That's why I asked us to imagine that pregnancies could be caught, just as one can catch a virus. Does that change anything? Would our reason now tell us that women ought to lockthemselves down or else accept that they must endure the inconvenience and pain of childbirth?

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.

Really? First, you don't seem to understand the example (the decision to unhook from the violinist has consequences for innocent others, as does the decision to abort). Second, this thread is not about whether it is morally just to force people to get vaccinated or not - that's a separate issue (and it is clearly unjust). Third, explain, don't state.

What is tedious is that you somehow think that your assertion of rights (that you don’t actually mean as rights as generally conceived) — Ennui Elucidator

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.

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. — Down The Rabbit Hole

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.

What would be arbitrary would be to ignore that counter evidence. — Bartricks

the trolley cases provide yet further evidence of — Bartricks

widely shared intuitions about Thomson's violinist case tell us something important, — Bartricks

So they're a good, calm, well trod place to go for insight. And what do they tell us? — Bartricks

And overlapping rational intuitions that Xing is wrong constitutes excellent evidence that Xing is wrong, — Bartricks

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. — Ennui Elucidator

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.

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 - which is to miss the point. — Bartricks

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.

Let’s try this again. In what circumstance can a community assert an interest against an individual interest? — Ennui Elucidator

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?

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 — Bartricks

Anyway, here's why I think these lockdowns are unjust. — Bartricks

Virtually everyone's intuitions deliver the same verdict: of course you can. — Bartricks

you're within your rights to leave. — Bartricks

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. — Bartricks

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 — Bartricks

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. — Bartricks

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 — Bartricks

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.

What's your objection to anything I have argued?

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).

The vulnerability to illness that some have is not your doing either, which is what makes the analogy work. — AJJ

That's condoning and even sanctioning killing, some might take that as murder.

That's why I asked us to imagine that pregnancies could be caught, just as one can catch a virus. Does that change anything? Would our reason now tell us that women ought to lockthemselves down or else accept that they must endure the inconvenience and pain of childbirth? — Bartricks

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?

That's condoning and even sanctioning killing, some might take that as murder. — TheMadFool

So is leaving the violinist to their fate. So is allowing the abortion to take place. Some might take *those* as murder.

So is leaving the violinist to their fate. So is allowing the abortion to take place. Some might take *those* as murder. — AJJ

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.

Sure, and we should give the violist our kidneys for 9 months and the woman should under those circumstances *not* abort the baby. — AJJ

Flip-flop! Make up your mind!

...

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.

Moral epistemology. Focus on what the thread is about, and not on the 'how do we know anything is right or wrong?" question. — Bartricks

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.

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. — Bartricks

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 are you on about? I am talking about what is just in a community - communities of persons. A violinist, some music lovers, and someone with kidneys that the violinist needs the use of. That's a community. A community of a woman, a rapist, a pregnancy and a doctor. Another community. And so on.
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”?

Yes. A group of cells isn't a person. And yes, this is called clear thinking. It is bound to seem a little strange to you.
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 OP if fatuous.

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.

NosaA2,

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.

If the state fears an overloaded healthcare system maybe it should improve the healthcare system. But that’s too much work. Better to utilize its power to control the population’s livelihoods than to try harder at what is essentially its job. After all, authoritarianism is the only species of ethics available to @Banno’s collectivist posturing.

Don't get me wrong: if there's a dangerous virus on the loose — Bartricks

Is COVID-19 dangerous?

yes.

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? — Bartricks

Your misrepresenting the facts to support your case.

What? Stop being cryptic. Do you have any kind of response to my argument?