That is by no means to say that all mandatory vaccinations are defensible. As I have argued, the Covid shot should never have been mandatory. But it goes way too far to claim, as Ladapo does, that all mandatory vaccination as such is “immoral” and amounts to “slavery.” The truth lies in the middle ground position that while there is a moral presumption against a mandate, in some cases that presumption can be overridden and it can be licit for governments to require vaccination. Sweeping statements of either extreme kind are wrong, and we need to go case by case.
The relevant
natural law principles are straightforward.
Human beings are by nature social animals. The primary context in which we manifest our social
nature is the family, but we do so also in larger social orders, and ultimately
in the state, which, as Aristotle and Aquinas teach, is the only complete and
self-sufficient social order. Now, the
common good of the social order is higher than private goods. As Aquinas teaches, “the good of one man is
not the last end, but is ordained to the common good” (Summa Theologiae I-II.90.3). Again, he writes: “The common good is the end
of each individual member of a community, just as the good of the whole is the
end of each part” (Summa Theologiae II-II.58.9), and “the
common good transcends the individual good of one person” (Summa Theologiae II-II.58.12).
By no means
does this entail an absorption of families and individuals into some collectivist
blob. The natural law principle of
subsidiarity requires as a matter of justice that central authorities do not
interfere with lower level social orders (such as the family) when the latter
are capable of providing for their own well-being. At the same time, subsidiarity also requires
that central authorities do step in
when a social order at some level cannot,
on its own, secure its well-being. And
such authorities can compel citizens to do what is necessary for the common
good when there is no other way to achieve it.
For example,
as the traditional Thomistic natural law theorist Thomas Higgins writes: “Note laws of compulsory military service. In time of war or grave danger of war they
are gravely binding because they then express the Natural Law commanding
citizens to preserve the State” (Man as
Man: The Science and Art of Ethics, p. 520). This is so even though, as Higgins goes on to
acknowledge, such laws can under some peacetime circumstances be contrary to the
common good. He even argues that a
citizen could in such a case licitly try to avoid being drafted, as long as he
does not use immoral means to do so.
This example
illustrates a point the importance of which cannot be overstated. To say that the state has a right under some
circumstances to compel certain behavior simply does not entail giving it a
blank check to do with citizens whatever it likes. That is a straw man to which too many are
drawn today, because of the individualism and excessive hostility to authority that
tends to characterize American politics on both the left and the right.
In any case,
the general principle stated by Higgins has also been expressed by the
magisterium of the Catholic Church. Of
laws requiring military service during a national emergency, Pope Pius XII
taught:
If, therefore, a body representative of the people and a
government – both having been chosen by free elections – in a moment of extreme
danger decides, by legitimate instruments of internal and external policy, on
defensive precautions, and carries out the plans which they consider necessary,
it does not act immorally. Therefore a
Catholic citizen cannot invoke his own conscience in order to refuse to serve
and fulfill those duties the law imposes. (Christmas message of December 23,
1956)
Now, if
there can be circumstances wherein the state can licitly compel citizens to
risk dying in battle for the sake of the common good, then it follows a fortiori that there can also be
circumstances wherein the state can compel citizens to be vaccinated for the
sake of the common good. In both cases
the end is the same, namely to prevent the deaths of large numbers of one’s
countrymen. And in the case of
vaccination, the risk to the individual who is compelled is less serious than
the risk imposed on those drafted into military service.
The Church
herself has indicated that it can be licit for states to require
vaccination. As Roberto de Mattei has
noted, “on 20 June 1822, in the Papal States, the Cardinal Secretary of State,
Ercole Consalvi, issued a decree which instituted a Central Vaccination
Committee for inoculation throughout that territory” (On the Moral Liceity of the Vaccination, p. 55). In 2005, during the pontificate of Pope
Benedict XVI, the Pontifical Academy for Life said
the following about the benefits of universal vaccination:
The severity of congenital rubella and the handicaps which it
causes justify systematic vaccination against such a sickness. It is very difficult, perhaps even
impossible, to avoid the infection of a pregnant woman, even if the rubella
infection of a person in contact with this woman is diagnosed from the first day
of the eruption of the rash. Therefore,
one tries to prevent transmission by suppressing the reservoir of infection
among children who have not been vaccinated, by means of early immunization of
all children (universal vaccination). Universal
vaccination has resulted in a considerable fall in the incidence of congenital
rubella.
The document
goes on to note that when parents refrain from vaccinating children against
German measles, there is
the danger of Congenital Rubella Syndrome. This could occur, causing grave congenital
malformations in the foetus, when a pregnant woman enters into contact, even if
it is brief, with children who have not been immunized and are carriers of the
virus. In this case, the parents who did
not accept the vaccination of their own children become responsible for the
malformations in question.
Orthodox
Catholic moral theologians have thus defended the liceity of requiring
vaccination, when this is necessary for the common good. In their book Life Issues, Medical Choices: Questions and Answers for Catholics,
Janet Smith and Christopher Kaczor note that “vaccines have virtually
eradicated some childhood diseases common in decades past, such as polio,
measles, tetanus, smallpox, whooping cough, and diphtheria” (p. 154). And they observe that when parents have
refused these vaccines for their children, the result has sometimes been a
recurrence of such diseases. They
acknowledge that vaccines carry some risk, and that there can be cases where
exemptions are reasonable. But nevertheless,
they argue:
Rather than risk the outbreak of a disease that could kill or
seriously harm many, individuals are reasonably expected to undergo some
personal risk. In order to reduce risks
for the whole community – especially those who are particularly susceptible to
harm, such as children too young to be vaccinated and those who cannot be
vaccinated for health reasons – it is reasonable and just for otherwise healthy
members of the community to submit themselves to the small risks of vaccines…
The Church teaches that we are all members of the body of Christ and that we
are brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Thus, we all have a serious obligation to seek the common good and
sometimes to put ourselves and our children at some reasonable risk for the
well-being of others. (pp. 153-54)
In recent
days, some on Twitter/X have nevertheless claimed that the Church teaches that vaccination
cannot ever be mandatory. One argument
along these lines appeals to the following statement made by Pope Pius XI in Casti
Connubii:
Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of
their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause
present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the
integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason.
But this
does not entail that vaccination can never be mandatory. For one thing, Pius was not addressing the
question of vaccination in this passage, but rather the topic of forced
sterilization and other bodily mutilations.
Vaccination does not involve mutilation of the body, so inferring from
his remark that mandatory vaccination is illicit is simply a non sequitur. For another thing, the argument would prove
too much. You might as well say that
Pius XI’s remark absolutely rules out ever forcing citizens to serve in the
military. But that would contradict the
teaching of his successor Pius XII, which I cited above.
