Sure you are. And if the reasons for a woman to have an abortion are irrational by your standards, should she not be allowed to have?

That risk is still greater than any risks from getting the vaccine, and so being vaccinated is better than being unvaccinated. — Michael

Irrelevant. We are not, in any other walk of life obliged to reduce our risks until they are as low as it is possible to make them. In all other walks of life the obligation is only to reduce your risk to an acceptable level. My risk of needing hospital treatment from covid infection is below the level we already find acceptable for many other lifestyle choices. Stopping eating bacon is a lower risk than eating bacon (even though it might cause you some sadness), yet there's no moral obligation to do so simply because the risk is lower than the alternative.

You not getting vaccinated doesn't mean that your vaccine gets to go to a diabetic slum dweller in India. It just means that your vaccine goes to waste. — Michael

That others who ought to act in a chain of events aren't doing their bit does not remove a moral obligation to do my bit. I free up the supply. If others are too lazy, greedy or stupid to do with that what's needed, then that's not something I have any control over. Not doing my bit doesn't help, it just encourages the situation to persist. In lowering the demand in my country I'm opening the possibility for redistribution, that's all I can do. If I don't buy extra food it doesn't go to the starving either, it goes in the bin, so should we no longer care about food waste?

So you're saying that you believe the vaccine is more dangerous than COVID? That's just flat-out false. — Michael

I didn't make any claim of fact, so it can't be false. I said I don't trust them. It's my preference. I asked you to justify how it's less acceptable than "I like the taste of bacon" as a reason.

Sure you are. And if the reasons for a woman to have an abortion are irrational by your standards, should she not be allowed to have? — Tzeentch

Possibly. If she is in the midst of a psychotic break and believes that the foetus is the spawn of Satan then I think there are reasons to prevent any rash decision that she may regret after treatment.

Mhm. Of course. And if what you determined is a psychosis persists you force her to have the baby?

Also...

If she is in the midst of a psychotic break and believes that the foetus is the spawn of Satan then I think there are reasons to prevent any rash decision that she may regret after treatment. — Michael

... are not your standards are they? As the question asked (related to vaccine hesitancy) was "...if the reasons for a woman to have an abortion are irrational by your standards, should she not be allowed to have?" A woman being in the midst of a psychotic break is not something a layman would typically judge. The issue @Tzeentch is raising related to covid is that lay people are typically judging the reasons of others. Citing a diagnosable mental health issue as an exception doesn't answer the question at all.

In most cases I might not be able to tell if someone is in the midst of a psychotic break, but if they tell me that their foetus is the spawn of Satan and must be aborted I'm going to judge that their reason for having an abortion is irrational. But as someone who doesn't believe that foetuses are people, I would reject @Tzeentch's claim that abortion harms others and so wouldn't vilify her for getting an abortion despite the irrational reason, but whether or not foetuses are people is a matter for a different discussion.

if they tell me that their foetus is the spawn of Satan and must be aborted I'm going to judge that their reason for having an abortion is irrational. — Michael

Agreed.

A ways back in this thread, I related a discussion with colleagues about prescribing carbamazepine to reduce aggression. We cannot simply do so on the grounds that it's more likely than not to reduce harm caused by the aggressive outbursts. The normal moral right to one's bodily autonomy means that it has to be shown beyond reasonable doubt before any mandatory psychiatric medicine is prescribed. The same is true with abortion (though it's not my field). It's insufficient to simply say that a woman's reasons are probably not rational, they must be shown beyond reasonable doubt to be irrational before a court can intervene.

Your example here provides maybe reasons which are beyond reasonable doubt irrational. Can you do that for the reason I gave above?

(incidentally, I agree with you about abortion, it merely serves here as a bodily autonomy argument)

Would you deny a woman who is deemed irrational beyond a reasonable doubt her right to have an abortion?

If so, what good would it bring?

Irrelevant. We are not, in any other walk of life obliged to reduce our risks until they are as low as it is possible to make them. In all other walks of life the obligation is only to reduce your risk to an acceptable level. My risk of needing hospital treatment from covid infection is below the level we already find acceptable for many other lifestyle choices. Stopping eating bacon is a lower risk than eating bacon (even though it might cause you some sadness), yet there's no moral obligation to do so simply because the risk is lower than the alternative. — Isaac

I'm not saying that you're morally obliged to get vaccinated because the risks from the vaccine are lower than the risks of COVID. I'm saying that it's irrational to not get vaccinated when the risks from the vaccine are lower than the risks of COVID (and when there are no positives to not being vaccinated, which is where eating bacon and skiing differ).

The moral obligation comes from the fact that a) it's irrational to not get vaccinated and b) not being vaccinated increases the risk of harm to others.

