[image_credit]REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration[/image_credit]
It took place many years before the current coronavirus pandemic, but many things that happened at that conference remind me of our circumstances today. Not least, as a political theorist who also studies social ethics, it reminds me that arguments grounded in self-interest can often be correct – but still deeply inadequate.
The rationality of vaccine skepticism
I recall one participant summarizing her objection to vaccines in the following way: She said that the government demanded that she allow a live biological agent to be injected into her child’s body even though it could not guarantee her child’s safety. For these reasons, she claimed, she had every right to decide that her child would not receive the vaccine.
This woman’s objection was driven by her suspicion that the MMR vaccine, for measles, mumps and rubella, caused autism. This claim has been shown, repeatedly and conclusively, to be without merit. Still, she was not entirely wrong. Many vaccines do contain live agents, though they are in a weakened or attenuated state. And while adverse and even serious reactions have been known to occur, such a risk is infinitesimally small. Indeed, the preponderance of evidence shows that the risk of harm or death to the unvaccinated child from infections such as MMR is far greater than any associated with receiving the vaccine.
But more importantly, this parent’s decision to reject the vaccine affected more than just her child. Because so many parents refuse vaccination for their children, outbreaks of measles have taken place throughout the U.S. In fact, in 2019 the United States reported its highest number of cases of measles in 25 years.
COVID and vaccine hesitancy
Many individuals are rejecting the COVID-19 vaccine for similar reasons – that is, reasons grounded in self-interest. They say that COVID vaccines are experimental, their long-term effects are unknown and that emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration was rushed.
In fact, while the vaccines were given emergency authorization to expedite their availability to the general public, they are not experimental but rather the result of years of already existing research on mRNA vaccines and coronaviruses – the family of viruses including SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19. And they received authorization only after conclusive evidence showing they were indeed safe.
Those who reject the COVID vaccine also note that many receiving the vaccine have had an adverse reaction, including flu-like symptoms that are short-lived but often quite unpleasant. Cases of anaphylactic shock or blood clots have also happened, but they have been extremely rare, and safeguards on how to provide immediate care are in place for any such eventuality.
[image_caption]Christopher Beem[/image_caption]
One could readily dispute these claims, too. In fact, rising vaccination rates over the past few weeks show that many people have reevaluated the risks of remaining unvaccinated. Whether these people have seen evidence of the virulence of the delta variant or have seen for themselves that millions of people have taken the vaccine and are completely fine, their evaluation of their own self-interest has changed.
Nevertheless, many others remain adamant that these risks are unacceptable. Like that parent from many years ago, these individuals are not entirely wrong. There are risks associated with getting the vaccine. And knowing these risks, and knowing that they bear the costs of their decision, many Americans believe that they alone have the right to decide. What the government or anyone else wants is beside the point.
But here again, the costs of refusing the vaccine are not borne by the individual alone. Rising case numbers and hospitalizations, renewed restrictions regarding public events, even the emergence of the delta variant itself are happening largely because many millions of Americans chose not to get the vaccine. And for parents of children under 12 who cannot yet receive the vaccine – some of whom are immune compromised – the thought of returning to school this fall with infection rates again climbing no doubt fills them with dread.
Many would argue that this lack of concern for other people is immoral. The Golden Rule – do unto others as you would have others do unto you — manifests that concern for the well-being of others is at the core of morality. Those who choose not to take the vaccine ignore this concern and therefore act immorally. But, I would argue that their indifference to the welfare of others is not only immoral, it is also un-American.
Democracy and concern for others
Americans are a highly individualistic nation, and the spirit of “rugged individualism,” or the idea of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps,” runs deep in American culture and history. In fact, from the nation’s very beginning, Americans have accepted the notion that human beings care about themselves and those they love more than they do about other people.
At the time of America’s founding, many contemporaries believed that a democracy is possible only if citizens love their country more than themselves. But America’s founders rejected this idea. Human beings are not angels, James Madison said. The founders accepted the reality of human selfishness and developed institutions – especially the checks and balances among the three branches of government – whereby people’s natural selfishness could be directed toward socially useful ends.
But neither Madison nor any of the other founders believed that human beings were merely selfish. Nor did they believe that a democracy could be sustained on selfishness alone. The Federalist Papers were written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in support of the U.S. Constitution drafted in 1787. In Federalist 55, Madison presents this summation of human nature:
“As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form.”
