lovers take it upon themselves to kidnap someone - you - and hook you up to this violinist. When you come around the doctor who hooked you up explains the situation. Are you entitled to unhook yourself and leave?
Virtually everyone's intuitions deliver the same verdict: of course you can. It would be very generous of you to stay for 9 months and allow the violinist the use of your kidneys. But it is well beyond the call of duty and you're within your rights to leave. The violinist is innocent and his life is in danger. But nevertheless, he's not entitled to restrict your freedom for 9 months so that he may live.
Now imagine you get pregnant through no fault of your own - you have been raped, say. Do you have to go through with the pregnancy, at considerable cost in terms of your own comfort and freedom, or are you entitled to abort? Well, the situation seems relevantly analogous to the previous one. Yes, the child (if child it be) is innocent and depends for its life upon your body, but that was true of the violinist as well. And so it seems that we can reasonably take the judgement about the violinist case and apply it to this one: you are obviously entitled to abort. The innocent foetus is not entitled to the use of your body for 9 months - not, then, entitled to restrict you for 9 months, even though its life depends on it.
What's the moral of these cases? Well, that a person's right to life does not amount to a right to restrict the freedom of another person for 9 months. YOu could save a life by restricting your freedom for 9 months. But you do not have to - no one has the right to make you. If you unhook, then your behaviour has resulted in an innocent person dying who otherwise would have lived; but your behaviour did not violate that person's right to life. My right to life does not give me a right to restrict your freedom for 9 months.
Apply that to lockdowns. There's a virus on the loose. And it kills some of those who get it. Well, do we have to give up 9 months freedom in order to prevent those people from being killed? Is that what having a right to life amounts to? No, that's what we just learned from Judith Jarvis Thomson's thought experiments.
If it helps, just imagine that pregnancies are like viruses and can be caught just by going out and going about your everyday business. Would women who go out now have to endure their pregnancies or would they be entitled to abort? I think they'd obviously be entitled to abort. And it'd be quite unjust to insist that women lock themselves down or else go through pregnancies to avoid innocent people from being killed. Again: an innocent person's right to life is not a right to have from others everything they need to stay alive. Among us there are those who, through no fault of their own, are liable to die if they get covid. I may be one of them. But my right to life does not extend to entitling me to restrict your freedom so that I may not get covid and die from it, anymore than a foetus's right to life extends to restricting the freedom of the woman it is inhabiting.
Thus, as I see it widely shared intuitions about Thomson's violinist and abortion cases imply that enforced lockdowns are unjust. They violate our rights. They greatly restrict our freedom and impose costs and burdens on us for the sake of preventing innocents from dying. We have a right to life, but my right to life does not entitle me to restrict your freedom to go about your life as normal for months on end, even if your doing those things means I may die, as seems obvious in the pregnancy case (where it will definitely result in a death!). It is not my fault there is a virus on the loose. And it is not yours either. And even if I happen to have given it to you while freely going about my business - so, not intentionally or knowingly - and you die from it, then I did not violate your right to life (and nor you mine if the reverse happens), anymore than a woman who is pregnant by rape violates the right to life of the unborn child inside her if she decides to have an abortion.
Note Thomson's position is not absolutist (and nor is mine). If you only have to give up, say, 10 minutes of your time to save the violinist, then probably you ought and maybe others can make you stay; so she is not saying that the right to life of another doesn't place any restrictions on our freedom. The point is that there are limits - even if we can't come up with a crystal clear rule that describes them - on the amount of restriction, cost and burden another person's right to life can impose on another. And it seems pretty obvious that the costs and burdens of a pregnancy exceed that limit, as - I think even more plausibly - do the costs and burdens of lockdowns.
Comments (70)
For me it is all about the consequences. I take it you believe there are rights that should be respected, in spite of the consequences? As my ethics are suffering focused, my decision as to whether there should be mandatory lockdowns would depend solely on which option best reduces suffering. There are so many variables, I don't feel comfortable saying either way.
Quoting Bartricks
How would you decide where to draw the line?
Consequentialism just seems more down to earth to me; it is the way we do science after all.
It seems too arbitrary picking values and how they compete with other values.
It's a matter of degree. One has more of a right to the sole use of one's kidneys than to go to a restaurant or nightclub, and the burden of sharing one's kidneys with another is far higher than not being able to eat out or dance in a crowded room. Both ethical and practical considerations require something of a cost-benefit analysis. It's a false equivalency to treat all cases of one's right to freedom being restricted as the same.