Another
argument appeals to the
2020 statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on
Covid-19 vaccination, which says that “practical reason makes evident that
vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must
be voluntary.” But there are two
problems with this argument. First, it
ignores the fact that this document is not addressing the morality of
vaccination in general, but only the morality of Covid-19 vaccination in
particular. The reason is that many Catholics
were concerned that the Covid vaccines were linked to fetal tissue research in
a way that made them morally problematic.
The point of the document was to inform Catholics who were inclined to
take the vaccine that they could do so in good conscience, while at the same
time making it clear to those who were uncomfortable with doing so that they
were not obligated to do so. All of this
is clear from the larger immediate context of the line quoted above:
Both pharmaceutical companies and governmental health
agencies are therefore encouraged to
produce, approve, distribute and offer ethically acceptable vaccines that do
not create problems of conscience for either health care providers or the
people to be vaccinated.
At the same time, practical reason makes evident that
vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must
be voluntary. In any case, from the
ethical point of view, the morality of
vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one's own health, but also
on the duty to pursue the common good. In the absence of other means to stop or even
prevent the epidemic, the common good may recommend vaccination, especially to
protect the weakest and most exposed. Those
who, however, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell
lines from aborted fetuses, must do their utmost to avoid, by other
prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the
transmission of the infectious agent. In
particular, they must avoid any risk to the health of those who cannot be
vaccinated for medical or other reasons, and who are the most vulnerable.
(Emphasis in the original)
Note the
references to “the epidemic,” “vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted
fetuses,” and the encouragement of pharmaceutical companies and governments to
produce alternatives “that do not create problems of conscience.” What the document is addressing is whether the vaccines that were developed in order to
deal with Covid-19, specifically, ought to be mandatory.
Moreover,
the CDF statement does not actually say even that Covid-19 vaccination absolutely must in every case be
voluntary. What it says is that “vaccination
is not, as a rule, a moral obligation
and that, therefore, it must be
voluntary.” The claim is that as a rule (in other words, in general)
it is not an obligation. But that leaves
it open that there could nevertheless be particular
cases where it would be a moral obligation (for example, for hospital workers,
perhaps). And it leaves it open that in those particular cases vaccination
should be mandatory rather than voluntary.
But again, the CDF document is in any case addressing the Covid-19
situation in particular rather than vaccination in general. So it is not inconsistent with the point I’ve
been making.
I hasten to emphasize that that point is a very narrow one. I am arguing here only that the extreme claim that mandatory vaccination is always and intrinsically wrong cannot be justified on grounds of natural law theory and Catholic moral theology. That does not by itself show that any particular vaccine mandate is a good idea, all things considered. One has to go case by case and make a prudential judgment based on the relevant empirical evidence. But appeal to simplistic slogans like “My body, my choice” can provide no short cut.
I agree with you about vaccinations. But all the loony and intemperate comments you received on X show just how ignorant many people are and how our country is spirally downwards.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that those comments are pushed by noted commentators make the situation worse.
DeleteGrateful for Prof , He is a light, The one person courageous enough to articulate the sobre middle ground even in the face of such attacks.
Hi Prof
ReplyDeleteI agree with you completely.
It's a superb article. Hits the nail on the head. I was meaning to ask you because you had mentioned this point before in your previous article on Covid vaccinations regarding orthodox catholic theologians
I was wondering what be your standard for someone to be an orthodox catholic theologian.
Like for example if a theologian were to have some positions that are more akin to NNLT , like say they might think a craniotomy is possibly licit to save the mother's life, or they might lean towards it's licitness while not being sure of it, would they still fall under your bracket of orthodox catholic theologians. I love Dr Christopher Kaczor. His book on the ethics of abortion was one of the most comprehensive cases I have ever seen.
But to what extent would differences on difficult issues mentioned above relating to difficult cases and something like the death penalty affect your judgement with regards to orthodoxy.
How is it that you always manage to have such perfectly apposite comic-book clippings to go with your posts? Do you keep some sort of thematically arranged archive or something? It's truly amazing.
ReplyDeleteThe professor has the world's largest comic book collection.
DeleteI don't think that mandatory vaccination is intrinsically wrong, but I find it increasingly plausible that wholly voluntary vaccination is the best policy from a prudential standpoint.
ReplyDeleteTrump is surely right that some vaccines just work and are accompanied by very little controversy, but how should the government determine which those are, and how to enforce their use?
Further, I find it plausible that our childhood vaccine schedule has become overly aggressive as more and more vaccines have been accrued to it over the decades, so that even if most of the vaccines on it may be innocuous individually, they have drawbacks in aggregate and should be pared back and prioritized. But how should the government go about determining if this is the case, and if it is the case, how should it determine which vaccines have sufficient priority to be mandated?
One possibility is that the government should have some designated experts and just defer these questions to them, a la the present policy.
But these experts have disgraced themselves and proven untrustworthy and highly ideological. After their conduct during Covid, the HPV vax debate, etc, it is clear that their answers to these questions are a foregone conclusion. No matter what the actual fact of the matter may be, their opinion will always be that our vaccine schedule isn't aggressive enough and that any vaccine that can possibly be mandated to children should be, most especially if it serves the ends of progressive technocracy. The only limiting factor is what they think they can get away with.
This being the case, perhaps the most prudential policy is to allow the public to work this out themselves, under uncoerced advice and consent from their doctors, trusting that the vast majority will end up using those vaccines that just work and are important, and that BECAUSE they just work, there will not be significant threat to public health from those few who forego them.
And perhaps being so stripped of power and authority will over time restore a class of experts who can be trusted with it again at some point in the future, which might change the most prudential policy.
Robert Kennedy is NOT an expert.
DeleteYou got that right. I will say he has a ripped physique for a 70 year old man and women seem find him irresistible.
Delete"No matter what the actual fact of the matter may be, their opinion will always be that our vaccine schedule isn't aggressive enough and that any vaccine that can possibly be mandated to children should be, most especially if it serves the ends of progressive technocracy"
DeleteYes, exactly. If philosophers wish to discuss the matter in the broadest terms, that's fine. But no one in the government (or really, in the government of any country in the world, except possibly a few (maybe Vatican city or Liechtenstein)) actually cares about what natural law theory and Catholic moral theology have to say about medicine. All government officials care about is convincing people who do believe in those things to agree with what those government officials have already decided, based on other criteria.
"[P]erhaps the most prudential policy is to allow the public to work this out themselves, under uncoerced advice and consent from their doctors, trusting that the vast majority will end up using those vaccines that just work and are important..."