That others who ought to act in a chain of events aren't doing their bit does not remove a moral obligation to do my bit. I free up the supply. If others are too lazy, greedy or stupid to do with that what's needed, then that's not something I have any control over. Not doing my bit doesn't help, it just encourages the situation to persist. In lowering the demand in my country I'm opening the possibility for redistribution, that's all I can do. If I don't buy extra food it doesn't go to the starving either, it goes in the bin, so should we no longer care about food waste?

Regardless of what other people are doing, the fact of the matter is that either you take the vaccine or that vaccine goes to waste. Therefore "other people need the vaccine more" isn't a valid reason for refusing the vaccine, and so is an irrational reason.

As above, this alone isn't what establishes a moral obligation; the moral obligation comes in with the additional fact that not being vaccinated increases the risk of harm to others.

I didn't make any claim of fact, so it can't be false. I said I don't trust them. It's my preference.

I don't know how to interpret "I don't trust them" in this context as anything other than "I don't trust the safety or efficacy of the vaccine", which I don't know how to interpret as anything other than "I don't believe that the vaccine is safe and effective."

The vaccine is safe and effective; its risks are less than the risks of COVID and it reduces the chance of developing symptomatic COVID (and reduces the severity if symptoms develop).

So all-in-all, you have presented no rational reason to refuse the vaccine. It's irrational to refuse the vaccine and being unvaccinated puts others at risk. Therefore you ought be vilified.

its risks are less than the risks of COVID. — Michael

Vaccines have already been put on hold, for example in Denmark, because exactly this was suspected not to be the case.

Besides, to say the vaccine is safe is a guarantee no one can make. For one, there is no way the long-term effects could have been mapped, because the vaccines do not exist long enough for that. Secondly, for certain persons the vaccine has proven to be very much not safe, as they have suffered serious side-effects or even death.

The moral obligation comes from the fact that a) it's irrational to not get vaccinated and b) not being vaccinated increases the risk of harm to others. — Michael

So an irrational action must carry zero risk, but a rational action can carry a non-zero risk, morally. Is that your position?

Therefore "other people need the vaccine more" isn't a valid reason for refusing the vaccine, and so is an irrational reason. — Michael

You've not answered the case with food waste. Are you denying any non-consequentialist moral position?

The vaccine is safe and effective; its risks are less than the risks of COVID. — Michael

The vaccine was safe and effective when tested. That it continues to be so through production to the actual vaccine I'm having administered requires my trust in the pharmaceutical industry (not to mention believing the tests in the first place requires trust). We're not talking about matters of fact here, my vaccination is an event in the future, there are no matters of fact about it yet. It's a matter of trust. Are you claiming it's actually irrational not to trust the pharmaceutical industry? What would be your argument for that?

It's irrational to refuse the vaccine and being unvaccinated puts others at risk. Therefore you ought be vilified. — Michael

Finally, as mentioned at the top of this post, you've introduced this idea that irrational choices have to reduce risks to a greater extent than rational ones, even when the rational ones are nothing more than idle preference (bacon). Have you any argument to support this?

Would you deny a woman who is deemed irrational beyond a reasonable doubt her right to have an abortion? — Tzeentch

It depends on the circumstances. I'm not involved in such cases directly, but I'd imagine the rights of the father and the woman's previously expressed wishes would possibly come into it. Most consideration with court mandates is harm to others and the court does not consider a foetus an 'other', so without the interests of a legally considered other party I expect psychosis would make little difference to her request.

It made a passable moral example, but in the real world probably not so similar to vaccination.

The result would be that a woman is forced to give birth against her will, or perhaps worse, attempt to terminate the pregnancy herself.

I honestly can't see how this can be acceptable, whether she is deemed irrational or not.

It is a rock and a hard place, but I know to which side I am leaning.

The result would be that a woman is forced to give birth against her will, or perhaps worse, attempt to terminate the pregnancy herself.

I honestly can't see how this can be acceptable, whether she is deemed irrational or not. — Tzeentch

Yes, I agree, I was only trying to outline what might be considered, but it's outside my area of expertise. An extreme case I can think of could be where a married couple decided to have a child and a few weeks in, the woman has a clearly psychotic episode and wants an abortion. I can see the courts, in that case, denying her that right, for the sake of both the father and her non-psychotic interests. But in such a case it would only be a stay, I can't imagine a court ever mandating to full term.

My interest was different: early on I had some hope this could be an inflection point.

The fundamental problem with climate change, for instance, is overcoming our hardwired discount on the future, and the inherent slowness of the process. And that climate modeling is inherently probabilistic. Thirty years now we've had good reason to believe we ought to do something, and we've done basically nothing.

But if science came through with the vaccines, and public health officials, who by definition juggle science and politics, came through with good policy, if these folks working 16-hour days for our good came through, there'd be something be something tangible to show people the value of science and of good government, and maybe some people would wonder if they'd been wrong. Maybe science and government are pretty good ideas.