Would the violinist die painfully if I unhooked myself? If so, I would consider it my duty to avoid his suffering, since it is within my capabilities to do so. I am perfectly willing to sacrifice my freedom for 9 months, which seems to me to be a very small price to pay (assuming the doctor was telling the truth).
If he/she were to die a painless death, then I could understand more why some people wouldn't consider it their duty to keep themselves hooked to him/her, and I myself may not see anything wrong in unhooking myself (I'd have to think about it though).
Death by Covid-19 tends to be very slow, despairing and painful, something I want to avoid as much as possible with my actions, and I would also want to prevent, as much as I can, other people who I see in the streets and markets to go through that because of me.
So if the violinist dies a painless death in that thought experiment, the analogy with covid confinement breaks down there.
As if lockdowns mean little more than being deprived of restaurants and nightclubs.
It strikes me that the “cost-benefit analysis” is precisely what is *not* made by those who advocate for lockdowns.
I agree.
“Lockdown” is a revealing term. It’s prison jargon. The same consequentialist fears about some impending scenario, whether it happens or not, can be used to justify restricting people to real prisons. Consequentialism is basically a sort of racket in this sense: the fear-mongering absolves the consequentialist from the consequences of his actions.
Those who are not infected with the virus cannot spread the virus. So the only reason one would restrict the healthy is ignorance, and whether through laziness or an impulsive fear, rather than change his ignorance he chooses the most sweeping measures to make up for it. There is no ethics behind it at all.
Arbitrary means 'without reason'. Most ethicists reject consequentialism because it makes predictions about morality that are not confirmed by our rational intuitions. What would be arbitrary would be to ignore that counter evidence. For now your belief in consequentialism is not reason informed or responsive.
Incidentally, if consequentialism is true and the good to be maximised is pleasure or happiness, and the bad to be minimized is pain, then presumably you too would be against lockdowns?
For the virus, if allowed free reign, would kill mainly the elderly, who are a big drain on resources. Their productive years are over, they themselves are fairly miserable, and the resources used to cater to them could produce much more utility if spent elsewhere. So you would reason - if you were a true consequentialist and not simply someone who tries to find negative or positive consequences to justify doing what they were going to do anyway - that letting the virus blaze through us all would be far and away the most utility maximizing policy. And you'd stop the media whipping up fear of impending doom in everyone (lots of censorship - ignorance is often bliss). Just shut the media up and let the virus do its thing. Most of us wouldn't notice. "Steve got ill....and died! He was only 55. He was fit as a fiddle, but by thursday he was dead" "Oh, gosh. That's terrible. Poor Steve. Makes you think, doesn't it? Anyway, what's for dinner? Cough" That'd be it.
And as a good consequentialist, you'd stop covid patients clogging up ICU by just implementing proper triage procedures. If someone has covid and needs ventilating, then they're probably going to die - so spare the ICU bed for someone more likely to benefit from it. It's not how much you need something that matters, but how much benefit giving it to you would achieve.
The clever and wealthy would be able to hunker down and let covid pass over - for in 6months to a year herd immunity would have been achieved and the virus would have mutated into something much less deadly (as is their tendency). And the feckless and elderly and stupid and otherwise expensive, burdensome part of the human community would have been reduced (for without assistance, they do not fare well). In a year or two there would be a massive boom - as there was in the roaring twenties after spanish flu - and covid would be but a distant memory. We'd miss gran and steve, but gran was dying anyway and we've inherited early, and Steve. ..well, you make new friends don't you? (Individuals are replaceable with consequentialism - they're just containers of utility, not bearers of rights).
You are a very bad consequentialist - appalling - if you think the most utile thing to do is to force everyone into their homes, regardless of whether they want to do that (most people really dislike having their freedom curtailed). All those people who have died from covid - they'd have died of it if there wasn't a lockdown, yes? So locking them down just made them miserable to no gain whatsoever. And most of us - the vast bulk - would not be killed by it. So most of us are being made miserable and poorer and being made to lose businesses for the sake of sparing us a flu-like illness (the vast bulk of us would rather suffer a flu like illness than be locked in our homes for months on end at massive cost to ourselves and others....as you can tell by the fact that if there were no enforced lockdowns, most would not have voluntarily locked themselves down, would they?). How on earth - how on earth! - can you possibly think that's a good consequential profile?