DeleteThis is nothing but laissez-faire market fundamentalism (and all the magical thinking that goes along with it) transferred to the vaccination issue. Look up how well this hands-off approach worked for stopping the proliferation of patent medicines and snake oil. These kinds of things don't just magically sort themselves out, because most people don't have the required medical knowledge to make a rational (and therefore free) choice on what kind of medicine they should take. They don't listen to their doctors; they listen to their friends on Facebook. They act based on rumor, paranoia, and fear. We know this. We see it every day. "Trusting the majority" to work out what vaccines they need is just another insane, ideologically-motived social experiment. Precisely because the masses are not rational, we sometimes need government vaccine mandates, and we have to do the tough work of figuring out when and where they should be instituted.
"Precisely because the masses are not rational, we sometimes need government vaccine mandates, and we have to do the tough work of figuring out when and where they should be instituted"
DeleteGreat Thurible, none of us (including you) are part of the "we" that you mention. As The Deuce pointed out, government officials do what they want for their own reasons, which don't include the best interests of ordinary people.
Yes, it's true that people can make bad decisions about all sorts of things. But if they are ordinary people, they are limited in what they can do. I have never been told I can't work or can't leave the house because some guy somewhere has an eccentric medical opinion. But I do seem to remember something happening around 5 and a half years ago where things went differently ...
The point is that as of 2025, there is no "we"; government doesn't work that way anymore. And even in the United States of the past, many things were left to individuals and communities. The "we" that matters is ordinary people versus those with power and all of that "we" are all in the same situation whether we want to believe it or not. Believing the government wants to help us, when they have shown they frequently do not won't actually make that true.
"This is nothing but laissez-faire market fundamentalism (and all the magical thinking that goes along with it) transferred to the vaccination issue."
DeleteNo, it would be market fundamentalism if I claimed as a metaphysical principle that letting the public (or "invisible hand" or whatever) ultimately decide whether to take a vaccine was always and everywhere the best policy in every situation. But I am making a prudential argument.
"Precisely because the masses are not rational, we sometimes need government vaccine mandates, and we have to do the tough work of figuring out when and where they should be instituted"
Who is the "we" you have in mind who is going to be doing this "tough work," and on what basis can this "we" be confidently said to be more rational than the masses, and to have more concern with the masses' well-being than the masses, and to not abuse this power in ways that individuals among the masses would be unable to do?
And if there is such a "we" who meets these criteria, then how do you propose to ensure that this "we" is put in the position of power to make these decision for the masses and not someone who doesn't meet those criteria?
If your position is just that the masses are irrational and should therefore NEVER decide purely on principle, regardless of whether there is someone more rational and more concerned with the good of the masses than they themselves, and regardless of whether there's a plausible way to ensure that the correct someone gets that power, then it is you who are being fundamentalist.
"...if I claimed as a metaphysical principle that letting the public (or "invisible hand" or whatever) ultimately decide whether to take a vaccine was always and everywhere the best policy in every situation. But I am making a prudential argument."
DeleteBased on what? What kind of magic is at work here? There must be magic or metaphysics somewhere, because there's no other causal mechanism on offer. People have no natural tendency to arrive at the right decision on healthcare issues when left to their own devices. That's why we have such strict laws about healthcare; they were historical responses to real-world problems, like the proliferation of bogus "patent medicines." So either there is some occult force involved or you don't actually care whether people arrive at the right decision in what may literally be a matter of life and death.
Also, I see no contradiction between the idea that well-informed individuals may advocate for certain government policies and the idea that most people are not well-informed enough to make decisions about issues like vaccines. I don't need to propose a novel political program; this is how things already work, at least in the United States. People who are smart enough to care have a louder voice. That's precisely what Dr. Feser is using this blog to do: provide an amicus brief of sorts on an issue based on his expertise in theology and philosophy. This system may not work super well, but it's not like I'm proposing a complete reordering of society.
And perhaps being so stripped of power and authority will over time restore a class of experts who can be trusted with it again at some point in the future, which might change the most prudential policy.
DeleteDeuce, this is well put. We have had a long-encroaching degeneration of the public health processes of oversight of medical intervention, that arrived at crisis proportions because of COVID. The corruption of the public-private system is a contingent fact, not something that is definitively awry with public health as such. We need to take steps to overcome the corruption and degeneracy, and maybe then we can put appropriate trust in the system of public health again. Pointing to the fact that we NEED a public health system doesn't do one iota of correction of the corruption. Yes, we need it. But we need it healthy, not subordinated to immoral ideology and internalized self-aggrandizement.
Anon- RFK Jr’s physique ain’t great for a steroid abuser
Delete"...the fact that we NEED a public health system":
Delete1) Define 'public health system.'
2) Show that we NEED one.
Seems to me we either support facts, or, like the US Secretary of HHS, we don't. Whether there is some primitive ideology involved here seems pointless. The family mystique is gone. RFK's father and uncle died, tragically, during turbulent times. My guess is he carries the anger from that. Not good for stability, already lacking.
ReplyDeleteThere is much tragedy in the Kennedy family.
Deletehttps://www.historyhit.com/the-kennedy-curse-a-timeline-of-tragedy/
Read Rationalwiki's pages on vaccines and on covid vaccines!
ReplyDeleteRationalWiki, the online encyclopedia run by militant atheist troons?
Delete"Rationalwiki"... the name already sounds cringe in itself.
DeleteHave you read "Turtles All The Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth"? You ought to.
ReplyDeleteThe authors offer monetary prizes to show authoritatively that they are wrong. Nobody has ever taken them up on the offer.
> vaccines have virtually eradicated some childhood diseases common in decades past, such as polio, measles, tetanus, smallpox, whooping cough, and diphtheria
The book shows that this is false. Those diseases were mostly eliminated by improvements in sanitation (sewers, toilets, etc.) and refrigeration. They were almost gone BEFORE vaccines against them were introduced.
Did you know that no modern vaccine has ever been tested against a placebo? Testing against a placebo is important, because it might be the case that doing nothing is better than giving a vaccine.
Given the corruption of the medical and pharmaceutical industries, now fully proven, it seems to informed people that taking a vaccine is a crap shoot, with too much risk.
Please inform yourself by reading that book. If only vaccines did what the propaganda says, your position would be theologically justified. But they don't. The truth about vaccines is far different than the propaganda about them.
The author of that quack book is Anonymous. That says it all.
Deletehttps://www.amazon.com/Turtles-All-Way-Down-Vaccine/dp/9655981045
Since you are anonymous, you must also be a quack.
DeletePretty suspicious that so many of that book's endorsements come from people who have no expertise whatsoever in medicine. There's a criminologist, an AI researcher, an evolutionary biologist, a professional counselor with an education degree, and a journalist specializing in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. I guess they figure anti-vaxxers are too stupid to know that expertise is field-specific, and a PhD (or a published book) doesn't confer a generalized authority on all subjects. They're probably right about that, at least.
