You Have No Right to Endanger Others?..

...while they have a right to terminate you? Yeah, right!

The argument that the society at large, or a narrow group of bureaucrats, can do anything to you, on the pretext of preventing a greater harm to the masses, has been the underpinning of the mandatory (or coerced) Covid-19 “vaccination” programmes the world over for the last two years, give or take:

“But I do?”

What do you say to that? Where do you start? Instinctively, I have always felt this argument to be totally wrong, phony, mendacious, you name it. But visit Twitter, and it’s awash with people sincerely believing it and hating your guts for daring to disagree and not take Covid-19 jabs:

Megs 🌻 @naykrop

@ABDanielleSmith Unvaccinated people made a choice. They are not being discriminated against, they are facing appropriate consequences for their choice to act against the best interests of public health and, in many cases, in contravention of their professional duty of care.

Even after it has been proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the current “vaccines” do nothing to prevent the virus from spreading and mutating in the first place, doing so much harm instead, thus obliterating to lofty social aims of said coerced vaccination. And what if the next jab is better? Better studied, less harmful, and more efficacious? Will these arguments stand then? Will we then have to take the jab(s)?

So, how do we settle this issue once and for all, unequivocally, so that when we face attacks on our bodily autonomy again (and we know we will), we are armed with iron-clad arguments with which to defeat them?

As it turns out, the issue is more deep than it seems, or else we wouldn’t be here. It touches upon the foundational philosophical principles and requires careful argumentation in order to arrive at the indisputable conclusion. As luck always has it, I have been immediately helped by the much more qualified in the subject matter. First, Julie Ponesse, the former ethics professor at the Western University, London, Ontario, wrote an essay on the subject, “The real reason mandates are wrong“ (The Democracy Fund, 2022.10.07). In it, she references an even more deep philosophical treatise by Michael Kowalik, an independent researcher, “Ethics of Vaccine Refusal” (written Feb 26, 2021, Kowalik M ‘Ethics of vaccine refusal’. Journal of Medical Ethics 2022;48:240-243. DOI: 10.1136/medethics-2020-107026).

The latter has been the exact one I’ve been looking for. It proves rigorously what we have felt intuitively. But as this treatise requires delving into philosophical and ethical terms, I will try to present the gist of it in a more condensed form. For my personal consumption, primarily, but also to spur further discussion.

I would like to start with the conclusions Kowalik arrives at:

Vaccine mandates involve a range of discriminatory measures intended to augment the natural state of our immune system in the interest of public health.

This amounts to discrimination on the basis of innate biological characteristics. The strongest mandate of compulsory vaccination would essentially make our innate biological state unlawful.

There are ethically analogous hypothetical situations that are intuitively repugnant, for example, mandatory physiological alteration of healthy infants in the interest of public health. This would imply that we are all born in a defective, harmful state. If this ethically analogous situation is unethical, a premise I have defended a priori, then mandatory vaccination is also unethical.

The principle holds as a matter of logical necessity, in virtue of the intrinsic value of human agency, and is therefore not defeated by circumstances such as emergencies or pandemics.

Moreover, it permissively justifies vaccine refusal by healthcare workers, despite their unique professional obligations, even for hypothetical vaccines that are medically risk-free.

Nothing presented here is meant to imply that vaccination ought to be refused; I have argued only that there is neither a moral obligation to vaccinate nor a sound ethical basis to discriminate against the unvaccinated.

If you like these conclusions, here are the arguments in their support. They revolve around the notions of:

• ontology, or the philosophical study of being in general, or of what applies neutrally to everything that is real, which postulates

• human agency, or the capacity of humans to make autonomous, not preordained, decisions, giving rise to the notion of

• life worth living as conscious rational agents, which necessitates

• bodily autonomy, or human right to decide for themselves about their physical bodies and a right to decline any medical procedure. “Since body-autonomy is a constitutive condition of our existence as conscious rational agents and is also a necessary condition of a life worth living, it is as valuable as life. “

In this context:

…mandatory vaccination violates bodily autonomy and thus constitutes actual harm (not merely a risk of harm) to any person made to accept vaccination under duress. This type of harm is not negated by any positive health effect of the procedure but constitutes a distinct category; it affects the ontological dimension of personhood. The threshold of reasonable necessity for medical coercion would have to be proportional to this harm and supported by a clear causative link between non-vaccination and serious harm to others.”

More formally:

In order to justify coercion to vaccinate one would have to show that non-vaccination of X is a necessary and sufficient condition of an increased risk of harm to Y that exceeds the risk of harm to X associated with coercive vaccination, and that correcting this asymmetry of risks is reasonably necessary to preserve what makes human life worth living. A prospective benefit to public health does not of itself entail a reasonable necessity to infringe on personal body-autonomy, which is one of the necessary conditions of a life worth living. Moreover, those who cannot be vaccinated have ways of mitigating the risk to their health other than by vaccinating everyone else, which of itself undermines the premise that coercive vaccination is reasonably necessary.

The key point here is that the coercion into vaccination is the actual harm in and of itself, a priori, while the perceived benefits thereof are remote, uncertain, and unquantifiable.