So, consequentialism is false. But if it is true, then lockdowns fail any halfway plausible coldblooded consequentialist analysis. Note: deaths aren't a big deal on consequentialism (unless the only consequence you are interested in is keeping the maximum number of persons alive). You don't have a right to life at all. Not if consequentialism is true. We are all just counters on a scale.
Anyway, what you wrote there was just a personal attack. No philosophical content. No attemp to address the issues raised. Just a childlike venting of frustration. If you find that you can't refute a position, adopt it - that's my advice.
But I do not support locking down those who do not have it or that it is not reasonable to believe have it.
In the case you describe, the extent of a justified lockdown would be determined by whether it was reasonable to believe those in the hospital have been infected. And like I say, the dangerousness of the virus will bear on that - that is, the amount of evidence needed to make it reasonable to believe you have been infected will vary according to how dangerous the virus is.
Considering your views, for example that our parents should pay for us for the rest of our lives without us ever having to work, I take it you accept popularity does not prove what is moral? Then what is left is your intuition against mine. Why is your intuition right and mine is wrong?
Perhaps your theory is correct and your intuitions false, or perhaps your intuitions confirm your theory. But your intuitions count for no more than someone else's, other things being equal. And most people have the intuition that one may unhook. So your theory appears false - it contradicts most people's intuitions about what it is right to do in all manner of situations.
The violinist example may result in more suffering by remaining connected for the 9 months. I think a clearer example is the trolley problem, with people that live happy lives. I think it right to pull the lever and murder someone than let multiple people die.
Quoting Bartricks
That's my point. You can't say as a fact your non-consequentialism is morally right, and my consequentialism is morally wrong.
Quoting Bartricks
That's the appeal to popularity. As I said, if popularity proved morality, your views are in trouble.
Why should I accept that rights theory is meaningful in this analysis when not one word you uttered was about anyone but the rights bearer? A society where everyone lives with no obligations but lots of right sounds offensive to my moral intuition. At what point in this conversation are you going to allow that a community can ethically violate the rights of an individual if it is in the communal interest?
How do you differentiate "a good idea" where government coercion is ethical from a situation where a "good idea" does not warrant such coercion?
I grant that you setup a bit of a battle between rights bearer A and rights bearer B, but that hardly sounds in anything but individualistic strife (competing rights).
Seconded. Don't say you weren't warned. If you're interested in a serious medical ethicist, check out Dr. Arthur Caplan:
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/08/10/vaccine-financial-liability
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/955509
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/93808
[quote=Art Caplan] Unfortunately, continued resistance to commonsense public health measures has demonstrated that too many people in both Europe and the U.S. have a simplistic and erroneous view of liberty. Liberty does not mean you have the freedom to do whatever you want wherever you want. Nor does it make sense to conflate the concept of individual rights, which inform our liberties, with that of privileges, which are predicated on each of us upholding certain responsibilities.
It is hard to argue in good faith that American citizens have an inalienable "right" to dine at restaurants, attend shows in a theater, and travel for leisure. Indeed, if these were truly protected as rights, our government would be obligated to ensure basic access to them through entitlement programs or legal protection. But while food stamps are meant to ensure that all citizens can feed themselves, and federal law (namely the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act) guarantees universal access to emergency medical care, equivalents do not exist for leisure or recreational activities. We have a tacit societal agreement that these are privileges to be obtained only if one has the requisite time and money for them, and if one agrees to abide by the rules of these establishments, such as wearing clothing and refraining from smoking.
Furthermore, there is ample precedent for limiting individual liberty. What you choose to do cannot impinge upon the liberty of others. Driving is a privilege that must be maintained by ongoing licensure, registration, vehicle inspection, and adherence to the rules of the road for the sake of personal and public safety so that all may drive. If you reject these responsibilities, you risk losing the privilege of driving. The concept of requiring COVID-19 vaccination to access privileges involving social gathering similarly protects public health and prevents reckless individuals from harming others, particularly those who cannot receive vaccines due to age or underlying illness or those who are unable to respond to them due to immunodeficiency. [/quote]
The article goes on -- worth a read over the self-proclaimed "expert" who so far has limited his analysis to undergraduate thought experiments.
Quoting NOS4A2
...A foolproof sign to run the other way, this.
