|
|
|
|
|
by SigmundA
1601 days ago
|
|
So which places are you talking about so I know what I can agree or disagree with? This whole thing seems like continuum fallacy [1]. Just like everything we must all agree on a cutoff because the real world doesn't have neat black and white thresholds, covid is different from the flu that much is obvious and reaches my threshold for requiring vaccination / testing mandates at least in its current form. Do agree that a disease can be deadly enough to require it? If so what is your threshold before the mandate should be allowed? I am willing to discuss what metrics would help come to consensus as a society, buts its not like requiring vaccines or other preventative measures for certain activities is some foreign concept. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox |
|
No we don't. This assumes moral obligations are decided by an evaluation of their consequences, aka consequentialism. This is far from the only type of ethics, and permits problematic inferences (see the "Repugnant conclusion").
For instance, a Kantian would reject entirely the notion that such a cutoff is coherent. People who are trying to compel vaccines are merely using other people for their own ends (herd immunity to get back to normal), rather than treating them as ends in themselves. We should strongly encourage and persuade vaccination, but never compel them by coercive means under this ethics. Universalizing "no vaccination" does not result in a paradox, therefore it is not a moral duty under Kantianism.
There are equally compelling formulations of deontology and virtue ethics under which your sort of consequentialist argument also fails, so I'm just not convinced that it's some kind of inevitability.