Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

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Pattern-chaser
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

LuckyR wrote: June 25th, 2021, 2:54 am ...I don't care (and society shouldn't either) if you don't get vaccinated. You're only hurting yourself (and other unvaccinated people like yourself).
If only that was true. The unvaccinated spread the disease. A pool of unvaccinated people allows the virus to replicate and mutate more easily. Refusing vaccination is not a victimless crime.
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

arjand wrote: June 25th, 2021, 5:40 am Would you consider the majority of US physicians 'nut jobs' when they claim to be aware that patients suffer adverse reactions to the vaccine?
Of course there have been adverse reactions, and we are all aware of them, not just doctors. The critical fact is that there are very few significant reactions to the vaccine, which saves many more lives than it harms.
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by CIN »

Terrapin Station wrote: June 26th, 2021, 6:44 am
CIN wrote: June 25th, 2021, 7:03 pm I'd like to make it compulsory for people who refuse to be vaccinated to wear distinctive symbols on their clothing that would make it clear to everyone that they are potential killers and should be avoided. A large skull painted on the front and back of their clothing would seem appropriate.

Yes, I am being entirely serious.
You could do something like the star these women are wearing on their left breast.

Image
Exactly. Or the unvaccinated could carry a handbell which they are required to ring and shout 'Unclean! Unclean!' Yes, you've got the idea.

I assume the women in the picture are Jewish. That was a morally unacceptable reason for requiring that kind of display. This is not.
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by Terrapin Station »

CIN wrote: June 27th, 2021, 12:57 pm That was a morally unacceptable reason for requiring that kind of display. This is not.
Which just amounts to you personally agreeing with one and not the other.
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by psyreporter »

Pattern-chaser wrote: June 27th, 2021, 9:55 am
arjand wrote: June 25th, 2021, 5:40 am Would you consider the majority of US physicians 'nut jobs' when they claim to be aware that patients suffer adverse reactions to the vaccine?
Of course there have been adverse reactions, and we are all aware of them, not just doctors. The critical fact is that there are very few significant reactions to the vaccine, which saves many more lives than it harms.
The source was AAPS - Association of American Physicians and Surgeons that stated that physicians specifically mentioned the occurrence of 'significant adverse reactions' with the notion that the treatment might do 'more harm than good' as basis for declining vaccination.

Majority of Physicians Decline COVID Shots, according to Survey (June 16, 2021)
“It is wrong to call a person who declines a shot an ‘anti-vaxxer,’” states AAPS executive director Jane Orient, M.D. “Virtually no physicians are ‘anti-antibiotics’ or ‘anti-surgery,’ whereas all are opposed to treatments that they think are unnecessary, more likely to harm than to benefit an individual patient.”
https://aapsonline.org/majority-of-phys ... to-survey/

With regard eugenics being a potential factor to consider. It is simply evident that the subject became trending about the same time as the virus.

(2020) Eugenics is trending. That’s a problem.
Any attempt to reduce world population must focus on reproductive justice.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/ ... s-problem/

(2020) The eugenics debate isn't over – but we should be wary of people who claim it can reduce world poluation
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-eugenics- ... eople.html

Is Big Pharma to be trusted?

What about 'reducing' population of the elderly? Targeting presumed 'weaklings' or deemed inferior races in the human race based on diverse assumptions (eugenic ideology)? What about the ideology to modify humanity for an ideology, which would include any receiver of a vaccine?

As it appears, in the US the virus is hitting black populations much harder than white populations. Can that be explained by physiology of their race, or could it be indicative of a 'target'?

Coronavirus Is Hitting Black and Hispanic Americans Much Harder. CDC Data Shows
The pandemic has revealed continuing discrimination against racial and sexual minorities, poor people, and others regarded as less important by the power structure of our world.
https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/biop ... s-pandemic

Developers of Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Tied to UK Eugenics Movement
Arguably most troubling of all is the direct link of the vaccine’s lead developers to the Wellcome Trust and, in the case of Adrian Hill, the Galton Institute, two groups with longstanding ties to the UK eugenics movement. The latter organization, named for the “father of eugenics” Francis Galton, is the renamed UK Eugenics Society, a group notorious for over a century for its promotion of racist pseudoscience and efforts to “improve racial stock” by reducing the population of those deemed inferior.
https://stateofthenation.co/?p=54288

Is it far sought that eugenic ideology may be a factor that one is ought to seriously consider, considering the history of the Nazi holocaust?

