Should We Just Let The Unvaccinated Die?
On the moral duties towards the unvaccinated, or the lack thereof
Let’s imagine:
Two people infected with covid-19 are competing for the last spot in the intensive care unit. We can’t be sure if either of them would survive without intensive care. One of them is fully vaccinated. Though fully capable of being vaccinated, the other decided not to (one could assume that he has fallen prey to several conspiracy theories.) Of course, all else being equal, the fully vaccinated patient has a higher chance of surviving.
Who should we attend to?
“Let The Unvaccinated Die”
Now, intuitively, some of us would say, “Hell, of course, we attend to the vaccinated patient!”
Indeed, not only is it the most utilitarian response, but somehow it feels right to treat the vaccinated. More precisely, there’s a sense of “desert” here. We think criminals ought to get their deserved punishment. But we also think those who are more willing to be helped ought to be helped. In other words, some (and, honestly, I) would think that we should let the unvaccinated get what they deserve.
Yet, as a moral philosopher, I shouldn’t dismiss any opposing view just because they have bad taste.
There are definitely people out there who rejected this utilitarian view. They argued that healthcare systems should not discriminate against patients. Regardless of race, religion, criminal records, everyone should deserve the same healthcare service.
This seemingly egalitarian and “anti-meritocratic” moral view, if it comes to the situation where we have to choose between who to save, the fairest way to do so is through a lottery. Instead of personally analyzing who should be admitted, we should randomly choose between “eligible” candidates.
Now, since both the vaccinated and unvaccinated deserve the same healthcare, there shouldn’t be anything else that justifies our favoring of one over the other. Yes, brought to the extreme, this moral view justifies directing limited resources to possibly dying criminals and psychopaths instead of to law-abiding citizens.
Interestingly, philosopher Michael Sandel purports a similar idea regarding college admissions. He argued that it’s fairer that eligible students be selected by lottery rather than having recruiters personally evaluate these students.
Meritocracy, Sandel argues in The Tyranny of Merit, cultivates a sense of morally unjustifiable hubris among the winners and a sense of unjustifiable shame among the losers. True justice will compensate the losers as much as it rewards the winners. But meritocracy doesn't.
Choosing to attend to the vaccinated over the unvaccinated is a form of meritocracy. And if Sandel’s critique is right, then we should indeed select eligible patients to attend to randomly. (Of course, Sandel’s critique is far too nuanced to be an accurate comparison here.)
On A Moral High Ground
That said, I can’t help but think of a perfect scene in Batman — The Dark Knight where the Joker plants a bomb in two ships. One is carrying normal civilians, and the other carries prisoners. Each ship is given a remote detonator to the other ship. So, the civilians’ ship could blow up the prisoners, and vice versa. If neither chooses to blow up the other, both will be blown up by the Joker.
Intuitively, we’d think that the civilians are justified, even obligated, to blow up the other ship (if Batman hadn’t intervened.) Of course, the simplest justification here is that it’s the utilitarian thing to do. Furthermore, it just seems right that the outlaws of society deserve their punishment, i.e., their death.
But there’s another way to explain these discriminatory instincts towards these hypothetical criminals. It also explains why some of us have prejudicial intuitions against the unvaccinated. (Well, at least, I do.)
That idea is the sense of a “moral high ground.” It’s a term that I’d use to describe that sense of moral superiority over other people. We feel that we have some “higher” or “exclusive” sense of morality that we think others lack.
A crude example of this is when I visit ill-treated public toilets. You know, the kind where piss sticks around the toilet seat or the kind where the previous user didn’t bother to flush down his chocolate mousse. The immediate feeling of, “Whoever did this is one son of a bitch!” That which often accompanies some form of moral judgment.
Surely, if it were me, I wouldn’t have been so inconsiderate and disgusting! Whoever did this deserves some retribution!
It’s a feeling that we all have (whether we’d like to admit it or not). Yes, it’s a form of hatred and prejudice. But they’re a very specific kind: they carry moral weight. In some sense, we also believe that we should be protected from feeling such hatred and prejudice.
Many crimes naturally incite such feelings. Rape and murder naturally cause the victims resentment. So, we expect laws to protect us from these horrendous acts. In other words, we translate that hate and prejudice into implicit moral codes, which are then sanctified by the laws of society.
Now, if all this is beginning to sound like how vaccination mandates are today, that’s because it’s really not much different.
Today, those vaccinated somehow possess a moral high ground over the unvaccinated. I’m traveling to the UK in a few weeks (bad timing, I know), and vaccinated travelers don’t need to serve an arranged quarantine. Unvaccinated ones need to be isolated for 10 days.