Yes, Madison says, human beings are selfish, and one must not ignore that reality when one is deciding how to run a society. But people are not merely selfish. We are also capable of acting with honesty and integrity and of thinking for the good of the whole rather than merely ourselves.
More, Madison argued that this other side of human nature, this concern for others, had to be operative if democracy were to survive. In fact, he insisted that, more than any other form of government, a democracy depended on virtuous citizens. Speaking at the ratifying convention for the U.S. Constitution in his home state of Virginia, Madison said:
“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks – no forms of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”
Mere selfishness is un-American
Madison lived through the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. He even advised President George Washington about how he might address this health emergency. But there was no vaccine, nor even an understanding of what caused the epidemic.
While we don’t know what Madison would have said about a vaccine, we do know what President Dwight D. Eisenhower said after the development of the polio vaccine. Eisenhower’s words likewise affirm the idea that our democracy requires that we show concern for one another.
“We all hope that the dread disease of poliomyelitis can be eradicated from our society. With the combined efforts of all, the Salk vaccine will be made available for our children in a manner in keeping with our highest traditions of cooperative national action,” he said.
Because of Madison and the other founders, the United States is a free and democratic society. Within very broad limits, Americans all have the right to make their own decisions. In some cases, Americans may even have the right to ignore the impact of their decision on others.
But a free society demands more of its citizens than mere selfishness. Political institutions can help direct and mitigate the effects of this natural human inclination to selfishness.
Throughout history, America’s leaders have recognized that without concern for others, without the highest tradition of cooperative national action, democracy is in peril. People who decide not to get vaccinated must understand that their actions are not just selfish, they are un-American.
Christopher Beem is the managing director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy and co-host of Democracy Works Podcast at Penn State University. He is also an associate research professor in the Department of Political Science and an affiliate faculty with the Rock Ethics Institute.
This article is republished from The Conversation.
WANT TO ADD YOUR VOICE?
If you’re interested in joining the discussion, add your voice to the Comment section below — or consider writing a letter or a longer-form Community Voices commentary. (For more information about Community Voices, see our Submission Guidelines.)
Well said.
Excellent. Thank you. Political types with their own agendas should never have been allowed to enter into this worldwide new, emerging, novel virus pandemic situation. They have caused equally as much damage, just in a different way:(
Since the Founding, the political divide in this country has always been between the individualists and the collectivists. We’ve just given them different labels over the years. We know what the Founders intended when they wrote the Constitution to protect individual rights, not group rights.
I really don’t think the author would consider labeling the Founders as un-American, but since he works for an outfit that pushes mob rule, maybe I’m wrong.
For sure. The Republicans/conservatives of today are happy to freeload off the hard work of Democrats.
And rake credit for it!
I’m not sure why foregoing an easy solution to a deadly pandemic is individualism. The founders were smart people and probably would consider this anti-American.
But hey, people voted for an anti-American man in Donald Trump. A man who has done nothing but fail his whole life and failed miserably as president. Republicans today hate jobs and businesses and freedom. Not sure why that makes them individualists.
If they were the “individualists” you claim, we would be a member of the British Commonwealth at present. Were they even the barest fraction of what you suggest, the Constitution would never have been written, as the template for the sort of society you envision was already installed and working as intended. That it would likely have led to the collapse of the nation as a unified entity was a feature, not a bug.
You don’t have to be an individualist to recognize that free societies are built around individual rights, not group rights.
It doesn’t take a socialist to understand that sort of “individualism” you envision would, in practice, lead to the unraveling of every civilized society in the world into a hodgepodge of warring factions, governed only by violent aggression toward each other. That if such were the practice of our distant forebearers, our species would most likely be extinct.
The Founders were extremely well read and knowledgeable and lived in an era where both introspection and group discussion prevailed. Where doing things for the common good was commonplace. I very much doubt that any gathered group today could even come close to compiling a written document anywhere close to our Constitution. It’d more likely be a legal document protecting various group & individual rights and veer well off topic to boot:(
And there’s a saying along the lines of: if we don’t heed history we wb forced to repeat it. You, in particular, of the group most responsive on here, seem quite adverse to rules & laws and display little compassion or empathy for others’ experiences (that vary from yours). –>We all share this country and this earth!
“life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Anyone who studies American history would know the great care with which the writers of the Declaration of Independence took with every word and how it was used. So, first, and foremost is “life”, then “liberty”, followed by “pursuit of happiness”. This is what our founding fathers expected of all who call themselves Americans – to respect and protect the lives of their fellow Americans.