In 2014, New York Times journalist Eric Lichtblau published The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men, which showed that more than 10,000 high-ranking Nazis emigrated to the United States after World War II. Their war crimes were quickly forgotten, and some received help and protection from the US government.

2020) Is America Starting Down the Path of Nazi Germany?
I cannot express how truly sad writing this op-ed has made me. But I'm a patriotic American. And I'm an American Jew. I have studied the beginnings of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. And I can clearly see parallels with what is happening in America today.

Wayne Allyn Root - bestselling author and nationally syndicated talk show host on USA Radio Network[/u]
https://townhall.com/columnists/wayneal ... y-n2570979


George Santayana wrote:“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana)


My argument is that it may be applicable to keep an eye open for eugenics.
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AverageBozo
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by AverageBozo »

No one has a moral obligation to get vaccinated.

If it were a moral duty to be immunized, then it would be a moral imperative to see that others besides me were vaccinated, too.

However, taken to the extreme, if I were to do everything possible to get others their shots, there could be some who need to be taken to an immunization center (kidnapped) or still others who need to receive their shots unawares, so to speak, by surprising them with a jab to their shoulders (assault).

There’s a slippery slope from getting someone vaccinated against their wishes to going so far as to cause them harm. It isn’t in my best interest to harm someone who might later retaliate against me.

As for what action is in the recipient’s best interest, that depends on the near certain short-term harm of a painful injection followed by fever, malaise etc v the perceived risk of eventually becoming infected with COVID 19.
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by Tegularius »

Pattern-chaser wrote: June 27th, 2021, 9:39 am
Tegularius wrote: June 24th, 2021, 10:42 pm ...not so much a moral obligation as a societal one, which, in your clearly written post, you pretty well confirmed.
I'm wholly in agreement. I wonder, though, whether "moral obligation" and "social (societal) obligation" aren't synonymous? They seem so to me.

Don't mind me; I'm just musing. Carry on.... 😉
Not quite synonymous but there is a degree of collusion between them.
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by chewybrian »

Terrapin Station wrote: June 27th, 2021, 1:29 pm
CIN wrote: June 27th, 2021, 12:57 pm That was a morally unacceptable reason for requiring that kind of display. This is not.
Which just amounts to you personally agreeing with one and not the other.
It's much worse to force people to wear the label for something that is out of their control and not liable to cause injury to anyone else. In the case of choosing not to be vaccinated, you are making a choice along the lines of choosing to drive drunk. You are allowing your preferences to put other peoples' lives at risk. How can you even pretend these two cases are somehow equal?
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by LuckyR »

Pattern-chaser wrote: June 27th, 2021, 9:50 am
LuckyR wrote: June 25th, 2021, 2:54 am ...I don't care (and society shouldn't either) if you don't get vaccinated. You're only hurting yourself (and other unvaccinated people like yourself).
If only that was true. The unvaccinated spread the disease. A pool of unvaccinated people allows the virus to replicate and mutate more easily. Refusing vaccination is not a victimless crime.
Uummm... what is the difference between what we two posted?
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by LuckyR »

CIN wrote: June 27th, 2021, 12:57 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: June 26th, 2021, 6:44 am
CIN wrote: June 25th, 2021, 7:03 pm I'd like to make it compulsory for people who refuse to be vaccinated to wear distinctive symbols on their clothing that would make it clear to everyone that they are potential killers and should be avoided. A large skull painted on the front and back of their clothing would seem appropriate.

Yes, I am being entirely serious.
You could do something like the star these women are wearing on their left breast.

Image
Exactly. Or the unvaccinated could carry a handbell which they are required to ring and shout 'Unclean! Unclean!' Yes, you've got the idea.