DeleteI am going make it simple for you. Real doctors and real scientists don't publish books anonymously.
DeleteThe book shows that this is false. Those diseases were mostly eliminated by improvements in sanitation (sewers, toilets, etc.) and refrigeration. They were almost gone BEFORE vaccines against them were introduced.
DeleteWhatever is the case for some of the cited diseases, it is rightly understood that vaccines are responsible for the COMPLETE eradication of smallpox. Those other causes could not do that - not completely. Vaccines also are responsible for the huge reduction in polio, which was common enough in 1950 even with modern sewers and refrigerators.
It is obvious that we need a new term "Medically Incorrect". It is like "Politically Incorrect", but with respect to the currently reigning medical orthodoxy.
DeleteThe book is "Medically Incorrect". But it is true.
It is not medically incorrect. It is just not true. No reputable scientist or doctor would published a book anonymously. The book's title should tell you it's quackery. Here's a review of it:
Deletehttps://sciencebasedmedicine.org/part-1-10-the-grand-debunk-of-the-antivaxxer-book-turtles-all-the-way-down/
No vaccine tested against placebo??? Where does one get such drivel?? The COVID vax was! Pfizer specifically used a saline placebo. Additionally, it is unethical to test an improved vaccine vs placebo b/c in so doing your withholding proven medical treatments from the control group. An improved vax is tested vs current, proven, vaccines.
Delete> "Additionally, it is unethical to test an improved vaccine vs placebo b/c in so doing your withholding proven medical treatments from the control group."
DeleteThis is pharmaceutical propaganda.
It is UNETHICAL to NOT test against a placebo, because doing nothing might be better than giving the vaccine. You can't know that unless you do test against a placebo.
Most of you have succumbed to the propaganda. May God have mercy on your souls.
> "Pfizer specifically used a saline placebo."
DeleteNo, they didn't.
it is unethical except for Dr Mengele....vaccine trails for infections in which we already have a proven vaccine the trial is NOT vs placebo- b/c that means you are allowing half of the people to get KNOWN substandard care.It is NOT Pharma propaganda. You test new therapies versus the standard care-for truly novel therapies that is placebo, b/c we have no known effective therapy [hence why the Pfizer mRNA COVID vax used a saline placebo]. Do you really propose we let half the people in a cancer therapy trial just die from cancer? Half of the people in a heart attack therapy just tough out the heart attack?
DeleteThat is not just unethical, but insane- you give the "control" arm standard anti-cancer therapy and the "experimental" arm the new therapy. (NB- it is not the placebo arm of the trial, the proper term is the control arm-ie standard therapy arm).
No sane person would agree to participate in a trial knowing he has a 50% chance of being given no therapy for a treatable condition.
So no new antibiotics for serious infections will be created b/c we can't find a large number of fools willing to die in the control arm of the trial from a treatable infection....no new cancer therapies ...etc etc
Reality is a hard task master: on the Pfizer mRNA COVID vax trial-
Delete"The participants were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive two 30-μg intramuscular injections, 21 days apart, of BNT162b2 (0.3 ml volume per dose) or saline placebo."
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2110345
Dr. Feser knows full well, based on his own critiques of several of the late Pope Francis's official teachings, that "muh pope said such-n-such" is not a serious argument. I do believe that, under certain circumstances, the state may legitimately compel vaccination. I do *not* believe that, in any circumstance, the state may compel its citizens to sacrifice their lives for it. Any state (or regime) worthy of survival should be able to persuade its own citizens (its supposed beneficiaries) to die for it.
ReplyDeleteAs for Pius XII, who cares what he had to say? He was a mere mortal, subject to saying stupid and erroneous things in his official capacity just as Pope Francis was. In any event, even in the excerpt cited by Feser, the pope does not expressly refer to military conscription. Even if he had, his mere say-so does not make something true. Our bodies do not belong to the vicar of Christ. He has no authority to force us to sacrifice our lives for our governments. Third, Pius's words, taken at face value, have all sorts of absurd implications, because they contain no qualifications -- no limitations -- whatsoever. Does Feser believe that the state may draft its female subjects to serve as "comfort women" to its troops? Can the state, in time of war, force its citizens to donate one of their two kidneys, or portions of their liver, to wounded soldiers who need it? Force them to donate blood? Force them to undergo medical experimentation on newly developed medical treatments? Pius gives no limitations.
Finally, Feser confuses civil society with political regimes, a common statist (including "Thomistic") fallacy. No political regime enjoys a mystical "right" to preserve itself as it is until the eschaton. A citizen may, perfectly reasonably, judge that being conquered and living under an invader is preferable to his own legitimate interests and those of his family -- even those of the wider community to which he belongs -- than the political status quo. No man -- not even God's own vicar -- enjoys a natural or divine right to substitute its judgment on that score for his own.
We are indeed, by nature, social and political animals. Civil society *is* man's state of nature. Military conscription is sinful because it is anti-social. Treating citizens or subjects as fleshly objects which rulers may manipulate at will to preserve their own comfortable existence. (No state ever drafts its own leaders into the meat-grinder.)
Feser could have made his case about vaccines without parroting stupid papalist bromides.
P.S. I forgot to add: Pius refers to "a body representative of the people and a government – both having been chosen by free elections." So, according to Pius-a-la-Feser, *only* liberal democracies enjoy a God-given natural right to send innocent subjects to their deaths in order to preserve "the state"? Give me a break.
You have to admire a distinguished academic like Dr Feser who allows drivel like this to be published on his blog:
Delete"Does Feser believe that the state may draft its female subjects to serve as "comfort women" to its troops? Can the state, in time of war, force its citizens to donate one of their two kidneys, or portions of their liver, to wounded soldiers who need it? Force them to donate blood? Force them to undergo medical experimentation on newly developed medical treatments? Pius gives no limitations."
@ Anon: My thoughts exactly (okay, more or less) on the P12 quote. The number of glaringly begged questions therein is quite remarkable!
DeleteThe common good argument appears to fail. If my neighbor refuses to get vaccinated for rubella or polio or the bubonic plague, I am unaffected by his decision b/c I can get vaxed to protect myself—so forcing my neighbor to get vaccinated only violates his own personal freedom and is unnecessary to advance my good or the common good.
ReplyDeleteNow, it is true that there are some people who would want to be vaccinated but cannot because they don’t know of the option, or they cannot afford it, or they don’t have ready access to it because they live in Timbuktu. However, such cases are few enough, I think, that they shouldn’t compel us to override the personal freedom of the general population.
Interesting is Dr. Feser's argument about the pregnant woman who cannot be vaccinated and, if exposed, would likely be harmed—as would her child. But is it not the woman’s obligation to get those vaccinations before she gets pregnant? Why is it my obligation to protect her from her own decision to not be vaccinated?