Although the government has an obligation to protect your right to life (prosecuting anyone who does you harm), you as a citizen have no legal obligation to protect the life of your fellow citizen. The fact that we do (I risked my life for you by serving in the military, for example), is admirable but I had no legal obligation to do so.
OK then, someone who refuses to be vaccinated increases the likelihood of more deadly variants emerging, and thus threatens my right to life. Prosecute ’em.
Either (a) no constraints on individual action are legitimate and we live entirely without laws, or (b) we do our best, by the law-making institutions we construct, and by our own good-faith participation in the collective deliberation, to define the constraints on all that increase the liberty of each.
If you truly believe the former, I’ll be over this evening to do wheelies on your lawn and load your garden statuary into my truck. You can shoot at me from your portico, and maybe I’ll return fire. It’ll be a great way for us to enjoy our freedom together. Conversely, if you accept that laws are legitimate, then stop with your silly absolutist framing and tell us why you think a vaccine mandate (with tailored exceptions) isn’t a proper constraint on each to increase the liberty of all.
If you could prove that an individual gave you the Covid and not simply put you at risk for getting it by refusing to wear a mask of dubious protective value or get a vaccine that isn’t 100% effective, then yes, I would support prosecuting that individual. But that’s not what you want. You want people prosecuted for “putting you at risk.” That’s not good enough.
And government-mandated vaccinations for a virus that has a 99% survival rate (1% death rate) is over-reach and not unlike the Chinese prosecuting women for giving birth to more than one child. I know Biden and the democrats want us to be more like the Chinese but most of us aren’t interested in that model.
You minimize the risk of Covid-19 consequences. You also site whether some individual could be pinpointed as giving another individual the illness as being a requirement for such restrictions. Couldn’t similar reasoning also apply to smoking bans, for instance? While such bans infuriated smokers, I don’t recall actual evangelical or real political zeal aimed against the government. We’ve all given up many ‘freedoms’ as societies have grown and we live closer together and ever more interconnected. We have also gained many, many new, previously unheard of ‘freedoms’. Read that as being able to use the power and pleasures of such interconnectivity to greatly enhance your life. Your ‘individualism’ on this topic is an antiquated fossil. We all don’t live in rural cabins, miles from neighbors, guarding our door with a shotgun and a mean dog. Those days are long gone for any policies of a modern country (which is what America is). It might still work in Afghanistan, though.
The great irony with your comments is that everyone getting vaccines restores our freedoms. The pro-vaccine people here are the true freedom-loving Americans. The real individualists.
The anti-vax people don’t like freedom. They want to take away other people’s freedoms. They want government mandates and restrictions. They want businesses to close and jobs to be lost.
Half of America is not getting the vaccine. Nothing you or the government can do about it.😎
Which groups are not taking the #vaccines? Blacks and Hispanics. They have the lowest rates of Covid—9 vaccination. But the media pretends like the real culprits are Trump voters. Could this be because it’s easier to chastise and revile Trump voters than blacks and Hispanics
It’s likely that there is some truth to what you say, but I would hazard to guess that the vast majority of whites refusing to take the vaccines were/are Trump voters. That’s certainly what the state-by-state comparisons would indicate.
Everyone refusing to get vaccinated for non-medical reasons is unpatriotic.
We will support biden as much as you democrats supported TRUMP.
This is true. Everyone who isn’t getting vaccinated deserves the same criticism.
Why are you not at the border protesting the thousands and thousands of Illegals who are unvaccinated coming into our now open borders? The democrat party is now reaping what they sowed. Over half of Americans are not vaccinated, and will not be. And there is nothing the biden administration can do about it. Biden is getting the same “rspect” (obama spelling) as the dems gave TRUMP. Have a real nice day.
That’s incorrect. We do have an obligation to protect the lives of others in this country. You are not allowed to commit murder, for example. You are not allowed to run a red light because it endangers someone else. You are not allowed to drink and drive because it endangers someone else. If you come across someone who is injured and unable to help themselves, you are actually under an obligation to provide some sort of help–even if it’s just to call 911. What you are envisioning is anarchy, not society. If you believe that there is no obligation to your fellow man, one can only conclude you served in the military for your own reasons. You don’t get kudos for that.
Great comment.
Next….you will tell us that the police have a responsibility to protect individuals.
America was built on the strength of the individual and his right to choose what path he wanted to take. The ability to decide for one’s self is still here somewhere. Unfortunately it is hiding behind walls of “woke” folks who know what is best for not only them, but you also. No thank you!