Our intuitions - most people's anyway - about the trolley cases provide yet further evidence of consequentialism's falsity. Most people's intuitions say that it is morally right to divert the trolley into the path of the one to save the five. But most people's intuitions also say that it is morally wrong to shove the fact man off the bridge such that he lands on the tracks below and, by means of his mass, stops the trolley and saves five lives (at the cost of his). Consequentialism delivers the same verdict about both acts, as they have the same consequential profile. Thus, consequentialism is false. (Note, the conclusion is not that consequences don't matter - clearly sometimes an act is right because of its consequences - but rather that other things matter too, such as intentions and not using others as mere means to an end. What's a plausible explanation of the difference between the two cases that accounts for our differing intuitions about them? Well, that in the diversion case one does not use the person one diverts the trolley into as a mere means to an end, rather one merely foresees that they will be struck by the trolley. One does not intend it. By contrast, when one shoves the fat man off the bridge, one is intending him thereby to be hit by the trolley and thus one is using him as a mere means to an end).
But even if it is true, consequentialism would deliver the verdict that lockdowns are unethical. Indeed, it seems to me that a consequentialist about happiness or preference satisfaction should be even more passionately opposed to lockdowns than me, for reasons I have already surveyed above. Lockdowns make even less sense on a consequentialist view than they do on mine.
That you seem to think otherwise can only be, I think, because you are cherry picking what consequences you focus on (which is to abuse the theory, not apply it).
I argued my case. I did not put forth a 'rights theory'. I am anti substantial normative theories. I argued by appealing to rational intuitions about relevantly analogous cases. It's how Thomson argues too. No point appealing to intuitions about abortions if you want to gain insight into the ethics of abortions - for clearly people's intuitions about the ethics of abortions conflict (and thus we know - know - that someone's rational intuitions are not accurate on that issue, and so we must look to our rational intuitions elsewhere for insight......hence she asks us to imagine a sickly violinist etc).
All I am doing is pointing out that the widely shared intuitions about Thomson's violinist case tell us something important, namely that our right to life does not give us a right to 9 months of inconvenience and hardship from others.
We're in the middle of a pandemic. A lot of people are scared, including the decision makers. And furthermore these issues - the issue of what measures are justified - have become politicized and polarizing. That means our intuitions about them are probably corrupt and not reliable. That's why I am not appealing to them, but looking elsewhere for insight.
Now, Thomson's violinist cases are well known and well discussed. And there's a broad consensus that they do indeed show that abortions in the case of rape are ethically fine and do not violate the rights of the unborn.
So they're a good, calm, well trod place to go for insight. And what do they tell us? They tell us that an innocent person's right to life does not entail an entitlement to 9 months of inconvenience and hardship from another. THe word 'entitlement' is important: an entitlement is something you can use force to extract from another. If your life, through no fault of my own, has come to depend for its continuation on my having to endure 9 months of inconvenience and hardship, then you are not entitled to that from me. I would be generous if I were to give it to you. But you're not entitled to it. So you have to ask, not demand. And if I don't give it, you have to accept that there are spheres of responsibility and your death in this case falls within yours, not mine.
Applied to lockdowns: it means they're unjust. The innocent people who'll die from the virus - and you and I may be among them, for we just don't know (so this is not special pleading) - are not entitled to have the rest of us endure 9 months of hardship, cost and inconvenience.
Sounds harsh, right? But I may be one of those innocents. I am not being harsh, I am being decent - being decent involves recognizing that there are limits to what you're entitled to from others . It involves recognizing that others have lives and that you're not the centre of the goddamn universe. It involves recognizing that you're not entitled to have others be slaves to your vision of the good life. Lock yourself down, don't insist others lock down. As Shaw said, do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you - they may not share your tastes.
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
So you aren’t advocating a rights theory, you are just using rights language badly to cover up a majoritarian hurrah/boo theory of ethics as expressed by a particular culture?
Quoting Bartricks
Doesn’t sound harsh, but sounds exactly like what I asked you about. When do we focus on the community on your account of ethics rather than the individual? That is, rather than evaluating individual claim against individual claim, do we ever get to evaluate individual claim against some other locus of ethical regard?
And if government is predicated on a public negotiation of individual interests as subordinated to public authority, why suppose that an individual claim that, in the aggregate, undermines the public interest has any ethical sway on what government should do?