It is also worth recalling Maritain, who argues that any action for the common good must equally benefit society and the individual. We mustn’t focus only on the good that society gets (or may get) from mandatory vaxes, but also on what the individual would gain or lose.
Perhaps I’m missing something, but I don’t think the common good argument holds.
— Joseph B. Piroch
Delete"Perhaps I’m missing something" You are.
What is he missing?
DeleteBut is it not the woman’s obligation to get those vaccinations before she gets pregnant?
DeleteWhat if she got pregnant before the epidemic hit? What if she got pregnant by rape? What if she is one of the people whose health is compromised by a long-term disease (e.g. congenital)?
It is also worth recalling Maritain, who argues that any action for the common good must equally benefit society and the individual.
That "equally" is not to be understood literally AND simplistically. A fireman who risks his life to save children in the fire, or to simply put out the fire (to save property) may die, his job benefits society more than it benefits him. Even more does a policeman who risks his life to capture violent criminals. And the man who volunteers to be a soldier for defense of the nation. The "benefit" to the fireman and policeman and soldier includes the spiritual benefit of the virtue of courage which willingly accepts grave danger, and even death for the sake of society. Without the spiritual benefit, the cost / benefit ratio would be wildly imbalanced. That's a very complex interconnection of goods for society and the man who accepts these roles.
And while we normally think of taking those risks only falls to some who volunteer for the job, that's not really true: if you are in a bar and a fight breaks out endangering a pregnant woman close by, it may be your duty to try to act so as to protect her from danger. Similarly, if you were one of the people on United flight 93, it could be your duty to attack the terrorists even though you have no special training or weapons. In colonial America, it was understood that the militia consisted of ALL able-bodied men, who were obliged to come at need to defend the town. The obligation to accept risk for the common good bears on all of us to some degree.
Joseph, one thing you're missing is just a point of fact: it's not the vaccinated woman, it's her (necessarily) unvaccinated fetus that is at risk of grave harm (from rubella).
DeleteBut who is to say that if I am unvaccinated and get a disease that I will pass on that disease to someone else, even a child in a womb? Why am I to take a medical intervention on the chance that someone else’s immune system isn’t strong enough to resist exposure to disease, when taking the medical intervention may actually damage my own immune system in some way, or cause some other side effect that impairs my life quality - or that of my children if I am forced to vaccinate them? Vaccines are not harmless. Every single medical intervention has negative side effects that negatively impact some people who take them. Where is the morality in demanding an Individual take a medical intervention that may harm himself on just the possibility that he MAY get sick if he doesn’t and MIGHT pass on the illness to someone else? On another note, much research into the dangers of vaccines and their negative impact on adults and children does exist; it is research done by scientists with the same credentials as those who publish pro-vaccine research, but only curious people immune to medical, pharmaceutical, and government propaganda look for and find those resources. Btw, my husband is a clinical pharmacist who has worked in a hospital environment for 43 years and his knowledge and experience with the medical system informs our position against mandatory immunization.
Delete"Every single medical intervention has negative side effects that negatively impact some people who take them."
DeleteOkay, but couldn't you just as well say the same about negative impacts of medical non-intervention? A moral evaluation would necessarily have to take both sides into consideration. At the same time we need to recognize that a generalized public policy of mandatory maximizing health/minimizing morbidity is not a feasible one since it would inevitably be totalitarian and corrupt and entail disproportionate second order harms to the common good. Our default shd definitely be to oppose mandatory treatment.
(A fun question that occurred to me: If we discovered a 'vaccine' (or 'gene technology') that prevented death, would it be moral for the govt to require people to receive it?)
Insofar as Mr. Trump is non-Catholic, and a member of his staff may read this post, it is important for him to realize that the label, “Catholic”, is claimed by disparate groups who are united neither in doctrine, jurisdiction nor the conception of holiness. These include at least some Anglicans, people who uphold the Second Vatican Council, people who reject the Council in particular as contradicting the Church’s infallible teaching on religious liberty, and people who also reject all papal claimants who (amongst other things) uphold that contradiction.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, for those who accept the doctrine of Pope Pius XII, both infallible and provisional, I present without comment the following extract from his 1952 address on “The Moral Limits of Medical Experimentation and Treatment”:
“#28…[I]t must be noted that, in his personal being, man is not finally ordered to usefulness to society. On the contrary, the community exists for man….
#29…. Considered as a whole, the community is not a physical unity subsisting in itself and its individual members are not integral parts of it. Considered as a whole, the physical organism of…man, has a unity subsisting in itself….
#31…. What results as far as the physical organism is concerned? The master and user of this organism, which possesses a subsisting unity, can dispose directly and immediately of integral parts, members and organs within the scope of their natural finality…. But, on the contrary, when the whole has only a unity of finality and action [such as the community], its head — in the present case, the public authority — doubtlessly holds direct authority and the right to make demands upon the activities of the parts, but in no case can it dispose of its physical being. Indeed, every direct attempt upon its essence constitutes an abuse of the power of authority”.
This is a strong counter to what Feser posted. Indeed, it does not quite go far enough: Feser quoted St. Thomas:
DeleteNow, the common good of the social order is higher than private goods. As Aquinas teaches, “the good of one man is not the last end, but is ordained to the common good” (Summa Theologiae I-II.90.3). Again, he writes: “The common good is the end of each individual member of a community, just as the good of the whole is the end of each part” (Summa Theologiae II-II.58.9), and “the common good transcends the individual good of one person”
The problem is that - as Aquinas makes clear in other places - man has a "natural" common good as his end with reference to this temporal life, but this end is not "his end" simply speaking, it is his end in a qualified sense. Man has a common good that is his end UNqualifiedly in the next life: God, who is the common good enjoyed by all of the heavenly society. Thus the ordination to the end that obtains for man's direction to his temporal "end" is not absolute, it is qualified, and has limits under man's nature.
Furthermore, man does not generally achieve success in reaching his eternal good principally by success in achieving the good temporal life, nor by achieving successfully the temporal common good. The Roman martyrs, in especial, indicate that success toward the true final end of man can be secured even when the state is bad and getting worse. And indeed, while man generally seeks at least some of the goods of the temporal order, he also must plan to willingly forego some of the goods of the good life to seek the final end in heaven: "go, sell all you have and follow me". The goods of this life therefore have a very complicated relationship with our true final end. This applies also to the temporal common good. The most critical goods of this life are those of the spirit - the virtues - and their proper inculcation must happens in ALL circumstances in order for the man to become holy, and suffering death from disease is not a fundamental block to securing those virtues.