Nonsense. The founding fathers were smart people. This is pure stupidity.
The real threat to our freedom isn’t the socialists. Its the anti-vaccine people. No one is more anti-freedom than those people. Those people are truly un-American.
Actually, no. The Founders had to be convinced to add the Bill of Rights, which was the only part of the Constitution that identified individual rights (with the 9th Amendment being somewhat vague) at the time the document was ratified, except for the selection of representatives for the House of Representatives and to own their own intellectual property. And, even then, the 10th Amendment added this doozy, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” That is, power is granted to the states by the Constitution unless a power is either granted to the federal government by the Constitution or is prohibited from the states by the Constitution. Or to the people. One can interpret that a number of ways, but it absolutely does not hint, suggest, or allude to the idea that the US of A was founded on individual rights. If anything, it suggests that individual rights are an afterthought to the grand concept of the United States. And individuals only have power if either the federal government or the states governments cede that power to them. And even those must be read in the context of the Preamble, which sets out the whole PURPOSE of the Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” There’s a whole lot of “perfect Union” and “we” and “general” and “common” for it to be about “me, me, me.” So, no. And your pejorative use of “woke” in light of your profound misinterpretation of the Law of the Land says more about you than the rest of us.
Never minding the fact that at their first inclination, the “blessed” Founders created the shambling, ineffectual Articles of Confederation, only relenting from it’s even more meager protections and undemocratic precepts in the face of the absolute collapse of the country. Why some folks hold long dead politicians and bureaucrats in such high regard, while simultaneously reviling their modern equivalents, is one of the most baffling aspects of political thought I can come up with. I guess it’s just ignorance of history, combined with the romanticizing that allows, but it’s still confounding.
I’d add that anti-vaxx behavior is also unpatriotic. The selfish refusal to “risk” taking a (very safe) vaccine against Covid-19 is deeply harming the American economy, employment opportunities and the US Treasury. By refusing the vaccine, an American is courting the rise of new variants, and thus new lockdowns and destruction of businesses, large and small. The refuseniks are thus harming our national security and vital national interests.
It is comic, of course, that many of these irrational people on the right would have no problem with a draft in time of (supposed) national peril. There was a great risk of harm in being ordered to fight in Vietnam or Korea, for rather, shall we say, dubious national security reasons. Yet now they rebel against taking a vaccine to suppress a virus that has killed hundreds of thousands, destroyed business, and is costing us a fortune in medical care. They are unwilling to take this very small “risk” to save the nation. The hypocrisy is the least of the matter for these folks.
Ultimately, what we have learned from the Covid catastrophe is that the “conservative” movement has rendered the country ungovernable. There can be no escape from this, and it means the effective end of democratic government, which many vaccine refuseniks claim to revere.
I’m going break my comment into two separate parts for the sake of clarity.
While I tend to agree that refusing the COVID jab at this point can be characterized as “un” or even “anti” American, or at least un/anti patriotic, I end up being disappointed by professor Beem’s approach. I sympathize with difficulty and complexity of this subject matter and I understand the editorial limits we face here, so I’ll cut the guy some slack on THAT account. I’m not going to argue against Beem’s thesis, I’ll try to explore it from a different perspective. Having said that, the first part of my comment will refer to the science and evidence in favor of vaccination.
It would be nice if we could just pretend this conversation is just an appendage to the “main” discourse about morality and citizenship but alas, we’re mired in a pseudoscientific “debate” that cannot simply be ignored.
There is no point at this time, a year and half into the COVID pandemic trying to “educate” those who try to “debate” the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. I hate to say it but the short and simple explanation for this resistance is ignorance and stupidity. We’re not going to convince these people, we just have to force as many of them as we can into vaccination. So be it.
At this point the only information I’ll offer for those are interested is that fact that when someone like our own health department or Dr. Fauci says that the “preponderance of evidence” supports the efficacy and safety of the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson vaccines, we’re not talking about a handful of studies or observations, and we’re not talking about a slim majority. You need to understand that.
One of the amazing features of this pandemic is the spectacular world wide scientific response to the appearance of the SARS-CoV-2 novel virus. In an amazingly short period of time the world-wide scientific community has produced a mountain of analysis and data not to mention vaccines in historically and unprecedentedly (forgive me it that’s not a word) short period of time. These were/are not shortcuts, this has been and extraordinarily spectacular effort to produce extremely reliable data and information in a very short period of time.