Using these tools and notions, Kowalik obliterates the “free-rider” argumentation in favour of compulsive or coerced “vaccination”. The U.S. Supreme Court decision of 1905 (Jacobson v. Massachusetts), upholding the mandate for smallpox vaccination, is sometimes used in support of the claim that members of a civilized society are not entitled to be free-riders by refusing vaccines, but the underlying reasoning is deeply flawed:

• The alleged free-riders did not have the choice to opt out of the benefits of vaccine-derived herd immunity but were involved involuntarily, by the collective choice of others.

• The vaccinated were themselves not obliged to contribute to herd immunity but chose to do so by exercising their agential freedom to discriminate between more or less valuable actions; they have voluntarily set up the free-ride and put everyone else on it.

• It would therefore be hypocritical for those who were voluntarily vaccinated to discriminate against the alleged free-riders for exercising their own agential freedom to not accept the cost of the ride they were put on without their consent.

• Moreover, the free-rider premise, taken at face value, applies also to those who cannot be vaccinated; it is unclear why they should be treated preferentially, at the expense of everyone else [as they will reap the benefit without partaking in any of the the risks]. Another way, medical reasons to not vaccinate do not negate any non-medical reasons to not vaccinate, nor do they automatically create the right to infringe on the autonomy of others.

• [In conclusion, ] if this is correct then the free-rider argument implicitly contradicts the moral premise of obligation to vaccinate: the obligation to protect those who cannot be vaccinated does not exist, because they are also not entitled to take a free-ride. The same can be said about the vaccinated individuals for whom vaccines are not effective: they do not contribute to herd immunity but are explicitly committed to benefiting from it. It follows that the only individuals who are entitled to benefit from herd immunity are those who are effectively immunised and therefore cannot benefit from herd immunity, therefore contradiction, in which case the entire edifice of ethical compulsion to vaccinate for the sake of herd immunity collapses (the argument from consistency).

In other words, the immune-compromised and those for whom the vaccination does not work are also free-riders [not contributing to the herd immunity whatsoever] on the backs of those immunised on whom the vaccination bestows immunity. Therefore, the only morally superior ones are those that choose to vaccinate and for whom the vaccination works. But those are exactly the people that do not need herd immunity to begin with. Now consider closely the associated risks versus ensuing rewards in such coerced vaccination schemes:

• The premise is that there would be a statistically significant health benefit (herd immunity) to those with deficient immune systems if everyone else were vaccinated against a particular illness. [If the vaccination was to work as advertised, those that choose to vaccinate do not depend on the vaccination decisions of others. Therefore, we only have to consider those that can’t vaccinate.']

• The risks associated with vaccination are not distributed in the same way as the benefits of herd immunity, with the vaccinated taking on all the risk whereas the immunodeficient partake equally in the public health benefit.

• Such 'free-riding' is legitimate as long the associated risk-taking is consensual, but would be arguably unethical in the case of mandated vaccination: the fact that an immunodeficient person is more at risk than others does not oblige anyone else to take on more risk [of severe, irreversible, adverse events, or death, and as-of-yet-unknown long therm consequences] for that person's benefit, even if everyone were to get the same benefit.

• This logic extends to the issue of unequal distribution of harm, burdening some people with serious medical problems or even death due to vaccination while others reap the benefits.

• Furthermore, if the adverse reactions are a result of genetic traits then the initial risk is also unequal; some people may be able to take any vaccine with no negative consequences to their health while others could be incapacitated for life. In effect, some people may be made to pay a price that greatly exceeds their share in the associated public good - an absurd outcome. The public health approach

  to coercive vaccination cannot be deemed ethical if it is conditional on unfair or absurd treatment, especially if it involves a mandatory 'sacrifice' from the unlucky few for the sake of public good.

Again, it follows that “the only individuals who are entitled to benefit from herd immunity are those who are effectively immunised and therefore cannot benefit from herd immunity, therefore contradiction, in which case the entire edifice of ethical compulsion to vaccinate for the sake of herd immunity collapses (the argument from consistency).” So much for the “free-rider” ethical argument.

Another argument for the obligation to vaccinate is that our personal freedom to accept or refuse a preventive treatment for ourselves (or for our children, with whom parents have a unique ontological bond) has lower moral status or social value than the benefits of vaccination.

And yet the freedom to discriminate between more or less valuable actions is demonstrably the logical foundation of all contingent value-commitments. Specifically, we must consider whether individual contribution to herd immunity fully offsets the harm of coercively depriving a person of body-autonomy with respect to a potentially life changing or otherwise irreversible decision about self-constitution. Since body-autonomy is a constitutive condition of our existence as conscious rational agents and is also a necessary condition of a life worth living, it is as valuable as life. We therefore ought to regard every permanent violation of body-autonomy or selfconstitution as a partial destruction of individual agency, on par with a partial destruction of life.

Moreover, considering that the immediate harm caused is more ontologically significant than the risk of harm associated with individual vaccination refusal, the refusal to vaccinate should have a priority over the choice to violate the bodily autonomy for some ephemeral remote benefits of vaccination:

“Preserving the constitutive conditions of agency [the right to informed consent or refusal] trumps the obligation to eliminate or minimise any associated risks to life.

