Hacker News Reader

Comment by whatthesmack | Hacker News Reader

The problem with this logic, of course, is that it assumes somebody has a right to not be infected while in a public area. That "somebody" is also in a public area, so the risk is entirely by their own choice. They don't know who could be infected, but they're out in public anyways. The responsibility for the risk that "somebody" undertakes cannot simply be laid at a different person's feet.

View on HN

The flip side of that argument plays out, at its worst, in what gets charged as 'negligent homicide', or even 'voluntary manslaughter'.

If you can take reasonable precautions that barely inconvenience you, but could easily prevent potentially fatal infections, what does it say about your morality that you choose not to?

It's a choice between doing small things that can easily benefit many more people than yourself, or deliberately choosing to risk others' health just "because".

If knowingly + intentionally spreading HIV isn't a felony (thanks, California [0]) why should not fully minimizing the risk of personally contracting and then spreading COVID be one? ("mandate condoms during anal sex to reduce the spread of HIV" is actually pretty comparable to "mandate masks when outside to reduce the spread of COVID", incidentally)

Not to say it's a good thing to do, but that doesn't mean it reaches the level of "crime".

0: https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/07/health/california-hiv-bill-si...

I meant to say something closer to 'should rise to the level of', I didn't mean to imply that it is a crime now.

I didn't know that about the California law... but I understand that treatment is much more effective so I can see why it's no longer at a felony level.

How about those not wearing masks or at least maintaining minimum recommended behavior to minimize transmission get a 'reckless endangerment' and/or 'child endangerment' instead, not quite so Heavy Felony but still a solid signal to others that NOT helping to stop the spread of this is morally incorrect.

Edit: to more closely convey my understanding of the CA bill changes.

>mandate condoms during anal sex to reduce the spread of HIV" is actually pretty comparable to "mandate masks when outside to reduce the spread of COVID", incidentally

One instance of unprotected anal sex does not have the chance to infect 50+ others. Anal sex is a pretty clear situation where both parties can make the choice to take the risk if they want, and not hurt anyone else.

If I go outside without a mask and have COVID and breathe on something, that has a chance of infecting lots of people

Ehhhh. I wouldn't be surprised if the average instance of "HIV+ person without PReP having unprotected anal sex" infects more people than "COVID-19 positive person visits a mall without a mask" does. The worst case of 50 people can be higher without the average also being higher, is what I mean.

Further... Everyone else at the mall can also choose to not take that risk, though it's not really true for students in high school.

> Further... Everyone else at the mall can also choose to not take that risk, though it's not really true for students in high school.

There's that fallacy again. It won't die. It's not just the people in the mall. It's everyone THEY will infect, and the next generation of infections, and the next.

A pandemic like this (contra HIV, which is very uninfectious and is transmitted almost exclusively by consensual 1:1 activities) just plain isn't susceptible to moral reasoning at the level of individual actions. There is NO feasible way an individual can make an informed choice to "accept" risk of covid infection that doesn't also increase (significantly!) the risk borne by the rest of society.

You can't do it. Any moral statement of the form "this infection risk is OK because I/he/she/they are OK with it" is just wrong, logically.

I think our disagreement here comes from a difference in axioms or moral systems, not arguments or data.

It does indeed, but (no, as it were, offense) yours doesn't work logically, at least not with the words you're choosing.

You can't wave away all the mall-goers risk-taking with "they chose it", because you're not including all their siblings and roommates and parents who they'll necessarily infect who did NOT choose that. You need to come up with another definition for "choice" than the one we conventionally understand.

Again, you're using language of individual risk. That doesn't work here.

I think you need to take a look at some other ethical systems. There's a famous example of Kant saying it's immoral to lie to prevent your friend from being murdered - that the consequences of the act have no bearing on whether the act is moral or not. The parallels here should be at least somewhat apparent. This isn't my code, but it's not exactly unheard of. (And a ton of people would argue that Kantian ethics are fucking stupid. In the end, all ethical systems lead to absurdity at the edges)

For the mall example... That other person, who chose to come there and be exposed? The one with roommates, and a grandmother living next door? It's not me - living alone, in this scenario - who chooses to expose them. It's the one who lives with them, if anyone. You're taking their responsibility and piling it on to me - but there's a lot of links in the causal chain before the harm comes to pass, and some of those links bear far more responsibility. It's like blaming the guy who goes to the bar after a long day for the actions of another guy who goes to the same bar and kills a family drunk driving home, because by being there he contributed to an atmosphere of heavy drinking.

The language of individual risk and responsibility isn't quite so limited in my mind as it is in yours.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com