Nevertheless, Pius XII's comments here are not to be understood in an absolute sense:
But, on the contrary, when the whole has only a unity of finality and action [such as the community], its head — in the present case, the public authority — doubtlessly holds direct authority and the right to make demands upon the activities of the parts, but in no case can it dispose of its physical being.
Not absolute, because civil laws just are ways in which the state "disposes" of a man's physical being. In the worst cases, when judge sentences a man to prison, this constrains the man's lawful presence to prison, he has no right to choose to go where he would; and at the extreme level, when he is sentenced to death for a capital crime, his very life is taken from him, for the sake of the state. (It is also for his own good, if he willingly submits to his just punishment.) And Pius specifically approved of this. But all sorts of laws tell men what they may and may not do with their bodies, when and where and for how long. These too "dispose of" them in limited ways. It does, indeed, belong to the state to command these for the sake of the common good.
One of the best interpretations I have seen to rightly construe what Pius says here is that while man is not ultimately made for the state, rather the state is made for man, still man is made to be fulfilled in acting for the common good, and even so, the common good does not exist except insofar as it subsists IN MEN, whose good is the state's good when they are well-ordered in respect of the state. And this may require of them to sacrifice some (or even all) of their physical good in extreme need. They do not sacrifice their true good in doing so.
Desantis is opposing mandatory vaccination so he can out MAGA Trump. Also why he built Alligator Alcatraz.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with the central tenet that Prof. Feser is making here, I want to add a couple of points of concern, and disagreement with one or two intermediate points in the OP.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, subsidiarity also requires that central authorities do step in when a social order at some level cannot, on its own, secure its well-being. And such authorities can compel citizens to do what is necessary for the common good when there is no other way to achieve it.
This is good: people were invoking "personal rights" and - if they were inclined to Catholic social teaching as rightly taught by Leo XIII through Pius XII - subsidiarity as justifications for denying the right of the state to mandate the vaccine. Other than hard-line libertarians, most people are OK with the state having a role in public health, but they might not recognize that what this entails is that there is a role of the state in health matters, because what you do affects other people's health. Creating public sewer systems (and forbidding that you dump your sh*t just anywhere convenient for you) are hardly matters that anyone today thinks is outrageous, but I am sure it ruffled a few feathers back in the day.
Some above say the vaccines must be voluntary only, let the state disseminate the info, and let people decide. But that's narrow thinking in terms of 21st century information management by educated people: what if you are Uganda in 1955, with less than half your people literate? Do you "just disseminate the information"? In point of fact, even today there are huge swathes of the people in the "educated" class who are unable to discern between unbiased information and cooked-up lies that wouldn't hold water as well as a rusty sieve (in part because their "education" was designed to make them dumb). It isn't necessarily the case that people have the underlying capacity to "judge for themselves".
In fact, this describes an ENORMOUS portion of exactly why we have elected officers making rules on our behalf: we don't have the time or background to sift all the information and make good judgments about all of it, we are relying on them to make the kinds of judgments we would make if (a) we had the grounding to sort through the information and understand it, and (b) the superior judgment to decide between difficult and uncertain courses of possible action. Public health is one of those areas that is immensely difficult to understand in detail and so complex that even the best informed don't always know the best courses of action. And it is manifestly a matter that transcends subsidiarity in many ways.
"Creating public sewer systems (and forbidding that you dump your sh*t just anywhere convenient for you) are hardly matters that anyone today thinks is outrageous, but I am sure it ruffled a few feathers back in the day."
DeleteArgumentum ad populum. As to the fact of the matter, septic system/sewage regulations are highly, outrageously arbitrary, based largely on ignorant superstition.
Re. people in Uganda: you're claiming that illiterates must be compelled, like literacy is the sine qua non of rational persuasion??
"even today there are huge swathes of the people in the "educated" class who are unable to discern between unbiased information and cooked-up lies": more to the point, Tony, who, exactly, do you think are the select people these days who are able to be so discerning?? Ah, if only we could discern who the true discerners were! But there we are in a bit of a bind, are we not, my friend? That's precisely the thing for which we lack any objective public criterion, isn't it??
David, you can turn down the heat a bit. I know perfectly well that there are lots of sort of arbitrary safety determinations made in governement that are made "for our benefit". The problem with saying just that much is that it's only half the truth. The other half is that such determinations are often only SORT OF "arbitrary", and not totally arbitrary. Examples:
DeleteIn civil engineering, I believe there are some standards about how tight you can make a curve in the road for a given speed limit for that road: at 65mph, you want to accomplish a 40% turn over 500 feet, whereas at 30 mph you can do it over 40 feet (I am not such an engineer, these are fictitious #s). The problem is that the standard set is itself a ROUGH measure of safety: it takes into account some variables that are very definite factors (sideways g-forces, for example), but other factors are subject to some approximations: rubber tire grip (depends on the chemical formulation of the rubber, and the tread, and the tire width, and by golly these things change over time), weight of cars, make-up of pavement, etc. Science plays into it, but so does experience and applied judgment., in some locations, if the speed limit is 65, everyone does 70, whereas in other places everyone does 75. The high-level engineering people who set the standards are employing a ton of science I don't have, and still making (educated) guesses about other stuff. The fact that part of it is guesswork doesn't alter the fact that THEY should be doing it, and not leaving it to just whatever bulldozer driver is clearing that bend in the road that day just because SOME of it is guesswork.
Ah, if only we could discern who the true discerners were! But there we are in a bit of a bind, are we not, my friend? That's precisely the thing for which we lack any objective public criterion, isn't it??
We certainly are lacking a perfectly reliable discernment process. So tell me: when you get on an airplane, are you glad that the FAA has rules and standards for flight schools and pilot training? Or are you upset with those rules? When you go to the hospital for heart surgery, did you seek out a board certified cardiac surgeon, and are you glad that there are standards for board certification, along with standards for operating rooms and for drug manufacturing? Or is all of that so suspect that we should throw it all out? Do you let the fact that some parts of the board certification criteria are meaningless make-work impel you to throw out the entirety of the standards process?
Channeling Donald Rumsfeld: I know some of the stuff I don't know, and I know there are people who DO know some of it even if I don't know with 100% accuracy exactly who they are and exactly which portions of their 'knowledge' is sound. What we found out with COVID is that we had allowed creeping corruption to turn an area of what we THOUGHT we know (collectively, via experts) into an area of we don't know, i.e. it turned out that a portion of the realm that we thought was more-or-less in hand was really we don't know what what we don't know, and it surprised the heck out of most of us. One is tempted toward rampant skepticism on ALL areas we "think we know" but that way lies absolute despair and madness.
