Would it be ethically justifiable to make the Covid vaccine mandatory? | Hacker News Reader

Would it be ethically justifiable to make the Covid vaccine mandatory?

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1 pointJacobWD9 comments

Human rights advocates have long defended the sovereignty of one's own body. It's a slippery slope to force people into medical treatments. Historically, there have been many examples of forced medical experimentation, drugs, and surgeries which are hard to reconcile with the idea of personal liberty over one's own body.

As a counter, you cannot have bodily sovereignty if your dead (lest we tempt the tyranny of the dead over the living), and if your body is making others dead, that also deprives them of bodily sovereignty. This injustice is offset by the vaccine (it seems to be effective and safe) and so we prevent possibly many violations of sovereignty with the single certain injustice of the vaccine. This utilitarian argument may not be palatable, but we may not have our choice of actions here (the virus doesn't care!)

There are countless actions which could cause the death of others. Selling cigarettes, serving hamburgers, and driving come to mind. Some will value a state-mandated solution to these problems over the idea of individual liberty (including the risks of causing death to oneself or others). Some people will value the latter more. There's no one answer that fits every situation, which is how we wind up with peaceful societies than can take different approaches to solving these problems.

Personally, I think liberty is a more powerful construct than groupthink or group-forced behavior and actually leads to better outcomes for everyone than group-controlled plans or solutions.

yes, this is certainly one of the points we consider in the episode. personal autonomy is a founding principle. Where it gets interesting is... could you not levy the same criticism against lockdowns?

I can, and do. Sick people go out in public every day, which I think is awful. Of course, the option is for those who are afraid of that to be the ones to not go out. This is just like driving. If you are afraid of others' driving, don't drive yourself; figure out some other way to get there. If you are afraid of others' sickness, don't go where they are.

I do not believe it would be ethical to force chemicals into people. We rushed the testing of the vaccines, so we could be forcing people into harms way. That could also have legal blowback and other social implications even if governments grant immunity to the medical facilities and vaccine producers. Everyone is already on edge, so at best this could be dumping fuel on the fire and lead to more riots. Additionally, if we have the power to force drugs on people, then I would also expect that we have the power to force people to get healthy and not be at risk in the first place. This will eventually happen anyway as not a single government will be able to absorb the medical costs of diabetes by 2050, per the CDC. [1] [2] There are additional CDC PDF's that break down the cost by 2050 and will be in the trillions. By 2040 there will be no money left for anything beyond medical. [3]

In my opinion, a more ethical option would be to make the vaccines available to anyone that wants it and prioritize access to those at highest risk. Those at risk should self isolate. Those not at risk should get back to work and open their businesses up.

[1] - https://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2010/r101022.html

[2] - https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0718-diabetes-repor...

[3] - https://youtu.be/5LTWJOi3bCo?t=3 [video] skipping rude intro

I see it as a statistics problem where we need to literally choose where to draw the yes/no line:

If COVID was 100.0% deadly and the vaccine is 100% effective, (think rabies) would we be justified to force the vaccine? Sounds like an easy yes? Even here, some would want to die as it is "God's will."

If COVID was 0% deadly and the vaccine is 10% effective, (you are vaccinating to protect other mammals or some rare species of life) how could we justify any force?

there's logic to this answer - we consider this in the episode too! given the statistics in this current situation... would you say it isn't appropriate to mandate?

also, an extension... since we'll have a willing uptake of over 50% of people (probably), there might be no need to mandate vaccines! However, if too few people were willing, that might also tip the scales...

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