But what about endangering others by refusing to vaccinate?

I further suggest that it is not unethical to expose others to the risk of dying insofar as it falls within the scope of risks intrinsic to human agency, or is the kind of risk that makes human life worth living. The underlying premise is that rational agency entails conscious acceptance of risks in order to act in the face of the unknown. "Almost everything a person does impose some risk upon others", therefore "for us to live together and benefit from social cooperation, we must be able to impose some degree of risk of harm upon one another." (Brennan J. A libertarian case for mandatory vaccination. Journal of Medical Ethics. 2016 1-7).

If we choose to always minimize the risks to life at the expense of the informed consent or the free will, this would encompass not just vaccines but every aspect of the freedom of choice; every possible action entails the risk of someone dying. Thus it entails a commitment to the elimination of all human action, and therefore to the non-existence of any human agency; a position that is self-defeating.

More formally:

• a) all human actions and social norms presuppose a commitment to the value of human agency - to reject this premise would be self-defeating;

• b) body-autonomy is one of the constitutive conditions of human agency;

• c) it entails exclusive ownership of our innate biological characteristics (these are constitutive of the kind of being we inherently are);

• d) discrimination on the basis of innate biological characteristics negates the value of human agency and is therefore unethical.

Let as consider a hypothetical scenario of a treatment that would safely and infallibly prevent homosexuality in adults if administered to newborns. This hypothetical treatment may have been invented in response to a pandemic of a novel and potentially lethal pathogen affecting almost exclusively elderly homosexuals and for which there is no reliable cure. Would it be ethical to make this treatment mandatory?

I suggest that under the existing ethical norms, based on respect for the innate characteristics of healthy human beings, the answer must be a resounding NO. A further complication in the above example is the absence of the capacity to give informed consent, leaving the decision in the hands of parents or the public health authorities.

Since we are dealing with such a fundamental, irreversible change to the innate human constitution, it would be prima facie unethical for the authorities to mandate this medical procedure. It could amount to a crime against humanity.

It is not obvious whether, in this case, even parental consent would be sufficient to ethically justify the preventive treatment.

In the case of vaccination we are dealing with the innate characteristics of all humans, with the characteristically human, natural state, and this adds further weight to the argument against mandatory vaccination. On the basis of the principle derived above (points a to d) - that it is unethical to discriminate against humans on the basis of innate biological characteristics - we can logically link the argument from the constitutive conditions of agency to vaccine mandates:

• e) mandatory vaccination involves a range of discriminatory measures intended to augment the natural state of our immune system;

• f) the natural state of our immune system is an innate and healthy biological characteristic of every human;

• g) mandatory vaccination discriminates against innate and healthy biological characteristics; therefore,

• h) mandatory vaccination of humans is unethical.

We’ve all heard the seat belt analogy, maddening as it might be:

Vaccine mandates are a priori defeasible not because they limit individual freedoms and rights but because they discriminate against healthy, innate characteristics of every human. For this reason, mandatory vaccination is not ethically analogous to mandatory seatbelts or to using physical force to remove a dangerous substance from a child. Wearing seatbelts when driving or removing a dangerous substance from a child does not alter their individual constitution, but vaccines do. Vaccination is an irreversible medical procedure, not just a behavioural preference.

The case of vaccine mandates is also relevantly different from the involuntary treatment of psychiatric patients. Vaccines are intended to permanently augment healthy, innate human characteristics, whereas psychiatric treatments deal with pathological states characterised by already impaired agential capacities and aim only to re-establish those capacities.

But what if the benefits outweigh the risks?

Any form of compulsion or discrimination is unethical if used to facilitate, incentivise or normalise unwanted change in the innate human constitution. This is not only consistent with the established ethical norms but, as demonstrated above, can be substantiated a priori.

And what about an argument that those who are immunized ought to be treated preferentially (granted unrestricted freedom with immunity passports), 'therefore' those who are not immunized can be justifiably discriminated against (their freedoms restricted)?

This argument rests on a false dichotomy. While I agree that it is unethical to restrict the freedoms of people who pose no or minimal risk of contagion, I have shown that it is also unethical to discriminate on the basis of healthy, innate biological characteristics, and this latter category includes those who are not immunised (therefore immunity passports are unethical).

These two ethical constraints taken together reveal a third possibility: it is unethical to restrict the freedoms of non-contagious persons, irrespective of whether they are immunised.

The relevant restrictions may be ethically justified only if a person is presently contagious, only for as long as she remains contagious, and only if the pathogen is extraordinarily virulent (because restrictions on basic freedoms are themselves extraordinary, normally regarded as a form of punishment).

This has not been as brief or straightforward as I hoped for, certainly not well suited to engage in arguments on Twitter with the vaxx mandate apologists. But the philosophical and ethical complexity of the subject matter is the reason why we have been fooled and abused on such a scale and with such impunity for so long.

If you see the ways how all of the above can be further distilled and compacted for everyday use, please let me know.