As you can probably guess, Tony, I don't really have a big beef with sanitation engineers. What I am objecting to is the complacent assumption that whatever expert govt bureaucrats say must be true and just and salutary and our lives probably wouldn't continue or, if they did, probably wouldn't hardly be worth living (we'd be like, IDK, a bunch of miserable illiterate Ugandans ;) ) if we didn't have guidance and protection from Leviathan's expert govt agency bureaucrats to shelter us from the otherwise nasty brutish shortness of life.
DeleteRe. the FAA: would you be comfortable driving over a bridge if there weren't a F-Civil-Engineering-A? (What if you find out there isn't? Will you stop driving over bridges?) What about a F-Education-A? Would you still send your kids to school?? What if there was no F-Shoemakers-A? Would you still be comfortable wearing shoes?? (Sorry to get a little silly here, but I think my point is quite serious.)
BTW, my outrage at your dismissal of "dumping your sh*t anywhere that is convenient" was partly tongue in cheek. But in all seriousness, your claim begs the question about the meaning of 'convenient.' I read Aquinas quite regularly and I think if you asked him where to dump it, I guess he would quite sensibly answer: "ubicumque conveniens; wherever is convenient (ac non inconveniens; and not inconvenient!)." But then again, if he lived in 21st c America maybe he'd just say, "refer to the regulations"? But note that regulations, custom, etc. may partly determine what is convenient in particular circumstances (e.g., in NYC, or in some village in India); still convenience is indeed the more essential criterion.
DeleteA propos: Up here in Canada I just peeled a label off a new food-prep tub: "Warning: Reproductive harm. [Oh no!] Warning applies only in the state of California. [That's a relief!]"
Delete(A parable of sorts herein, no?)
That said: While I sort-of agreed with CDF / Pope Francis's conclusion about using the COVID vaccine, I also don't think his statement about it was particularly coherent, and there was room for a clearer analysis, and Feser's comment also is too loose. The CDF said
ReplyDeleteThe moral duty to avoid such passive material cooperation is not obligatory if there is a grave danger, such as the otherwise uncontainable spread of a serious pathological agent
This is nearly gibberish in terms of the moral analysis of cooperation with evil: the duty to ATTEND TO the criteria of morally licit cooperation with evil does not become "not obligatory" if the danger is grave. It's that the criteria allow for the balancing of certain evils like incidental scandal with certain goods like preservation of many lives (if, and only if, the act at hand is remote and material cooperation with the original evil act).
Moreover, while Feser, I think rightly, denotes that this instruction from CDF was speaking specifically about the COVID vaccines and not about vaccines in general when it said they should be not mandatory, CDF was far too casual in how it said this. And looking at the principle of the matter: if massive loss of life CAN be the basis on which to offset the incidental scandal that comes from the association of abortions carried out 50+ years ago, then that massive loss of life (if people don't use the vaccine) CAN ALSO justify making it mandatory. Indeed, the state can licitly make that judgment call, and if it has done so in a morally upright way, then its binding judgment for a mandatory vaccine could make it immoral to resist as a "conscientious objector", just as it could be immoral to resist state speed laws on principle as a conscientious objector that such constraints should be up to the individual who might have a duty to go faster for some grave need.
The fact is that the COVID vaccine was NOT plausibly set forth by government as a mandatory public health measure because there were so many unsettled issues about that. Sure, the vaccine probably saved vastly many lives. But the process of approval was so hurried, and so fraught with corruption and frenzy of ill-thinking, that it's mandate was not in fact a procedurally and morally sound act of government. In some other time and place, with some other government and some other vaccine, there could be a morally upright mandate.
The history of at-birth and in-school vaccination programs in the 1900s in many countries including the US suggests that throughout that century, the community as a whole was basically fine with mandatory vaccinations in some cases. The flurry against it now has far more to do with corruption science and bad government than with the principle.
To point a finger: while obviously the Pope is right to call out the abortion industry and the vaccine industry using aborted material, the Pope could DARN WELL DO SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE about it. He has several scientific wings under Vatican support, he could tell them "go out and develop clean cell lines that can be used for testing and vaccine development". Then we wouldn't have this moral quandary.
I agree with most of this except the claim that vaccine skepticism is mostly the fault of the government and institutional science. Surely the fact that there are a lot of people who make a lot of money going around peddling nonsense about vaccines causing autism plays a pretty significant role, as does the general American tendency to rebel against literally anything the government compels them to do. I mean, think about the hysteria whipped up by abortion activists around the time Roe v. Wade was overturned, when the threat of being told by the government that they couldn't have an abortion caused a sudden shift in public opinion in favor of the pro-choice cause. Mistrust can be manufactured for political ends, especially when people are told that their "rights" are being jeopardized by the government.
DeleteNot that we should be too credulous about government policy or the "scientific consensus." But conspiracy theorists have a tendency to see corruption in all the wrong places—think about how many people who don't trust the government still trust big business. Vaccine hesitancy, like so many supposedly "skeptical" causes, just isn't all that rational most of the time.
RFK Jr being a prime example of people making money by peddling vaccine nonsense
Deleteexcept the claim that vaccine skepticism is mostly the fault of the government and institutional science.
DeleteI don't think that most of the vaccine skepticism nonsense is solely due to gov. sh*t. But that stuff had been going on for decades before the COVID stupid stuff INSIDE of gov't (and the industry) broke the camel's back. It's one thing when cult crazies say stupid stuff; it's another when your gov't scientists do it.
"Sure, the vaccine probably saved vastly many lives."
DeleteI would expect, Tony, with due respect, that as someone who is clearly not an illiterate Ugandan, you would know better than to make such a lazy and reckless claim. (Or am I the lazy and reckless one who hasn't done enough reading and rigorous thinking?? How to tell the truth of the matter here??)
Heh, I just knew I was caught between Scylla and Charybdis on anything I said like this. Some would tear into me for downplaying how many the vaccine saved, others for overstating it. Go figure.
DeleteMy assertion takes refuge in the absolute numbers rather than percentages. If 4 billion people received it (that's conservative), and 1% were saved from death from it, that's 40M. That's "vastly many lives". Even 0.1% , 4M, remains an extremely large number of people. Pax.
That doesn't speak to the other effects, both positive and negative: many people with the vaccine suffered long term damage from it. Some people who did not get the vaccine and got the disease suffered more long term damage than they would have suffered if they had been vaccinated. I don't think it is - even at this late date - easy to square away the NET impact of these. I had naively hoped, way back in March and April of 2020, that after everything had blown over, we could at leisure collect the data and sift it for just such nuggets as this. Now, with 5 solid years of politicization of the pro and anti-vaccine sides of things, and the resulting obfuscations in records*, I don't think we will ever have a good way to derive truly confident statistical results.