When we talk about the “preponderance” of evidence, we’re not talking about dozens of analysis, or even hundreds of analysis… we’re talking about thousands and thousands of analysis. This week alone the world wide scientific community has produce nearly 500 reports a day. And we’re not talking about some “majority” of findings, like 55% or 80%. We’re talking about finding that are as close to unanimous as you can get. This week a meta-analysis of a couple hundred vaccine studies yet again found that the vaccines are safe and effective. We’re talking about thousands of observations, data sets, and analysis that are all pointing in the same direction here for weeks and months. We’re not just talking about the CDC, or NIH, or WHO, we’re talking about EVERYONE EVERYEHERE who has been fighting this virus and is collecting data and analysis.
Now this important so listen: I’m not trying to insult anyone but the people working on this stuff typically have 8-12 years of formal coursework in everything from organic chemistry to physiology, and from physics to virology and biology. On top of the years of coursework, and all of the research and thesis that all of that requires you’re looking at people with decades of experience finding, recognizing, and controlling infectious disease outbreaks (everything from Ebola to Malaria). These people have fought disease in everything from hotels in Las Vega to villages in Botswana. Let me ask you: Do you know (without looking it up) what a chi-square analysis is and how it’s used in epidemiology? Do you know what a “ct” value is? Do you know a “p” value is? Do you know how much SARS-CoV-2 viral dose has to be transmitted in order to result in infection? Do you know how to even figure that out? Do you know where the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant concentrates and how high those concetrations are in an infected person?
Now get this… the people fighting this virus know ALL of these things (and way way way more) and if they gave YOU the data, and the analysis they’re producing, you couldn’t even begin to understand it. And no one is going to try to teach you the science here because even if they wanted to it takes years to learn this stuff. And besides, you don’t want these people sitting around trying “explain” all of this stuff, you want them out there fighting virus.
I know this may sound condescending but people really need to understand. As a general rule very few people whether their data reporters here on Minpost or elsewhere or voracious news consumers, or whatever; really really really understand the huge amount of scientific research behind these recommendations. I was talking to a epidemiologist about this this a day or so ago and we were talking about summarizing this stuff… and she said: “Get the vaccine and wear a mask… THAT’S your summary.” Beyond that if you think you can watch a video on Youtube, or read a blog, or whatever and try to argue the science here… you’re just being stupid. Part of being “smart” is knowing that you don’t know what you don’t know and knowing the limits of your own training and intellect. If YOU think you’re actually arguing with the science here… you’re just being stupid… because virtually no one who does understand the science here is arguing with the science.
So to summarize. This is NOT an experimental vaccine. In fact, at this point the vaccines being offered in the US are among the most analyzed, inspected, studied and monitored vaccines in human history. These vaccines are safe and effective, if you refuse to get one you are putting yourself and those around you in danger of infection and death.
A thousand times yes to this.
Thank you. The last paragraph is what everyone should know and remember.
I hope you try to force us to get the vaccine. I really do.
So, I tend to call some people stupid, maybe that’s not the greatest idea so let me clarify just a bit: If you’re hesitant to get a vaccine because you have anxieties or fears or questions… THAT’S not necessarily stupid. But what you do then is ask your questions and get the answers. On the other hand, if you’re collecting garbage information and whining about your freedom and debating or arguing about mask or vaccine effectiveness… then you’re probably being stupid. So let’s kind of set THAT aside and look at the proposition that such people aren’t just being stupid, but they’re also being “un-American”.
The problem I have with professor Beem’s analysis is that he dives into an “orginalist” rabbit hole from which there really is no escape. The idea that we can argue which of us is the better originalist struggles for coherence because it’s rather like arguing about religious scripture. Scripture and originalism share the same fatal flaw in that there is no arbiter that can settle disputes. The same way no one can get God to show up and declare a “winner” in scriptural arguments, we can’t get any of the guys who’ve been dead a few hundred to make an appearance tell us what they would think about stuff that they couldn’t even imagine when they were alive, like assault rifles, DNA, and vaccines.
Now it may surprise you find that we can quickly and easily dispense with the most common contemporary claims made by the likes of Wagner and Smith here in the comment sections. The idea that our nation owes it’s existence to rugged individualism or that there was some struggle between collectivism and individualism among the founding fathers, is straight forward history. The individualism claim is easily revealed as garbage upon even the most superficial glances at the nations origins. Warren Burger referred to this notion when applied to the Second Amendment as flat out fraud. Attempts to apply this garbage to any other arena of public discourse are likewise fraudulent. The individual vs. the collective is historical fiction because it’s almost completely absent from history. This “conflict” didn’t emerge as a concept until the 1950’s or so, and it certainly wasn’t a feature of the Constitutional Convention. The idea is almost comical in fact.