But it turns out I can still be astonished by the willful ignorance and irrationality of people.

It's simplistic, I know, but I believe everyday all of us face a choice between the Star Trek future and the Mad Max future. Some people don't. They believe it's Mad Max, now and always. They don't believe in the project of civilization. And a lot of them believe their time on earth is just a prelude to their real life anyway. I keep hoping we can work around them, and get all of us, the skeptics included, to the promised land, but their imaginary lives keep having effects in the real world. By not believing in civilization, they make it harder. This, as they say, is why we can't have nice things.

It's simplistic, I know, but I believe everyday all of us face a choice between the Star Trek future and the Mad Max future — Srap Tasmaner

It could be both. See HG Wells' Time Machine. Our species emerged from a stew of intermingling groups in Africa. It can go the other way as well: we can break up and evolve in independent groups. Climate change is the kind of stressor that could make that a reality, maybe. Some of us leave for the stars, some of us keep losing skills till they're not even stone age anymore.

What people inject into their bodies is no business but their own. Whatever reasons they may have, no matter how illogical to outsiders, does not factor into whether they should have the right to make their own decision. To me, this discussion is as clear cut as abortion. — Tzeentch

You can drink until you die for all I care. But we have actual punitive laws for those who get behind the wheel and risk the lives of others. So, stay in your home, or go to a place for people like you and stay there. You can snuggle if you want. And if you need help, help each other, but don't take up a scarce hospital bed when you think you need it. I hear if you drink bleach you can clear things right up.

You are lucky that in spreading Covid, it is too hard to prove the culprit. Drive drunk and hurt or kill my loved one and gubmn't will be the least of your worries. Because of this, don't be surprised at scarlet letters and hostility.

Having read through your exchange with @Michael now, this is what bothers me:

Yes, there are other things people do that put their health at greater risk than going without the vaccine and getting infected. I finished a cigarette before typing that, for instance. They are comparable in the sense that such behaviors could lead to needing medical care, indirectly making it measurably (whether that number is large or small) harder for someone who did not engage in those behaviors to receive care they need.

But that is not the only potential impact. My smoking is not contagious. My eating bacon is not contagious. Going skiing is an interruption of my everyday life in which I absent myself from work, school, stores, etc. in my home town, where I have repeated and sometimes prolonged contact with people, sometimes in confined spaces. And it's not contagious.

It's not just your taking-up-a-bed that counts, but the fact that you also risk causing others to need a bed (and them causing others to need a bed, and them causing others ...), and the further fact that all you need to do to risk harm to others is go about your daily life.

What's more, no one else knows what choice you've made about the risks to yourself and to them. If you and I go hunting together, we accept that we are a danger to each other -- hunting accidents do actually happen. If we interact in daily life, your obesity and heart disease and lung cancer present so little risk to me that it's irrelevant. Your drinking too much at dinner presents little risk to me and others in the restaurant, and others between the restaurant and your home -- unless you choose to drive home.

It seems very straightforward to me, and @Michael has the right of it.

(And this is also why the abortion comparison is spurious: it is not only a choice about what you do with your body, but what you do with the bodies of everyone you interact with, both directly by potentially transmitting the virus and indirectly by requiring medical care. We are not discrete units, but organisms embedded in an environment, an environment that includes other organisms just like us.)

It's not just your taking-up-a-bed that counts, but the fact that you also risk causing others to need a bed — Srap Tasmaner

Indeed it would be if there were suitably compelling evidence that vaccination did indeed reduce transmission in two key ways;

1. Over and above other measures one might choose to take to achieve the same ends.

2. Do so to below a level which is already considered acceptable (passive smoking being a good example, the air pollution from driving another, many other forms if pollution and social harms from one's consumer choices...)

Without those two, I see no moral case. Yes a vaccine might reduce my chances of transmitting the virus, but why am I required to reduce my chances of harming others to as low as possible. I'm not so required in other areas like those listed above, only to below a reasonable threshold.

As I said in my response to you a few posts back, the evidence is just not there for making the case that n relying on non-pharmaceutical measures to reduce transmission creates an unacceptably high risk of transmission in any given cohort. It's nit even close to being there.

The key issue that confuses this is that evidence for the public policy case is not the same as evidence for the moral case. The former deals in prevalence, the latter risk (see my little primer above if necessary, i'm not going to teach you to suck eggs).

As a public policy, it may be more likely than not that mass vaccination will reduce transmission. I don't think the matter is clear cut, there's a lot of behavioural issues to factor in, plus the progress of variant, the duration of immunity... but overall I've no issue with taking that gamble as public policy. But that's not the same as a moral duty.

