. OK, that seems fair enough.

I don't see how it's being a role prevents me playing it, or prevents anyone else from responding to it in kind. — Isaac

It can prevent others from taking such role playing seriously. If your philosophical ideas are just pretense, then why should anyone (including you) care about them?

if determinism is true, then beliefs are not rationally, but causally, determined. — Janus

This is a false opposition. Even if determinism is true, it could be that beliefs are determined by reason in a fully deterministic manner.

Imagine for instance a species where a certain biological sub-system is devoted among other things to "reasoning". This sub-system works deterministically, like a machine, but based on logical rules and procedures: it reasons logically to determine the optimal response for the organism on the basis of all inputted information. In this situation, the organism could be determined by reason, even in a determinist universe.

One's opinion will be formed, in large part, by the opinion which is used as a membership token for the social groups to which one wishes to belong, or the social roles one plays. — Isaac

And this I disagree with. Choice of opinion is dependent upon all sorts of drivers, perhaps some upon their desire to fit in, others other factors, but in all instances not fixed and a matter of choice. Many, hopefully most, form their opinion based upon a fidelity to finding the truth.

To the extent you argue opinion is controlled by forces beyond your control, your argument ceases to have persuasive value because it admits to not being based upon truth and it denies my responses are based upon truth.

The larger narrative your position speaks to is to give credence to a post-truth description that tries to avoid harsh criticism of fringe nonsense like ant-vaxx positions, suggesting those opinions have equal validity, with rejection of anti-vaxx being based not upon objectivity, but just upon me wanting to get along with my peers by showing them I stand against anti-vaxx.

The sometimes violent peer division you've identified isn't a complex sociological and psychological matter that just naturally exists within each of us, but it is the outcome of a nefarious and intentional political effort to polarize and divide the population to acquire political power. That there is such division over such minor requests like wearing masks and getting an FDA approved vaccine (and the unadulterated bullshit of the "stolen" election) speaks to the power of our power seekers in creating camps and securing votes. It needn't be this way.

That people can be swayed by group identity desires, fear, prejudice and whatever else is nothing new, but the choice of what to do remains in the hands of the people. We're not lemmings and the responsibility rests with us, and we can't blame our bad choices on just trying to get along with our peer group.

So, if your vaccination decision is based upon your wanting to get along with your party of choice, you've abrogated your responsibility as a responsible person.

Our beliefs are objective only if arrived at through reason.
2. If our beliefs are caused then they are not arrived at through reason.
Therefore
3. If our beliefs are caused, then they are not objective.

Is that the argument? I mean, (2) is clearly true, but what's the justification for (1)? Why isn't (1) something more like "Our beliefs are only objective if supported by reason"? or — Srap Tasmaner

This is the quandary - if you accept that beliefs that are caused are not arrived at by reason, you have no way of knowing whether they happen to also be reasonable.

So, (1) I believe the earth is round based upon causality, and (2) there are objective reasons to believe the earth is round. How do I ever know #2, given #1? All I have access to is #1.

Independent agency (the ability to have free choice) I take as a given (compare perhaps to a Kantian pure intuition) required for an intelligible view of the world. If we don't presuppose we are capable deciding before we decide, the enterprise of deciding is meaningless.

Independent agency I take as a given required for an intelligible view of the world. — Hanover

:up:
Indeed, mechanical puppets don't usually make much sense.

We just shouldn't get caught up in the social exercise of what is a private function. — Isaac

This I think I need a little clarification on. -- I have thoughts, but it's easier to ask.

You may well review and revise your stories, select others which fit better or feel more satisfying, these may well lead to better actions in the future. That's not the necessarily same thing as you engaging in the social game of review and revision. — Isaac

This is the main point I hadn't been clear on. Even in cases where the two processes are naturally related -- as in a philosophical discussion -- they are not the same process, can't be the same process, aren't even the same kind of process.