Yes. A 'right' is simply shorthand for something force can be legitimately used to secure. That's how I use it. But when it comes to figuring out when and where force can legitimately be used, I appeal to intuitions about cases rather than to principles. It's just that when our intuitions are unclear about case x, then if case y is sufficiently similar and elicits clear intuitions, then the clear intuitions can be reasonably carried over to case x.
So it is not a substantial theory. And if one wanted to be pedantic, one could insist that I put 'other things being equal' clauses in all over the place.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Er, what? No, matey. No. You're very confused. I am not a non-cognitivist about ethics and nothing I said implied otherwise. And overlapping rational intuitions that Xing is wrong constitutes excellent evidence that Xing is wrong, other things being equal, just as overlapping visual sensations that Y is red is excellent evidence that Y is red, other things being equal (presuambly you now think I a boo haurrah theorist about colour!).
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
I made a case. You're not addressing it, you're just saying stuff. Sounds like waffle, not reasoned argument.
So people say my moral intuition is that slavery is fine (they were Romans after all) and that is good evidence that slavery is morally OK in Rome? Or for all of time? Please tell me exactly how “moral intuitions” is substantively different than people telling you their moral emotions about various scenarios. And in what way is someone expressing their feelings good evidence for anything besides their feelings?
Imagine a culture that calls red “blue” and you walk around asking everyone whether the red thing you are pointing to is “blue” and they say “yes.” Does that mean that the red thing is “blue” or just that you can use whatever word you want to symbolize? What makes something red is the circumstances in which you have used the word “red” in a particular language community and gotten the response you want. Successful use provides no information about what is “the case”.
I don't see how your intuitions prove something to be morally correct or incorrect. You can't just say intuitions prove morality, without giving reasoning for this.
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
No, I'm not worried about unsavoury conclusions at all. If I knew for 100% fact pushing the fat man off the bridge would save multiple happy lives (and there is no other way to save them), I feel it's right to push him off the bridge.
With the lockdown argument, you've made the case against lockdown, but what about the many many more people that would die suffering if the virus wasn't locked down? Not just them, the grief of all those families losing loved ones; talk about driving people to despair and suicide.
I'll keep this short and sweet.
Unfrotunately or not, the violinist's sad condition is not my doing just like a woman who conceives from rape is not responsible for her pregnancy.
With COVID-19, you are responsible for transmitting the infection to others.
What is tedious is that you somehow think that your assertion of rights (that you don’t actually mean as rights as generally conceived) based on some people’s moral intuitions as expressed in relation to contrived thought experiments is supposed to serve as a basis for public policy in a pandemic. Some people said it is wrong to X so the government should stay off my lawn!
What did you intend the conversation to be about? Everyone patting you on the back and saying, “Here here, that violinist analogy really is the way to organize government”?
My moral intuition is that communities have interest in preventing mass harm by enforcing behavior against the interests of individuals. There is no reason for people to submit to authority where that authority is indifferent to their well-being up until the moment that someone that is morally blameworthy comes along and engages in bad behavior.
Or if you really wanted to be offended, there is such a thing as justifiable collateral damage.
The vulnerability to illness that some have is not your doing either, which is what makes the analogy work.
Note too that in my examples, we have certain death - an innocent will certainly die. Whereas with covid, we have a small possibility of death - if you catch covid (unvaccinated), there is a small chance you'll die.
Look, if you had an inkling of insight you'd realize that I do know what I am talking about - that I know what I mean by a right and that I know my stuff where morality is concerned, inside out. If you haven't gotten that yet, it's because 'you' don't know your stuff.
What's tedious is your attempt at derailing. No matter what moral issue we were discussing, you'd have made the same ignorant points about moral epistemology - or would have done if I'd happened to have been drawing normative conclusions you disagree with. Yes? So, your 'how do we know anything is right or wrong?" point is off topic - I can answer it, but this is not the place. Focus.
Moral epistemology. Focus on what the thread is about, and not on the 'how do we know anything is right or wrong?" question.
Consequentialism about ethics is silly. We can argue over that and how I know it and how you know otherwise somewhere else. But even if it is true, consequentialism would deliver an anti-lockdown verdict for the reasons I have explained. It's the actual consequences that determine the morality of a policy; and it is obvious - obvious - that any sober assessment of the aggregate gains and losses would deliver the verdict that lockdowns to deal with a virus are utterly stupid, consequentially.