*E.G. Apparently, due to federal money for hospitals handed out for COVID treatment, deaths from causes that could have been either flu or COVID were routinely marked up to COVID. It is unlikely we will ever unwind the data skewing of these kinds of manipulations.
So (again, with due respect!) it would seem, given the qualifications you rightly add here, that you are well aware that the "millions saved" line is BS. And it also seems clear that a) so-called "non-specific effects" of vaccines (all of them) are a very real thing; and b) that systematic and intentional negligence in evaluating and publicizing NSEs is grossly deceptive and immoral (and profitable). Agreed?
DeleteAnd it also seems clear that a) so-called "non-specific effects" of vaccines (all of them) are a very real thing; and b) that systematic and intentional negligence in evaluating and publicizing NSEs is grossly deceptive and immoral (and profitable). Agreed?
DeleteYes, I agree with that. And I have been on record objecting because of those problems. Which is why I said
the COVID vaccine was NOT plausibly set forth by government as a mandatory public health measure because there were so many unsettled issues about that.
Regarding your reasoning for mandatory vaccines being moral when the risk is in some way worse than the vaccine risk, I don't see any discussion about what evidence is required to make that assertion. The claims of pharma companies are obviously self serving. Even today, very few people have any notion of how many flu vaccines are needed to prevent on case of the flu.
ReplyDeleteHi Dr. Feser,
ReplyDeleteI've read a lot of your stuff, and as a fellow Catholic, I just want to say you are a light in the world and are deeply appreciated. God bless you!
Hey, Anon
DeleteTotally agree! Ed is indeed a light for us. A brilliant and thoughtful man who I think is a hero and a model.
Yesterday, a courageous Christian and strong opponent of critical theory was assassinated. I would like to be the first on this important blog to offer my condolences to the family of Charlie Kirk. He was a Protestant with good relationships to Catholics and Jews and had planned to be on a joint podcast (or similar format) with Bishop Robert Barron in just a few days. He continually spoke about Judeo-Christian ethics and lived it. He is with the Lord, awaiting a better resurrection.
ReplyDeleteChange the topic, Ed. Please.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don’t think it’s intrinsically wrong to use a mandate, I do think there can be a prudential argument for a pause. Knowing vaccine manufacturers have significant shielding from liability and now knowing how comparatively little research a number of vaccines went through before their approval, a pause while we gather data to make more informed decisions and win back public trust could be warranted.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there is merit to the moral argument, the prudential calculation is similar to your longstanding discussion about the death penalty - although it is licit in principle, it may not be licit in practice under our current circumstances.
ReplyDeletePeople so far have not seriously engaged the arguments of vaccine hesitant people, many of whom were parents who followed the schedule religiously until their child was injured.
There are at least four unassailable observations that cast serious doubt on the prudence of compulsion of our current vaccine schedule:
1) The 1986 NCVI Act gives vaccine manufacturers full immunity from liability if their product harms a recipient, if that vaccine is on the childhood schedule.
2) The passive surveillance system for post-marketing vaccine adverse events, VAERS, is well known to be unreliable. A study done at Harvard had estimated that it was only capturing 1% of adverse events; it had designed an improved active surveillance system. However, when it presented its findings to its federal agency partner (iirc CDC), the study was squashed and the new and improved system never made the light of day.
3) Only one vaccine (HPV) on the childhood schedule had a small fraction of clinical trial subjects receive a true placebo - every other trial had no control group, had an experimental vaccine, or had an “active placebo” containing excipients that are either known to be unsafe or have never been tested for safety. How can we be confident of a product’s safety when trials have only ever evaluated efficacy?
4) As Toby Rogers convincing argues in his thesis and subsequent work, there is “epistemic capture”— a deep rot in the political economy of knowledge production in healthcare, and in vaccination safety in particular, with misaligned incentives and conflicts of interest making it highly doubtful that even if skeptics were correct, that their projects would get funded, their work would get published, and their findings would be incorporated into national guidelines or textbooks.
"although it is licit in principle, it may not be licit in practice under our current circumstances."
DeleteYes, that is an important distinction which I think Feser should not have failed to address. Principles always have to be translated into concrete policy on the basis of (often contentious) suppositions of fact. Feser makes a rather weak case when he ignores the contentiousness of his suppositions of fact and when the suppositions of fact that he does consider are limited to a simplistic kind of 'instant gratification' at first-order levels of causality (a serious analytical shortcoming, shared IMO by those who try to argue for the 'current inadmissibility' of the death penalty).
I think it's valid enough for governments to be able to compel the population yo vaccinate. But only if the threat to public health was on a scale big enough to compromise the society itself, and on the basis of the best scientific evidence available. Both of the conditions were woefully absent during the coved episode a few years back. I know that sceptics claim alternative scientific evidence to challenge the efficacy of any vaccines whatsoever, but this isn't the best evidence available. Far from it. The Wild West of sovereign citizens is not Catholic social theory.
ReplyDelete"sceptics claim alternative scientific evidence to challenge the efficacy of any vaccines whatsoever, but this isn't the best evidence available."
DeleteThat claim invites (even 'begs'?) a few questions: What is the best evidence available? In what respect is it the best? By what criterion is it known to be the best? Given that our best evidence shows that compelled vaccination has not just first-order effects (the actual nature of which are evidently contentious) but also second order effects (e.g., the imposition of compulsion sometimes increases 'hesitancy' and promotes general social conflict, i.e., damage to the common good), why does your analysis ignore the second order effects (which also threaten to vitiate any positive first order effects)? Is there any evidence to show that the kind of authoritarian-technocratic approach to public policy you endorse here is anything like 'optimal' (however you want to spell out 'optimal' in this case)?
Read "Dissolving Illusions" by Humphries and Bystrianyk, 10th Anniversary edition, "Can You Catch a COLD?" by Daniel Roytas, "A Farewell to Virology" by Dr. Mark Bailey, and see all the scientific papers referenced by "Turtles All the Way Down" which prove their case whatever their credentials might be. They are anonymous to save themselves from personal and professional harm.
ReplyDeleteThere was never any benefit from any vaccine ever, only harm, sometimes great harm. Contagion could never be proven, no matter how hard they tried over a hundred years. What is the morality of forcing a treatment known to cause harm, that provides no benefit at all, especially if the harm is lifelong disability or death?
So Ladapo has claimed (apparently!) that all mandatory vaccination as such is “immoral” and amounts to “slavery.” Feser has argued (correctly, successfully) that this claim in not true simply in principle (a pretty trivial task); but I think he has not shown that Ladapo's claim is not true in fact (and IMO Feser's grasp of the relevant facts about the history and science of vaccination seems to be defective, and also his reflection on the competence of the Church to pronounce on such matters -- as opposed to on matters of moral principle -- is underdeveloped and inadequate).
ReplyDelete