Totally with you -- got there by a different route long ago -- but I hadn't connected the dots. Makes many of my remarks about intuition at least a little irrelevant, if still charming. We are still interested in how people form and revise their beliefs, but on a separate track we're interested in how people discuss their beliefs, and we're interested in the nexus of the two but without assuming there's just a sort of wave of reason that passes through groups of people causing each of them to speak in turn and enlightening the rest.

I have some worries I suspect we're about to get to. It might be best to go back to the coronavirus example to clarify what we're up to.

This is the quandary - if you accept that beliefs that are caused are not arrived at by reason, you have no way of knowing whether they happen to also be reasonable.

So, (1) I believe the earth is round based upon causality, and (2) there are objective reasons to believe the earth is round. How do I ever know #2, given #1? All I have access to is #1. — Hanover

The answer I want to give is that this is clearly false: I don't only have access to (1). And then I give the example of having an idea for a chess move which I then analyze. The causes that led to my entertaining that candidate move are one thing -- a thing I likely don't have access to -- but the analysis is a whole different thing, and the analysis is where I establish whether the move is reasonable.

But that's not your issue. Your issue is that whatever I do by why of analyzing a candidate move is also caused, so it's a thought of the same type. Your argument is that

(a) I never get access to uncaused thoughts, and
(b) only uncaused thoughts are arrived at by reason, and
(c) only thoughts arrived at by reason are reasonable.

(b) is obviously true; (a) I think I want to accept because rejecting it strikes as believing in magic, sorry; but I still see no argument for (c) and that's exactly what I asked for last time.

Why should the history of my having a thought, a psychological phenomenon, have any bearing on whether that thought is supported or supportable by reason, which is an entirely different theoretical framework, and one that I have access to?

I mean, there's a regress, if you want to go that way: I have an idea for a move, don't know why; I analyze it in a certain way, don't know why; how do I know the second step conforms to reason without analyzing it? I don't. But neither do the believers in uncaused thoughts.

I must be missing something obvious, for which I apologize, but I'm not getting it. I think you're saying that if I believe thoughts are caused I have to completely give up the other theoretical framework by which we judge thoughts as reasonable, but for the life of me I don't see why. For you that verb "judge" has to mean "freely judge" and if the judgment itself is caused it doesn't count, but that looks like a circular argument to me. (I want to say here that "judge" is a psychological term in one framework but not in the other, but I don't know if that helps or hurts. And now I've said it anyway.)

I have some sympathy with this view, at least if we dial back the optimality a little and just assume we're learning organisms that get better at being rational, something like that.

On the other hand, I have a whole different compatibility approach that acknowledges two different frameworks for describing our thoughts, although I find it much easier to get confused here than with your suggestion. (See the hash I'm about to make of my conversation with @Hanover below. Sometimes I wish I were better at philosophy.)

Let us assume you are a computer entirely controlled by an algorithm. When you are asked a question, the computer computes, but its algorithm is of unknown validity. It might provide a correct answer. It might not. Regardless of whether it is correct, as long as it is allowed to compute, you will recite your answer as well as the basis the computer provided you substantiating your decision.

For any answer you give, of what value would it be for me to ask you if it's correct and to provide your basis, and won't the problem be compounded if I also am controlled by an algorithm as well?

That is to say, you're just going to recite to me what you must.

Must we not assume independent judgment to assess anything meaningfully?

I think that's nonsense for the simple reason that beliefs are not strictly determined by logic.Logic alone tells us nothing about the world. There is far more to rationality than mere logic.

On the other hand, I have a whole different compatibility approach that acknowledges two different frameworks for describing our thoughts, — Srap Tasmaner

I am sympathetic to this kind of "compatibilism" it seems you are referring to. It starts with Spinoza; with the idea that explanations in terms of extensa and explanations in terms of cogitans are different kinds of perspectives on the one thing. Or again think of Sellar's "space of reasons" and "space of causes".