I assume the women in the picture are Jewish. That was a morally unacceptable reason for requiring that kind of display. This is not.
I assume you are vaccinated. Why did you get vaccinated? To be immune to serious disease so you could go out into the world without a mask and not care much if people around you are carrying virus. Kind of like why you get every other vaccine. No bells required.
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by Terrapin Station »

chewybrian wrote: June 27th, 2021, 6:49 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: June 27th, 2021, 1:29 pm
CIN wrote: June 27th, 2021, 12:57 pm That was a morally unacceptable reason for requiring that kind of display. This is not.
Which just amounts to you personally agreeing with one and not the other.
It's much worse to force people to wear the label for something that is out of their control and not liable to cause injury to anyone else. In the case of choosing not to be vaccinated, you are making a choice along the lines of choosing to drive drunk. You are allowing your preferences to put other peoples' lives at risk. How can you even pretend these two cases are somehow equal?
First, if vaccination works, and it seems to, whose lives are you putting at risk?
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by Steve3007 »

chewybrian wrote:You prompted me to check the stats for the US. I looked at the CDC, and they say that my straw poll was fairly accurate, as a bit more than half had at least one dose, and a bit less than half of people in the US are considered fully vaccinated. The numbers increase with age, as those over 65 are much more likely to be vaccinated.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations
Yes, still quite a long way to go, but as I said, purely in terms of the numbers vaccinated so far, it's not massively different from the UK now. I think we're on about 48% fully vaccinated (two doses) now. The number vaccinated so far isn't necessarily a reflection of the number who intend to be vaccinated, although it could be. The vast majority of adults here do intend to be vaccinated, but the vaccination program is being rolled out by age, oldest first. My parents (in their 70's) were vaccinated near the beginning of the year. I (in my 50's) was done in March and June. Younger colleagues (20's) have just had their first dose. We don't get to have them any sooner than that.

So (looking on the bright side) it is still possible that your survey of people you work with, and their reluctance to get vaccinated, doesn't reflect the US as a whole. But having said that, I suspect there is a slightly higher suspicion of the vaccination program in the US due to the generally slightly higher mistrust of all things centralized and all things government. But I suspect the difference, when looked at nationally, is slight.
Terrapin Station wrote:...But I also go to the gym a lot, and I was in the military for awhile (the U.S. Marine Corps), which helped instill the discipline to work out regularly...
That's mildly surprising. The philosophy and the music and your previous comments on your upbringing inevitably conjures up a particular image which being in the military doesn't entirely fit into. Just goes to show that we shouldn't make assumptions about people based on stereotypes.
CIN wrote:...A large skull painted on the front and back of their clothing would seem appropriate.

Yes, I am being entirely serious.
And presumably, when you said that, you were aware that it would inevitably attract comparisons to things like the labelling of Jews in Nazi Germany? Was it your intention to attract those comments?
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Steve3007 wrote: June 28th, 2021, 6:27 am That's mildly surprising. The philosophy and the music and your previous comments on your upbringing inevitably conjures up a particular image which being in the military doesn't entirely fit into. Just goes to show that we shouldn't make assumptions about people based on stereotypes.
My family actually has a bit of a military tradition, on both my dad's and my mom's side, going at least all the way back to an ancestor who fought in the U.S. Revolutionary War.
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by Steve3007 »

AverageBozo wrote:No one has a moral obligation to get vaccinated.

If it were a moral duty to be immunized, then it would be a moral imperative to see that others besides me were vaccinated, too.

However, taken to the extreme, if I were to do everything possible to get others their shots, there could be some who need to be taken to an immunization center (kidnapped) or still others who need to receive their shots unawares, so to speak, by surprising them with a jab to their shoulders (assault).

There’s a slippery slope from getting someone vaccinated against their wishes to going so far as to cause them harm. It isn’t in my best interest to harm someone who might later retaliate against me.
So I guess the solution is: don't take it to the extreme.

For my part, I'm not much of a fan of slippery slope arguments. I think some slopes, at least, have enough friction so that it's possible to stay on the moderate end. I said in a previous post that I think there's a moral obligation to get vaccinated, but it shouldn't be any kind of legal obligation. That doesn't mean I want to march people down to vaccination clinics. It doesn't even mean that that they need to be chastised in any way. To me, moral obligations aren't all-or-nothing. They have degrees. This is a mild one.
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Re: Do you have a moral obligation to get vaccinated?

Post by Steve3007 »

Terrapin Station wrote:My family actually has a bit of a military tradition, on both my dad's and my mom's side, going at least all the way back to an ancestor who fought in the U.S. Revolutionary War.
Cool. My dad has traced my own family history back quite a long way (as people tend to do when they're getting near the end of their own life!). I think the furthest back was 17th Century, but as far as I remember the earliest known example of military combat was World War I. But you never know, maybe somebody fought in the U.S. Revolutionary War on the side of King George! :lol:
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