[sleavey]

The Murderer at the Door hypothetical is commonly mentioned in response to Kant, but I don't think this serves as reason to reject the overall thesis. Kant also said that there is no right for someone to obtain information from another against their will. You don't need to tell someone who comes to your house looking for someone they plan to harm that they are there. You simply tell them they have no right to know who is in your house, and that they should bugger off! In the context of the current discussion, the government doesn't have the moral duty to reply to requests for classified information, they simply say they cannot provide classified information. If the public are unsatisfied with that answer, they need to vote them out.

Now I understand that, stretched to extremes, Kant's theory gets rather tricky to defend, such as a hypothetical situation of a Nazi coming to your house to ask if you are harbouring Jews he plans to kill. But Kant and others since have argued ways to deal with such situations too, though I must admit I haven't studied their arguments in detail and wouldn't do them justice to try to paraphrase. But I don't think we're really dealing with such a high stakes situation in the context of this discussion, so I think "lower order" arguments in favour of Kant (like mine) suffice. This is something I expect you'll disagree with given your response.

Coming back to the original context of governments lying to people to get them to have vaccines: I think it's possible to do huge damage to public trust in government and science if lies are told for the (always subjective) "greater good", even if the immediate outcome is positive. Governments should understand Kant.

P.S. thanks for your level headed response, it's refreshing and rare to see in threads that discuss COVID.

P.P.S. sometimes it needs to be said explicitly: I am open to changing my views on this if I hear a convincing argument.