I don’t deny you know something, I simply disagree with your conclusions. I haven’t asked you a single epistemology question, I’ve asked you about community interests vs. individual interests and why anyone should be swayed by your continued claim that moral intuition in thought experiments should control governments policy.
If you don’t want things to sound like epistemology, stop bringing up “evidence” and whether something qualifies as such. You complain about your own language, not mine.
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No, you then asked about moral intuitions and about what do make of the fact that people have had different moral intuitions about one and the same activity across time. Those are grander issues to do with moral epistemology that have no place in this discussion.
In this discussion I am arguing that it is unjust to have lockdowns to deal with viruses. I have done this not by simply asserting my view, but by showing how it is implied by a well known consensus of intuitions about seemingly relevantly analogous cases.
My argument does not depend upon the truth of any substantial normative theory about rights and their distribution. I am appealing to intuitions about cases.
What you're doing is focusing on the probative force of rational intuitions (any and all) - which is to miss the point. It's like entering a discussion with a scientist and saying 'but it might all be a dream' whenever any appeal to data is made (how do you know you didn't just dream the outcome of that experiment?). Tedious.
Let’s try this again. In what circumstance can a community assert an interest against an individual interest?
Forget the evidentiary nature of your reference to moral intuitions. I don’t need to tell you how to argue and you don’t need to tell me how to do so. Either you want to discuss the issue that I am bringing up or you don’t. Your decision.
I made an argument. You're not addressing it. You're just asking poorly formed questions. I've already told you I don't have - and am opposed to - substantial normative theories. Do you know what one of those is? It is a theory that gives you some rule - some principle - that answers those sorts of questions and that you can then take out into the world and apply unthinkingly to every and any situation you encounter.
I believe there is no such principle - no useful one, anyway. (One can formulate accurate but useless ones - such as 'do what is right in the situation'; that's correct - that really is what one ought to do - but it provides one with no practical insight).
So, return to the OP and address something I have argued. Use your imagination and see what your reason says about the rights and wrongs of what you're imagining.
Again: if pregnancies were like viruses - so, if you just go out and about your daily business, there's a chance you catch a pregnancy - would women have either to lockdown or else carry their pregnancies to term? Or does your reason says, as mine does, that no, the woman could have abortions?
So apparently you aren’t interested.
I’ve already told you that my moral reason says that a community can do things in contravention to an individual’s interests. Your simile of pregnancy to a virus is great and all, but not in the least bit compelling, one might even say it is inapt.
The problem with your virus case is that the issue described does not align with the issues of abortion as presented. Someone gets a virus going about their day and might die - good for them. Someone gets pregnant going about their day and might die - good for them. How they choose to negotiate their own risks relative to themselves is for them.
Now what if someone going about their day might get a virus and, in combination with the rest of the people in the same situation, may destroy the economy as we know it. Is this situation similar or dissimilar to the pregnant woman scenario? Does it introduce a new factor or does it remain the same comparison?
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So you might see that in your OP you actually opposed one individual’s rights against another’s. Indeed, it is the basis of the thought experiment you referenced as a moral intuition. I am suggesting that the case of a pandemic is dissimilar to your thought experiment because the relevant moral considerations are communal interests verses individual interests, not individual right verse individual right.
You agree, do you, that the kidnapped person can unhook from the violinist without thereby violating the violinist's rights?
And you agree, do you, that the raped woman can have an abortion?
And you agree, do you, that anyone who gets pregnant through catching the pregnancy virus while going about their daily business, may have an abortion as well?
Don't you see what that tells us? In all of these cases someone innocent dies. The violinist, the baby. They have rights to life. But that right was 'not' violated by the people who did things that resulted in their deaths.
Extract the moral: there's clearly a limit to the impositions one person can make on another. The violinist is innocent and needs the use of someone else's kidneys for 9 months to stay alive. That doesn't mean he's entitled to the use of mine, even if it is mine alone that will do the trick.