You are right to think that causal explanations do not provide rational justification for a given belief. (We have to agree to table perception though )

You are wrong to think we need free will to keep them out. If I want to talk about justification, neither causes nor their denial have any place there. It's a different framework altogether.

And that's true for conversations as well. You can describe them within a social psychological framework or within a rational analysis framework. The latter does not need or want a denial of whatever views about causation are included in the former.

Sellar's "space of reasons" and "space of causes". — Janus

Bingo! You win a prize, @Janus!

There is far more to rationality than mere logic. — Janus

That makes absolutely no difference to the demonstration.

The only thing you need for reason to be compatible with determinism, is for reason to be determinant, causal, i.e. to be a cause of other things.

If reason could not cause anything, it could not exist in a determinist world, which is all about cause and effect.

It can prevent others from taking such role playing seriously. If your philosophical ideas are just pretense, then why should anyone (including you) care about them? — Olivier5

People don't care about stuff because they ought to.

Many, hopefully most, form their opinion based upon a fidelity to finding the truth. — Hanover

And how do they go about doing that? Is it 'true' that abortion is unacceptable after six weeks, or is it 'false'? What on earth would true and false mean in this context and how would we go about pinning down only one version of it?

To the extent you argue opinion is controlled by forces beyond your control, your argument ceases to have persuasive value because it admits to not being based upon truth and it denies my responses are based upon truth. — Hanover

It doesn't have to admit it. Advertisers have a good deal of success getting people to wear believe Nike trainers are better than any other brand. Did they need to appeal to universal truth to do that? Or did they need to get a few famous sports celebrities to wear Nike?

The sometimes violent peer division you've identified isn't a complex sociological and psychological matter that just naturally exists within each of us, but it is the outcome of a nefarious and intentional political effort to polarize and divide the population to acquire political power. That there is such division over such minor requests like wearing masks and getting an FDA approved vaccine (and the unadulterated bullshit of the "stolen" election) speaks to the power of our power seekers in creating camps and securing votes. It needn't be this way. — Hanover

Really? So the 'power seekers' are the ones spreading the anti-vax message among otherwise sensible scientists, while the poor powerless government and pharmaceutical industry just want everyone to be happy? Who are these devils? Name names man, they need to be held to account.

We just shouldn't get caught up in the social exercise of what is a private function. — Isaac


This I think I need a little clarification on. -- I have thoughts, but it's easier to ask. — Srap Tasmaner

You nailed it further down. Appraising our own stories is a private exercise, we may find one story is too untenable, too conflicting, or just simply don't like it anymore. We may gradually change it (it's notoriously difficult though). None of this has anything to do the the social game of arguing over the rightness and wrongness of these extremely filtered, highly formalised, highly sanitised versions of our 'reasons' for believing what we do that we might write about here.

Even in cases where the two processes are naturally related -- as in a philosophical discussion -- they are not the same process, can't be the same process, aren't even the same kind of process. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that's exactly it. Philosophy is a social endeavour and it's therefore part of the role we play in the story we have. We present this 'officially sanctioned' version of our reasons (almost always post hoc), as our move, and we receive a similar diplomatic offering in return for us to try and counter. Like any good story, this will make us think, might even change our preferred narrative in some way, but we'd be mad to believe it to be some faithful external representation of the deeply psychological reasoning process that results in our webs of belief.

We are still interested in how people form and revise their beliefs, but on a separate track we're interested in how people discuss their beliefs, and we're interested in the nexus of the two but without assuming there's just a sort of wave of reason that passes through groups of people causing each of them to speak in turn and enlightening the rest. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. that's spot on the way I'm thinking.

I have some worries I suspect we're about to get to. — Srap Tasmaner

I'd expect nothing less!

It might be best to go back to the coronavirus example to clarify what we're up to. — Srap Tasmaner

OK. As you may have noticed from my posting rate, I'm a bit short on time at the moment, but will certainly be interested in what you have to say, even if it takes a while to respond.

Nobody cares about fake philosophies.