Even when the Confederate States tried to secede from the Union, they did so collectively not individually so you can’t even describe that as an outburst of individualism.
Listen… the entire project of declaring independence and fighting a war in order to create new nation is by definition a collective project, not an individual expression. The whole idea of creating a more perfect Union based upon laws everyone has to follow negates the very idea that individuals are free to ignore the law. The whole notion of houses of congress populated by voters acting in concert to express their will, is a collective design. The very idea that government runs according to the will of the people rather than the dictates of an individual likewise place individuals among the collective, not the other way around. Were it not for the collective acts of Americans from the Constitutional Convention to the building of the Hoover Dam we wouldn’t have a country. You cannot name the individual who created the United State because there was no such individual.
I’m not saying there is no such thing as rugged individuals, but the idea that this is foundation of our nation is ridiculous on the face of it. We exist as a nation because nations are collections of people living under the same government following the same laws, and working in concert to provide comfort, stability, and security. This is NOT and never has been Somalia of recent history. Even before the we declared independence we formed article of confederation and bargained with the Crown collectively. This individualism that Libertarians celebrate is an historical fiction, a fantasy, a foundational myth. We don’t really need to take it seriously at all in terms of history.
We can’t say with certainty whether not the founding fathers would want us to get vaccinated, but we CAN say that they deliberately created a nation that is designed to be run and organized collectively and cooperatively. If we want to understand the morality or ethics behind that design we have to look at the intellectual basis and dominant influences that informed their mentalities. This was an era wherein pre-classical liberalism that had emerged from the Age of Enlightenment dominated the thinking of most educated “Americans” of the era. They drew their inspiration from the likes of Locke and Mills. It actually surprises me that someone like Beem, who is describing himself as an ethicist, would write this entire article without once referencing the most influential ethical model of the era… Utilitarianism.
In short, classical Utilitarian ethics as outline by Bentham decades before the declaration of independence and championed by Mill round about the time of Revolutionary War and ratification of the US Constitution; would council an individual to act in the best interests of the greatest number of people in order promote general happiness. Clearly the idea of creating a nation governed by it’s own inhabitants assumes that the will think collectively and act in the collective best interests. In that sense the whole idea of liberal democracy clearly hinges on a citizens ability to think in terms of collective best interests. Pure selfishness can make sense in a Fascist society, since it that rewards those who conquer those around them while competing for resources. But a democracy necessarily requires the occasional individual sacrifice on behalf of the community or the nation. The idea that a House or Senate populated by representatives that are only there to represent themselves for instance is absurd. And the fact that one of the few legal justifications for presidential impeachment is self enrichment betrays a moral caution against selfishness.
Utilitarianism is still a powerful ethical model, but really we don’t need to have to a fancy shmancy discussions about founding fathers and Classical Utilitarianism to settle this score. All we have to do is note the fact that Americans have always accomplished their greatest victories when acting collectively. From hurricane responses to civil rights marches and labor rights people make the most progress when they band together. You may recall that we sometimes talk about the “Suffragettes”… not the Suffragette. Most of our national hero’s are those who make or made sacrifices on behalf of the nation, or just people they hard knew or didn’t know at all. We don’t give a Medal of Honor to those who save themselves, and we don’t celebrate the pilot who jumps out of the plane with parachute, we celebrate the pilot who saves all the passengers.
So here’s the thing: If you have refused to get vaccinated, you have at this point killed fellow Americans. People are dying of a new variant that only got established because YOU refused to get the jab. We have a wave of infection under way now that simply would not have occurred if so many people had not gotten vaccinated. More people are sick and dying and you can’t even claim you made the best choice for YOURSELF because you’ve actually just put yourself in greater danger. Now if you can make yourself comfortable with that… you may be a sociopath… but you’re no patriot. If you think it makes sense to put other people at risk, and screw those around you because that’s YOUR idea of freedom… you don’t get to brag about being a great American, and your chants of: “USA!” are little more than tragic theatre.
I’m not sure it’s necessary, but I can drive the point home in a more concrete way today because we actually have an incredibly powerful example what happens when if someone builds a nation using the selfish individual model instead of the collective responsibility model; and that would of course be the recent and spectacular collapse of the Afghan government. The US would no more have survived as a democratic nation than did Afghan government had they relied on the mythical qualities of individualism.