Now apply that to the lockdowns. Why are we constantly being locked down? To save people's lives. Innocent people's lives. Does that make them just? No, it matters what they impose. And it is fairly obvious that one is not entitled to have others be locked down for months on end just so that you can avoid getting a virus that, should you catch it, may (and the odds are very small) kill you. I mean, in my examples an innocent person will 'definitely' die - yet still, that does not mean that others have to give up 9 months of inconvenience, restriction and pain to prevent that death. So a fortiori they do not have to give up anything comparable merely to prevent someone from being exposed to a very small risk of death! (I mean, you do know the risk of you dying from covid - even if you're unvaccinated - is fairly small, and really really small if you're vaccinated....so small it'd be kinda stupid to worry about it).
That's condoning and even sanctioning killing, some might take that as murder.
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Doesn't that invalidate the analogical argument you're trying to make. As far as I can tell, you're trying to say pregnancy/abortion is similar to COVID-19/anti-lockdowns and if abortion is permitted, the anti-lockdown sentiment should be too.
The first step you take is use Judith Jarvis Thomson's violin thought experiment to justify abortion. This has its own issues, a hint of which you get from you having to use rape-pregnancy but set that aside for the moment.
Assume for now that abortion is justified. Are people then also warranted to defy lockdown protocols? Abortion ok implies you aren't obligated to keep someone (the fetus) alive. So, why should you have a duty to ensure the safety of others in re COVID-19?
It bears mentioning here that one person's freedom trumps any resposibility towards the safety of another person is the core message.
So far so good.
The crucial difference between the two situations is this: In abortion you're simply unwilling to participate in an arrangement in which someone's life depends on you but in rejecting lockdown protocols, you're directly causing deaths by becoming part of the infection chain. The difference, I must say, is very subtle and explains why you think your argument is a good one.
A thought experiment of my own:
Abortion
Imagine if you're told to help a dying person by donating one of your kidneys (everyone has two). You can refuse.
COVID-19 anti-lockdowner
Imagine now that you're asked to stay away from another person because your presence will be such a shock that it'll give this person a fatal heart attack. Can/will you refuse?
So is leaving the violinist to their fate. So is allowing the abortion to take place. Some might take *those* as murder.
Then, lockdowns should be mandated.
Sure, and we should give the violist our kidneys for 9 months and the woman should under those circumstances *not* abort the baby.
Flip-flop! Make up your mind!
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It’s like a broken record. Government policy should not be based on individual interests but communal ones. There is nothing in your analogies that gets to the communal interest that is relevant in the case of a pandemic.
You are arguing from irrelevant analogies. What I might have to do in response to a claim/assertion of another is not the same as what government can legitimately compel me to do.
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I was responding directly to your comments to the effect that "consequentialism is obviously wrong", "consequentialism is false", and consequentialist ethics are "silly". You made these comments, using only your intuitions as evidence therefor, but refusing to explain why your intuitions prove what is moral.
I actually enjoyed our exchange on my thread asking whether morality was objective, subjective or relative, but you dodged the same question there. It's kind of important when everything else is built upon it.
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I am open to convincing. I don't think your conclusion is so obvious, considering a 1-2% mortality rate and 15-20% hospitalisation rate - if left to infect the planet would result in 80-160 million dead, and 1.2-1.6 billion hospitalised; and multiply these number for devastated family and friends. Lockdown would much more than half these numbers?
What, you think communities are themselves persons and that we all owe them obedience? Are you crazy or stupid? A group of whales is not a whale. A group of persons is not a person. And even if it was - and it isn't- it would just be another person, not one to whom we owe special obligations or who can violate our rights.
Now, try and address my argument. Stop talking past it and address it.
And a group of cells isn’t a person.
Is this really the quality of thinking that got you the title “professional ethicist”?
Once more, try and address the case I made.
I did. You just missed it in you zeal to have me argue about something I don’t want argue about. An individual cannot assert a claim against another individual to limit their freedom blah blah. Got it. That is not a relevant context for the analysis of governmental because government is not just an individual or collection of individuals. Any analogy to what a person can do to limit what government can do is useless as an exercise in moral reasoning, and calling it “rational intuitions” doesn’t cure the defect.
You shift the parties of your analogy and fail to make your case not because the overall circumstance is so dissimilar, but because the parties are so dissimilar. Your base case is about individuals and your conclusion is not. You provide no reason for your extension.
Government policy is government interest, not communal interests. The community didn’t devise, implement, and enforce lockdown policies.
The case that governments impose lockdowns because they are merely imposing the community’s interests is fraught with statist deceit. For one, without inquiring with each community member, they do not nor could they know what the community’s interests are. Second, if they did know, they would never find one single “communal interest”, but myriad interests. This is because only individuals, not communities, have interests.