Name names man, they need to be held to account. — Isaac

Trump, Bolsenaro, BoJo and co.

I have some sympathy with this view, at least if we dial back the optimality a little and just assume we're learning organisms that get better at being rational, something like that. — Srap Tasmaner

Right. It is the only logical point of view on this matter that I can think of. Otherwise one falls into the liar's paradox, as @Hanover rightly pointed out. Mechanical puppets don't usually make much sense.

Health Ministry announces details about COVID-19 third vaccine

Most of the countries are already taking actions to ensure the third vaccine in the coming months or year.

The groups which can go ahead with the booster shot against COVID-19 have been determined by the Health Ministry and include those living and working in nursing homes, those aged 65 and over, health professionals and those who are immunosuppressed and or are immunodeficient.

And how do they go about doing that? Is it 'true' that abortion is unacceptable after six weeks, or is it 'false'? What on earth would true and false mean in this context and how would we go about pinning down only one version of it? — Isaac

There's a category difference between fact based questions and moral ones, and the inquiry here has been of factual ones (i.e. the effectiveness of vaccines). In any event, I do believe in moral realism and reject subjectivism. So, whether a fetus may ethically be aborted does have a final answer, but I'll admit it (like many factual questions) is unclear. Whether it is morally ethical to murder my neighbor, on the other hand, isn't a matter of meaningful debate. That there are some issues readily known and others not does not logically entail that there is sufficient uncertainty in the world for universal skepticism. It just means we can know some things better than others.

It doesn't have to admit it. Advertisers have a good deal of success getting people to wear believe Nike trainers are better than any other brand. Did they need to appeal to universal truth to do that? Or did they need to get a few famous sports celebrities to wear Nike? — Isaac

Contextualized to this debate, here in a philosophy forum where you would want to be persuasive, fidelity to the truth would be the way you would sway others. Whether Michael Jordan believes we should or shouldn't vaccinate wouldn't work here, but to the extent you're arguing that people make bad decisions based upon bad information, we very much agree.

Really? So the 'power seekers' are the ones spreading the anti-vax message among otherwise sensible scientists, while the poor powerless government and pharmaceutical industry just want everyone to be happy? Who are these devils? Name names man, they need to be held to account. — Isaac

Your sarcasm isn't even logical. If you think it absurd that I'd suggest the pharmaceutical companies are pure and honest (which I didn't), you can't then submit that it's absurd for me to suggest there are politicians who are less than pure and honest.

You can Google for the names of those politicians and those politicizing the anti-vax movement as well as me. What I can say is that pharmaceutical companies, epidemiologists, and public health officials have primary reasons for existence other than the securing of power. I realize they are corruptible, but a politician unapologetically and openly makes it his primary focus to obtain power. We can hypothesize conspiracies as they relate to the dishonest motives of any person or industry, but, with politicians, we have to accept as point of fact that they are waking up every morning with no other ambition than to secure votes and power. That, unlike the others mentioned, is their primary focus.

I submitted a piece on research to a friend of mine and he felt compelled to respond. I'll let him remain anonymous but I thought it was funny so I have to share. He cranks this stuff out off the cuff and on the fly all the time:

" I have some thoughts.

Well, they say they’re researching. A Ouija Board is kind of like research…if you don’t think about it too hard. It’s not like we’re asking that they be able to diagram the fucking Krebs cycle. A minimum of understanding is acceptable; “Germs bad, make people dead. Peoples includes me. If peoples dead, no Slurpees at Quicky-mart! Some peoples know more than me. Good to listen to smart peoples, good to stay alive.” This would be fine And you don’t need any empathy for your hatchlings of Grandma, let alone those other people who, allegedly, exist. Of course, the mere act of acknowledging that some ‘peoples’ might know more about some things than the average gentle Fox news viewer, is a mortal insult to the audience’s patriotism, if not a direct attack on their ego-centric narcissism.