In Malaysia and Singapore, unvaccinated citizens can’t access public places. That includes the mall, markets, restaurants, etc. Of course, our government believes that this differentiation protects the vulnerable groups of our society. And I’d like to believe that.
But such a measure will inevitably create some unbalanced power relationship between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Gradually, it takes on a moral import.
To draw a parallel, I haven’t committed any crimes, so I get to move around society. If I had committed a crime, I’d need to serve years of state-mandated quarantine. Well, the difference between this quarantine and the abovementioned is that we have a name for this: it’s called imprisonment.
We don’t need Foucault to tell us how similar these scenarios are. If you’ve been in quarantine, you’d know exactly how it feels. Sure, the accommodation and hospitality you receive in quarantine is infinitely better than in prison. Other than that, quarantine is just a fancy prison for the suspected.
When there are imbalances in our sense of power and morality, there’s surely going to be hubris. The sense of possessing the moral high ground: I’m vaccinated. So, I’m a responsible citizen who’s done my part in this pandemic. Now, I deserve the “merits” of being vaccinated.
It’s this inconspicuous hubris that fuels the power divide between the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
The Vaccination Hubris
I don’t know about the rest of the world, but there was a trend in Malaysia and Singapore for people to pose their “I’m vaccinated” photos on social media. Even my favorite artist JJ Lin posted both his shots on Instagram a day after I got mine. Needless to say that my parents and many of my friends did the same as well.
In short, there’s some sense of pride, bordering on hubris, when it comes to being vaccinated here. Though I’m fortunately unaware of any prevailing prejudices against the unvaccinated here (because everyone I know is vaccinated,) it’s difficult for me to say that there’s no prejudice at all.
Despite my lack of exposure to such prejudices, Carlos Garbiras brought it to my attention that such discriminatory predilections exist elsewhere. And what he described — at least to me — seems to be a form of hubris amongst the vaccinated that culminated into a form of prejudice.
Honestly, it sounds very stupid for anyone to have such pride in being vaccinated insofar as they’re willing to mock the unvaccinated. Think of the sore winner whose victory is insufficient insofar as he needs to rub salt into his opponent’s wound. Even if there’s anything “victorious” about being vaccinated, it’s childish at best.
When I first read Carlos’s essay, I thought, “To hell with those unvaccinated. It’s their choice not to get jabbed. They deserve what comes to them.”
Sure, I still think that if it comes down to the wire, we shouldn’t direct any more resources to the unvaccinated. Yes, if someone didn’t get vaccinated when they could and ended up suffering the consequences, I fully advocate letting them die. And in many ways, we’re obligated to discriminate against the unvaccinated.
If my child were a 12-year-old who couldn’t get vaccinated, I wouldn’t have let her party with a bunch of adults. I have a moral obligation to discriminate against her, stopping her from participating in activities that would put her and her family in harm's way.
Now, it’s a separate issue when it comes to “bullying” someone who’s unvaccinated. It’s one thing to discriminate against the unvaccinated and another to plug our eyes when they try to tell us why they’re not vaccinated.
As a philosopher, I’m all for hearing ideas, regardless of how stupid they are. But I also understand that it only takes a speck of hubris for anyone to plug their ears against opposing ideas.
The Silencing Effect Of Hubris
I’ve published many essays addressing the phenomenon of “moral sanctuary.” (See here and here.) It’s the idea that certain social activities and attitudes are immune to moral evaluation because of their overwhelming sense of normality. In other words, we will intuitively dismiss ethical evaluations of things we find normal.
No one ponders if it’s really fair for everyone to queue up regardless of how many items they’re purchasing. No one also really ponders if getting paid 14% of a business with virtually zero overhead cost is fair. And not too long ago, no one really pondered if mass-murdering an entire race is morally right.
Obviously, being vaccinated is the new norm. Not being vaccinated makes you an outcast. So, when the outcast speaks, people don’t want to hear it. We ask them to shut up. Sometimes, very politely with a “you can’t think of it this way.”
One could think of “moral sanctuary” as a socially sanctioned censorship. No one stops you from talking about it. But ironically, you feel like it’s wrong to say it.
As a philosopher, I have a duty to hear out the outcast. Heck, I’m the outcast most of the time. So, here’s my view: “Let the unvaccinated die. But until they do, hear them out. Yes, they might be stupid. But, hey, they’re going to die anyway. So will you and I.”
Thanks, Carlos Garbiras for tagging me in the prompt and acknowledging me as a philosopher (though I’m still halfway through my degree, no thanks to covid.) Also, to Douglas Giles, PhD, please tag me in your response to Carlos’s prompt. I’d love to read your response!