If lockdown was indeed the interest of the community at large, there would be no reason to implement it with policy and enforce it with coercion. But “communal interest” is fabricated, made up, assumed, then sold as something it isn’t. It’s the interest of those in power. And in the case of lockdowns, it is forced upon the actual community, overriding each member’s interests no matter what they are.
The main argument for lockdown is that it prevents a steep rise in cases that would overload the health system.
We've seen it work in Australia, even despite the stupidity of the NSW government in not locking down fast enough.
We've seen the opposite result in 'merica and Brazil.
@NOS4A2 is again peddling his individualist dogma. He's not even begun to think ethically.
The thing that should be kept in mind is that if we wish to live in a civilized society under a just government, we must abide by the laws. Governments are by their nature coercive. They force people to do things that they might otherwise not be disposed to do. They do this through the laws. But, what is a just law? Indeed, what is justice? No one knows exactly, but a good man knows it when he sees it.
In the US, the Constitution provides certain rights and freedoms that must be observed by the other two branches of government. The president cannot do whatever he wants (although the current president seems to think so). The legislature cannot enact laws that violate the freedoms set forth in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution. These prohibitions not only apply to the federal government but also to the individual states through the 14th Amendment.
Although abortion is not mentioned in the constitution, the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade held that a woman has a constitutional right to an abortion by reason of a right of privacy somehow rooted in the constitution. This may have been a bit of a stretch. However, the right of a woman to have an abortion has become the established law of the U.S.
Nonetheless, it must be understood, that this rule only applies to fetuses that are not yet viable (able to live outside the mother). The Supreme Court held in Roe v. Wade that the abortion of a viable fetus may be prohibited by any state. Yet the Court specifically held that a fetus, viable or otherwise, was not a person for purposes of the 14th Amendment. If the Supreme Court had held that a viable fetus was a person, an abortion of such a fetus would have been forbidden under both federal and state law.
Generally, in the US a fetus is viable after 24 weeks.
In Jacobson v. Massachusetts, a 1909 case, the Supreme Court held that the city of Cambridge could impose a fine on residents who refused to take the smallpox vaccination. Jacobson and his son refused to be vaccinated or to pay the fine, claiming that vaccinations were unconstitutional and harmful. The court held that under the particular facts of the case, public safety trumped individual freedom and Jacobson must pay the fine (about $100,00 in today’s money). The court emphasized that the Cambridge law did not allow the forcible vaccination of any person. Also, Jacobson provided no proof that the vaccine would be harmful to himself and his son.
In the rather shocking case of Buck v. Bell (1927) the US Supreme Court upheld a Virginia law that authorized the involuntary sterilization of “feeble minded” persons in state institutions, citing Jacobson. Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes announced the reasoning of the court:
“Society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes… Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
There have been enormous social and legal changes since 1909, so that no one knows whether or to what extent Jacobson would apply in the current circumstances of the pandemic. The Buck case cannot be the present law in the US or any other civilized nation.
Most people exposed to COVID-19 have thus far remained in isolation voluntarily while consulting with their physicians. But can the state or federal government order that such a person be confined if he refuses to isolate himself voluntarily?
The short answer is yes. In most cases the appropriate state authority would issue an order of confinement under the exercise of its police powers. The appropriate federal authority can in certain cases also issue such an order, but the power to do so rests primarily with the states. If the subject ignores the order, he can be arrested and kept under lock and key.
However, in such cases the subject is entitled to his constitutional rights of due process and equal protection, and the confinement action must not be arbitrary and capricious.
Is COVID-19 dangerous?
Your misrepresenting the facts to support your case.
That was my response.
He's coming at it from a philophical perspective.
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Okay. Where can i read up about the philosophy of COVID viruses? I need to be infomed.
This isn't a medical issue. It's a philosophical one. Not that many are capable of drawing this distinction (including the WHO, which makes ethical judgements it is not qualified to make).
Now, if you need the use of my kidneys for 9 months or you'll die are you entitled to make me give you the use of them? No.
Apply the lesson.
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How is that philosophy?? It's a political statement! :roll:
But anyway, you're either being tedious for the sake of sadistic delight (oo, look at me being torturously stupid to a clever person), or you're genuinely baffled, in which case you need to work with your hands and leave the thinking to others.
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