Just based on what I know about human history, it appears that with great regularity, a decent percentage of our fellow humans go completely off the fucking rails. Or, disturbingly, perhaps the moments of lucidity are the aberrant state. Anywhoo. Usually, it’s due to an idiot or group of same, manipulating people for power, wealth or maybe simply self-aggrandizement. Sometimes it just happens sort of organically. Giles the Goat Boy has a vision of the Virgin Mary giving him a hand job in heaven, and the next thing you know the whole town is naked and burning down the Jewish quarter.

One would think that basic survival instincts would prevent this kind of thing. Or, now that we’re ‘literate’ and know how this shit ends, we’d put the brakes on. (FYI It ends badly, for everybody, including the instigators-though by then you and I and our ilk are dead, so, no “I told you so,” for us.) Unfortunately, the only thing that has actually stood in the way of going full ‘demented lemming’ has been the weakest of all controls…manners.

Sometimes these are believed to be enforced by theological principles. Fear of being toasted on Old Snape’s marshmallow fork for eternity if you pork the upstairs maid while the wife is at bridge club. Or, using a handkerchief, lest demons fly out when sneezing. Sometimes the law. But, really, who thinks about the federal sentencing guidelines when knocking over a liquor store. The Crack ain’t going to buy itself Bubba!

But at bottom, (another place not to put your marshmallow fork, per Leviticus) it is the rare neurotic that actually makes the connection between not flushing and the fiery pit, or consults the neurotic OCD of Emily Post, for that matter. Generally, it is an unconscious compliance with social norms, which one would hope reflect some selective pressure not to overtly stifle DNA’s mandate to continue on. This can be seen in such conventions as reconsidering carbs, when half the village drops like flies after eating Mrs. Dengue’s dinner rolls, running with scissors and burying the dead in the water supply.

It has usually been socially unacceptable, and therefore personally embarrassing, to openly express stupidly dangerous and objectively false ideas. Except in certain religious traditions, where it is mandatory to maintain group identity.. and to get unfettered access to the complimentary donuts.

Equally unfortunately, manners are dependent on unspoken and often subconscious group consensus. So, once the current trend-setters start picking their noses, slapping the waiter for thrills and farting musically at state dinners, well, the door to a hell-scape creaks slowly open. It’s worse when defying social norms becomes a noble expression of resistance to ‘tyranny.’ Such as the tyrannical notion that casually and randomly killing your fellow citizens is, at a minimum, unsporting.

Basically, the difficulty is that, as I believe you and I know all too well, acting stupidly and selfishly is fun. Especially if you’re in a gang who won’t make fun of your intellectual limitations. It’s especially great if you believe you are doing the Lord’s work. The cherry on top is pissing off the smart people who you believe are mocking you for your ignorance (I admit it). Who doesn’t enjoy placing others in fear, experiencing what passes for power on T.V. and generally inflating one’s poorly constituted ego? Lastly, believing something that is widely contradicted, or acting on it like you do believe it, makes you the holder of ‘special knowledge.’ God knows, feeling special is better than merely being a faceless cog and, it takes a shit load less effort than figuring out what the actual source of your fear and discomfort might be.

Folks dimly sense the world is a cruel place, in which their desires and needs are unmet. This despite what they are told to believe are their best efforts to improve their situation. Such efforts as Fox once indicated, when complimenting the work ethic of Cheeto Jesus, “He watches all the shows!” Their only understanding comes from a steady diet of ‘bootstraps’ propaganda and conspiracy stories which advise them it’s not their fault. This an extremely pleasing answer and a real time and energy saver too. They do not look up, or examine the policy decisions of those they have placed in power which have made them Walmart waddlers, teetering on the verge of penury. Always, as instructed, they direct their blame at the convenient ‘other’ du jour. Deliberate ignorance and self-deception, especially if it comes with the comfort of herd identity and, don’t forget, cool hats, makes the world a brighter place. In the same sense that a grease fire in the kitchen, really improves the lighting… at least temporarily.