A good example is potatoes. Public policy was to not say that potatoes were a vegetable (of the 5 a day kind). The policy wasn't because it's true, it's because they considered that admitting as such would make most people think chips and crisps counted. I would not do that. Am I still somehow morally obliged to stick to public policy nonetheless, or can I safely count my potatoes (proper vegetables as they are). I'd say the latter. I an, in this case, not the average at whom the policy is aimed.

Likewise the j-shaped curve in the negative effects of alcohol consumption. Again not reflected in public policy. There are countless examples. Public policy is a blunt instrument.

The moment evidence is shown that a vaccine reduces my* chances of transmitting the virus to below the accepted thresholds of risk, I'll agree to a moral case.

* by 'my', I mean my general cohort of known factors (age, comorbidities, population density, diligence with hygiene, etc), I'm not asking for a personalised proof!


Until then, I don't see a case for why my preferences (which I take seriously, and are both social welfare based, not personal gain based) need be sacrificed to achieve a risk threshold which is not demanded of others exercising far more trivial preferences.

Doctor Frankenstein recommend the vaccine and his monster boo'd him. They must be scientists that know better than the good doctor. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-54286558

A good example is potatoes. — Isaac

A good example is a lifetime study of epidemiology.

Until then, I don't see a case for why my preferences (which I take seriously, and are both social welfare based, not personal gain based) need be sacrificed to achieve a risk threshold which is not demanded of others exercising far more trivial preferences. — Isaac

No ones complained about a preference; it's the nonsense supporting it that is the issue. The question is regarding dissemination of reasoned positions for convincing the public it ought succumb to viral infection. Like I said weeks ago, simply stating "I rather not" is the pseudo responsible approach to this maelstrom of idiocy. No one needs justification for making that observation. It's the need to convince yourself by convincing others or in this case arguing to no foreseeable end that your decision though detrimental when applied broadly is the best course of action.

Well there is the right to bodily integrity. In principle you have a right to do as you please with your body and you certainly have a right to make other refrain from 'using' your body. So as such people who are against vaccination have a right not to be. However there can be pressing social needs to override this right. Just like sometimes you will have to comply with dna tests in a criminal investigation. These rights generally (at least in Europe) may be superceded by law, if there is a sufficient cause and necessary in a democratic society. So if the crisis is sufficiently severe you may hvae this right suspended for the time being. If the pandemic can not be curtailed by other means (which are not more draconian in nature) and continues to disrupt the everyday lives of citizens,

I do not see a legal objection against a legal obligation to vaccinate perse. However, that has to be deliberated carefully and the bar is high, so only in case there is no less severe alternative (subsidiarity) and in case the panemic causes (or continues to cause) serious social disruption.

:up:

It's the need to convince yourself by convincing others or in this case arguing to no foreseeable end that your decision though detrimental when applied broadly is the best course of action. — Cheshire

Arguing philosophical positions, such as ethical ones, is what we do here. Did you not notice the sign above the door?

Arguing philosophical positions, such as ethical ones, is what we do here. Did you not notice the sign above the door? — Isaac

Never had the chance to use 'daft' in a post and appreciate the opportunity. Notice the sign above the door to this particular room concerns anti-vaxxer as a position. So, the matter at hand is regarding the position, not philosophy in general. At any point you want to acknowledge this as a charade by all means. We all have lives, some less prone to viral infection, so if this is just entertainment it would be nice to know. Otherwise, I think this argument falls below even your standards.

Notice the sign above the door to this particular room concerns anti-vaxxer as a position. — Cheshire

Yes, and? It is an ethical question nonetheless. The complaint raised against them is not a technical one, it's that they are unethically putting others at risk. The whole question of consent, duty, reasonable risk, freedom, obligation... it's entirely a matter of ethics.

if this is just entertainment it would be nice to know. — Cheshire

I don't see anything trivially entertaining about discussing ethics, no. I think it's very serious. There's some entertainment in poking the ants, but the subject matter is a serious one.

I don't see anything trivially entertaining about discussing ethics, no. I think it's very serious. There's some entertainment in poking the ants, but the subject matter is a serious one. — Isaac

Do you want to get at the truth of the matter or defend your argument? Because, it isn't clear what is a genuine position and what's a high degree of tactical mastery in arguing a position. The lack of a chorus of statistically trained analyst covering the anti-vaxx position; like finding flat earthers with physics degrees from places that exist makes the authenticity, well statistically questionable. Aside from your "Phd" survey. Which is just an odd thing to have on hand. I'm surprised academic professionals would provide an answer to an up or down question regarding vaccination.

:100:

The vaccines only give you antibodies for 7-8 months. Then you're unvaccinated again.

The vaccines only give you antibodies for 7-8 months. Then you're unvaccinated again. — frank

From what I hear, that is also true for getting it, only the antibodies go away sooner than that. No, I don't have a cite.