[Serious] Good People

[Peebothuhlu]

I just can not get my head around the idea of some one not wanting to help their fellow peoples by slowing/limiting the spread of a lethal diseas.

At some point, if you're interested, you could address the questions in the OP. The issue isn't whether you personally can get your head around it, but the moral issue of whether everyone should be made to do it. 

The OP contained the sentence:

This thread isn't about vaccines

But you decided to make it about vaccines.

The question originally asked was this:

You are an evil person if you do not make sacrifices for the greater good. [...] It is something like forced kindness, perhaps to the exclusion of personal safety and autonomy.

The fact that you personally find it the right thing to do is unsurprising. The issue is what we should require of people who don't. Is "forced kindness" a reasonable thing?

The OP gives this example also:

China's one child policy is perhaps another example. You sacrifice your fertility for the greater good of others.

Again, the issue is not whether you can get your head around this. The issue is whether this was a reasonable thing for the Chinese government to do. If there are tangible utilitarian ends, to what extent is social pressure or governmental command justified. Is requiring vaccine shots for participation in normal life something that we have the right to demand (regardless of whether personally we think such shots are good)? Is demanding such shots substantially different from a one-child policy, from a moral point of view? 

If you want to get back on topic you could.

Ah.

I see.


Hmmm... yeah, I guess it really does suck to 'Make' individual people do what is good for multiple people.

The OP was also bandying about rape as well but I'm not going to follow any such comments further.

I think "The Grand Nudger" summed things up the best.

So I'm happy to leave it at that.

[John 6IX Breezy]

It's not that the malcontents don't believe in medicine or viruses or masks, they don't believe in giving a shit about other people.

When I used the phrase "forced kindness" I was referring to this mindset you just exemplified. This is the vilification I am concerned with. It is a reframing of the events, such that kindness is seen as the central issue. The results of which is that those who do not participate in the kindness are made to seem evil, uncaring, and lacking in any humanity.

It's a coercive strategy. No different than saying, "If you love me you would sleep with me."

[The Grand Nudger]

There's this thing with people who behave badly. When you describe their actions and arguments to them - accurately - they perceive it to be an insult.

Shaming doesn't make a person be good - it could only make them behave. The number of people who have to be shamed into behaving as an alternative to just being good is probably a comment on the kind of moral decline we're always hearing about in america.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Nobody ever thinks it's an insult to be accurately represented. The insult occurs when you insediously add negative coloring that misrepresents them. Calling a person scrawny when they are thin is an insult, regardless that they are synonyms of each other.

[The Grand Nudger]

Weeeeeelll...I know what you mean, when you say that - but as a matter of fact it's not the case.

At any rate, what negative coloring that misrepresents a person is being applied when being shamed explicitly for deciding that the greater good isn't compelling?

That's what they've decided, right? Or did I misunderstand the hypothetical? People who just don't give a shit about a greater good and would need to be compelled, somehow, to act in accordance with it.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Have you ever heard someone say they aren't getting vaccinated because they don't care about the greater good? Or are hoping to see others die as a result?

[arewethereyet]

Have you ever heard someone say they aren't getting vaccinated because they don't care about the greater good? Or are hoping to see others die as a result?

No.

I have heard people voice concerns over the safety of the vaccine for themselves but haven't heard the comments you refer to.

[brewer]

Have you ever heard someone say they aren't getting vaccinated because they don't care about the greater good? Or are hoping to see others die as a result?

Don't care about the greater good, yes....... hoping others die, no......... not caring if others die, yes.

[The Grand Nudger]

Have you ever heard someone say they aren't getting vaccinated because they don't care about the greater good? Or are hoping to see others die as a result?

I rarely hear people explicate their reasons for doing anything - because I don't ask - but, again, that's our hypothetical, isn't it?

A person that would need to be compelled to care for some greater good by means other than appealing to that greater good.  Whether, given that person, it might be advantageous or dangerous or even wrong - to leverage shame and shunning?  I'm sure the answer to all of those questions is yes.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Again, the issue is not whether you can get your head around this. The issue is whether this was a reasonable thing for the Chinese government to do. If there are tangible utilitarian ends, to what extent is social pressure or governmental command justified. Is requiring vaccine shots for participation in normal life something that we have the right to demand (regardless of whether personally we think such shots are good)? Is demanding such shots substantially different from a one-child policy, from a moral point of view? 

If you want to get back on topic you could.

Right; and accompanying this is an underlying variable that I haven't been able to communicate successfully. 

Which is that perhaps nothing is more evil than the person who thinks they are justified in their mistreatment of others. People can do some very heartless things once they believe they are fighting for a good cause. There's an irony in that: Once I genuinely believe that your lack of vaccination is going to kill several people down the line, I suppose even the act of killing you could be seen as heroic.

Perhaps this is just a classic utilitarian vs deontology question? However, doing a brief google search it seems that deontology is coupled with duty and obligation. If so, why did you mention duty in what I thought was a utilitarian question? I suppose part of the problem here is that my knowledge of ethics is extremely limited.