In a world where hypocrisy is unnoticed, if not admired, shame no longer operative as a bar to misbehavior and deliberate ignorance is considered evidence of a virtuous commitment, a free society cannot rely on social norms to restore rational balance.

If you can’t fix stupid, and evidence, logic and mockery are unavailing; That leaves law and force. Sadly, that never ends well, in spite of our American belief in quick violent solutions to complex problems. Though, I admit, in the short run, shooting the deliberately ignorant is satisfying. One can always rationalize it as ‘educational.” Or, as Voltaire put it, “Pour encourage les autres.” From Candide:

They arrived at Portsmouth. The coast was lined with crowds of people, whose eyes were fixed on a fine man kneeling, with his eyes bandaged, on board one of the men of war in the harbour. Four soldiers stood opposite to this man; each of them fired three balls at his head, with all the calmness in the world; and the whole assembly went away very well satisfied.
“What is all this?” said Candide; “and what demon is it that exercises his empire in this country?”
He then asked who was that fine man who had been killed with so much ceremony. They answered, he was an Admiral.
“And why kill this Admiral?”
“It is because he did not kill a sufficient number of men himself. He gave battle to a French Admiral; and it has been proved that he was not near enough to him.”
“But,” replied Candide, “the French Admiral was as far from the English Admiral.”
“There is no doubt of it; but in this country it is found good, from time to time, to kill one Admiral to encourage the others.”

BTW: as you know anti-intellectualism, to give it a fancy name, is as American as apple-pie, racism and misogyny. We’ve even studied it!

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Arthur C Clarke

“If a nation expects to ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Thomas Jefferson… (who then broke into “Somewhere over the Rainbow” while fondling Sally Hemmings

The Shrinks weigh in:

“The difference between willful ignorance and true self-deception is subtle, but important. Willful ignorance tends to be more adaptive than self-deception. Willful ignorance is a cognitive strategy that people adopt to promote their emotional well-being, whereas self-deception is less controllable and more likely to be detrimental. Although willful ignorance and self-deception sometimes help individuals to avoid unpleasant facts, in the long run, it is usually better to confront reality than to avoid or deny it.”(Really? That seems tiring.)

“Studies have demonstrated that leaders who make bad decisions with harmful outcomes — but are willfully ignorant about those decisions — are usually punished less than straight-up dictators. Other researchers have pegged deliberate ignorance as an emotion regulation and regret avoidance device, a way to avoid liability while also driving performance.

In short: Self-deception basically works the same way deceiving others does. The person avoids critical information so they don’t know the whole truth; biases aren’t quite self-deception, but self-deception does involve a bias in what information you accept. In a 2011 paper in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, researchers argue that self-deception may have an evolutionary purpose in a blatantly depressing way: We self-deceive, they say, because it trains us to be better liars. “In the struggle to accrue resources, a strategy that has emerged over evolutionary time is deception,” the researchers write. “Self-deception may be an important tool in this co-evolutionary struggle, by allowing deceivers to circumvent detection efforts.” In other words, the more we convince ourselves of little lies, the less likely we are to demonstrate the nervousness and idiosyncratic tendencies that come with lying to other people, allowing us to become powerful, even if precariously so. Which, while that is likely true, is sort of a bummer.

“the strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” Isaac Asimov

Check out Asimov from 1980…Hmmm, what happened that year?? :

https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf"

the inquiry here has been of factual ones (i.e. the effectiveness of vaccines). — Hanover

No it hasn't. At least not in a way any of us here can dispute. Let's say for the sake of argument that the vaccine is 100% effective. Does that now mean I ought to take it? You've left out any argument that we ought to take things that are 100% effective at doing what they claim to do. Fact's don't simply result in moral oughts (though see @Srap Tasmaner's rather clever way of achieving this in the other coronavirus thread).

here in a philosophy forum where you would want to be persuasive, fidelity to the truth would be the way you would sway others. — Hanover

