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by silicon2401 1761 days ago
> not caring about the greater good

This is an emotional appeal that has been used to justify countless atrocities in countless civilizations. A rational society shouldn't be thinking in such blanket and qualitative ways

6 comments

Actions are bad because of their nature, not because of how they are reasoned for. And any given reason can be used to justify bad or good actions; that doesn't taint the reasoning.

That is to say, judging an action solely by its reason is intellectually lazy; Especially because you can just interrogate the action and its effects themselves.

To make it clear: Saying getting vaccinated is dangerous because the 'greater good' is also used to justify atrocities seems like something profound, but it actually lacks any insight whatsoever.

In this case though the greater good is very easily expressed in a quantitative way: more vaccinated people means less people dead and incapacitated by the virus.
It's not an emotional appeal though. It's pretty clear that a high vaccination rate will be beneficial to the overall health and prosperity of a population. I don't care about people getting vaccinated because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy, I care about them getting vaccinated so that we can ramp down restrictions and get closer to normality.
> a high vaccination rate will be beneficial to the overall health and prosperity of a population.

Then say that, don't say "the greater good". The "greater good" means very different things to Nazis or Islamist terrorists. We should encourage people to say what they mean, not vague and meaningless phrases like "greater good".

What kind of silly response is this? Of course a rational society would look at the impact of individual decisions extrapolated over the collective.

If nobody got the covid vaccine, would things be better or worse across our society than they are now? Simple question, simple answer, but something you are ignoring and thus you aren't rational.

Of course a rational society would look at this, but it should not only look at this.

Unbounded utilitarian arguments can be used to justify any number of atrocities, and therefore must be bounded by human rights and other factors.

Ultimately, it comes down to what you are and aren't measuring when you are assessing "impact over the collective".

Of course. Using an open-ended "well it could lead to this" disregards any nuance that my argument has.

Anything complicated like this requires nuance.

There is no blanket logic here. This is not an atrocity. This is an instance of global pandemic, literally a 100-year natural disaster affecting all of humanity. It's not some slippery slope about your "freedom", stop trying to make it into one.
> This is an emotional appeal

Spock wants to have a word with you.