I see no evidence of that. I've provided more citations from properly qualified experts than any other poster and most contrary responses have been half-arsed clichés of reactionary defensiveness or outright spittle-flecked invective. How is that representative of a community in search of truth?

a politician unapologetically and openly makes it his primary focus to obtain power. — Hanover

Have you read the articles of association for the pharmaceutical companies? Their objective is no less black and white, in fact far more so. They make money for their shareholders. In fact it's a contractual requirement that they make money for their shareholders. a CEO could quite rightfully be sacked if he pursued any other objective. That may be by making a vaccine that works so well everyone wants it, or it may be by lobbying governments so hard they make the vaccine mandatory and everyone gets it regardless. The articles are not specific as to how the money is made (beyond it being legal).

We're in the sad state unfortunately, where a dollar spent on lobbying has a higher return than a dollar spent on R&D. At least a politician has to transparently convince people in order to remain in power, a corporation can earn it's profit without the public having a clue how.

If reason is merely a part of the determinant nexus of events, that is if it is fully determined by other non-rational physical events, then it is not uniquely self-determining in the way we intuitively think it is.

I see no evidence of that. I've provided more citations from properly qualified experts than any other poster and most contrary responses have been half-arsed clichés of reactionary defensiveness or outright spittle-flecked invective. How is that representative of a community in search of truth? — Isaac

I think this is irrelevant, since none of us here are experts qualified to judge the merits of whatever significant controversies over the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines might be going on in the virological, immunological and epidemiological domains.

Since taking a covid vaccine is not mandatory, the only argument, assuming that the vaccines are effective and safe enough to provide the only foreseeable way out of. or at least the only practicable way of ameliorating, this dire situation we find ourselves in, is the usual moral one that every member of the community ought to do their bit in contributing towards the most thorough implementation of the strategy designed to that end, that has been adopted by our governments under the advice representing expert consensus.

We have to assume that the strategy does represent expert consensus, because we have no way of judging whether it does beyond the fact that it is the official line. If it doesn't represent expert consensus then our experts are failing us and we are being deceived, but we would have no way of determining if that were the case.

If the pharmaceutical companies are predominately motivated by profit, that would nonetheless be irrelevant to the question as to whether the vaccines are safe and effective and whether mass vaccination is the only or at least the best strategy available to us.

Excellent!

Sometimes it just happens sort of organically. Giles the Goat Boy has a vision of the Virgin Mary giving him a hand job in heaven, and the next thing you know the whole town is naked and burning down the Jewish quarter. — James Riley

:rofl:

I'm not following your argument at all here. None of us are experts sufficiently to judge the various facts of the case, yes? I'm with you so far. You then jump to saying that in such cases we're morally obliged to follow government policy? I don't see the link.

If we're faced with a situation where we cannot personally judge the rightness or wrongness of expert opinion, the surely it comes down to

a) a matter of whom we choose to trust, and
b) a matter of having sufficiently good grounds for our choices (ie at least some experts are supporting us)

I don't see why the answer to (a) morally ought to be the government, and I don't see why (b) gets discarded in favour of insisting that everyone have exactly the same answer.

If the pharmaceutical companies are predominately motivated by profit, that would nonetheless be irrelevant to the question as to whether the vaccines are safe and effective and whether mass vaccination is the only or at least the best strategy available to us. — Janus

Really, how so? Surely it speaks quite strongly to the question at (a). Does the fact that a profit-making enterprise are making an enormous profit out of a strategy not factor into that question at all? If not, then what factors do you think ought to factor into that question? To simplify - at what point in time do we stop trusting our government/media? Is there some threshold of trustworthiness they've yet to cross but which, for you, would change your strategy?

If reason is merely a part of the determinant nexus of events, that is if it is fully determined by other non-rational physical events, then it is not uniquely self-determining in the way we intuitively think it is. — Janus

This is not the hypothesis I was raising, though. The idea was rather that reason could be fully determined by reason herself, by prior thoughts, goals and collected data, not by non-rational physical events.