The morality of not limiting human contact as much as possible

Especially with omicron here.

This is a question I’ve been struggling with for a while. Am I a bad person for being in the presence of multiple strangers indoors in public, including a good deal of maskholes? After all, children and the immunocompromised are in danger, and the virus doesn’t care about my whys and wherefores. By choosing to accompany my family on this thing, am I morally responsible for anyone who gets infected as a result? If I come down with it, do I deserve it for having gone out? I mean, people are dying, and I won’t if I don’t go to game night in person, so should I just suck it up and do without for however long it takes? And if I don’t, I’m just a bad person?

I could take it even further; I can afford to get groceries delivered or do curbside pickup, but I don’t due to costs and my shopping habits. Is that worthy of condemnation? Am I not taking the virus seriously enough? Am I foolishly dismissing the possibility of long Covid no matter how mild a case I might get?

Or even further: what about people who question any sort of reasonable restriction for any reason besides their own lives? Are they a factor in allowing this virus to run rampant by not shutting up and just obeying for the sake of saving lives?

This has been on my mind for a while, so I’m probably missing a lot that I meant to bring up, but that’s probably enough for now. Any thoughts?

Couple of things. I’m not sure there is any single, universally agreed upon “morality” that can be applied to this situation. What does your own sense of morality tell you? My personal moral sense says, no, you aren’t being a bad person by doing what you describe.

I think you WOULD be a bad person if, after this event, you come into contact with others while unmasked and without telling folk you knew that you had been exposed.

I’ve said the same thing since day one. We each have to come up with what we personally think are reasonable and sustainable precautions and interactions. And we ought to defer to the most cautious folk we interact with. Having said that, I think anyone of age who is not medically prevented from being vaxxed but doesn’t do so - IS a bad person.

@Dinsdale I don’t disagree with your conclusions, but I can’t agree with making morality solely up to the individual. If people are free to make up their own, there’s nothing preventing them from creating one that just lets them do what they want, regardless of harm, and then there is no basis by which to judge them as wrong, no means to prevent them from causing harm.

Morality has to be something discussed and agreed upon. It is society deciding what is best for itself. It is people arguing from first principles what we should do to cause less harm. It is pointing out inconsistencies and special pleading. There is some actual moral truth we are trying to find here. It’s not just what people subjectively think as individuals. There have to be some minimum standards of what is moral, with people choosing to go beyond that.

To respond to the OP:
You are inherently morally responsible for the foreseeable results of your actions. That’s just inherent in the concept. However, it matters how many precautions you take. You’re vaccinated (and [will be] boosted hopefully). Since you mention maskholes, it sounds like you’re also masking up. Those two things alone reduce the risk to other significantly.

Then there’s the fact that people who are there chose to be there. They chose to take the risk. So any spread here is something they decided was worth it. It’s their choice to take the risk, and their moral responsibility for who they harm.

No, the place where your decision to choose a place with antimaskers for recreation (rather than, say, a game night at home with your family) is when you might spread it to others who have not chosen to take the risk. That applies in less recreational situations, like your shopping. So one thing you could do to try and offset the risk of the game night is to avoid shopping, especially within 3-5 days of game night.

Ultimately, where it is up to you is about how much responsibility for someone having died you are willing to take on. You should be doing the things the scientists say. And, if you’re going to take on extra risk, I’d argue you should try to offset that risk in some way.

The fact is, the bulk of any death is caused by antimaskers, not you. They’re the ones refusing to do anything to stop this sort of thing. You are significantly reducing risk, by orders of magnitude. You are almost certainly below the societal minimum I described above.

Oh and long COVID is far more likely to happen with more severe and longer cases. The prevailing theory is that the virus or the immune system cause lasting damage. The former is more likely the longer the virus is there, and the latter is more likely with heavy immune response. Vaccination reduces the likelihood of both, even if you get infected. It’s sufficiently less likely that I consider it just part of the “getting COVID” calculation, which I obviously do not want to get. I think of it the same way I do the loss of taste and smell, which sounds absolutely awful to me. Or severe flu-like symptoms.

If you didn’t worry specifically about chronic fatigue syndrome before from viral illness, I don’t think it makes much sense to worry about it specifically here, given the mitigations you’ve chosen.

I assume you realize that you are extending things far beyond the OP and my response.

I don’t think you can give a blanket answer here, but must weigh the costs and benefits of each individual situation. In some cases, the consequences of isolation can be worse than the consequences of exposure.

I think this discussion belongs in another forum, but before I move it, I’d like the opinion of the OP and perhaps other posters as to whether you prefer it goes to GD, P&E, or IMHO.

Yeah, this. If you’re doing what you can to limit risks, at some point you need to live your life at least a little bit. None of us can achieve zero risk, so at some point, we’re all playing the numbers game.

The point where I’d bring morality into it is if you know you have COVID and still go out in public, or, as with the pro-COVID types, if you go out of your way to not even do the bare minimum to limit risk. Deliberate ignorance seems immoral to me at this point, akin to “depraved indifference” in legal issues.

Right, as mentioned in another thread, we all have a “risk budget” that we need to manage, it is not a universal “all or nothing”, and it’s a matter of managing it wisely using the best information at hand. So I will say I have a moral responsibility to do my best to avoid exposing the vulnerable and vectoring the spread, but not to absolutely seal myself away.

Yes, morality does require some sort of external gauge. OTOH we must be careful not to use the notion as a guilt cudgel especially not against ourselves. The whole “Am I being a bad person… Do I deserve this…” is not the best way to reflect on your actions and ISTM to the contrary, it increases the possibility that I may conclude “yes, I am a bad person and deserve it…” and then go ahead and do the wrong things because what the hell, I’m doomed anyway.

I would guess that about 90% of people who are getting seriously ill, did it to themselves by not getting vaxxed.

I do feel a moral obligation towards the outliers that are getting sick anyway. But I don’t feel any moral obligation towards the willfully ignorant.

Moving to IMHO

This. At this stage in the game the fun question becomes, “Am I immoral for NOT going out when I know I’m sick, just so I can spread it to those who haven’t protected themselves, or by extension the rest of society.” Sure, some innocents will get it, but that’s war.

Well put. I was thinking, well, if you manage to kill off some anti-vaxxers, that’s a plus! :smiley:

Well, those things can’t both be true, at least not if both the person who gets infected and the person who infected them are each 100% responsible for the transmission. I think in theory, with perfect information, we could calculate the percentage by which each of our choices contributed to a particular infection. But if you zoom out far enough, each individual’s responsibility would be measured in single digits. And then we should further temper that by looking at the alternatives that person had available, and how fair or realistic it would have been to ask them to never make the riskier choice in that scenario.

There’s a Spanish idiom I like: saying “me cuesta,” literally “it costs me,” but figuratively more like “it’s hard/draining for me to do this.” Like the idea of a risk budget (which occasions are most worthy of risk), but from the other side: which sacrifices in the name of safety are just too costly? Of course, you have to assume that you will bear your fair share of the harm you may cause when deciding what is worth it. And people are pretty good at deluding themselves in that area. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to look at this fairly and honestly. What does it really “cost” you to get vaccinated? Not much. To what degree does the vaccine reduce risk? A lot. Is there any justification for not getting it when you can? Not really. OTOH, what does it cost you to avoid all theoretically avoidable human contact? Unless you’re really an introvert, probably a lot. How much does each small gathering increase the risk to you, to the others you gather with, and the world at large? Not that much. How many gatherings can you justify? At least some. You deserve not to have to give up everything that makes your life worth living, just to prolong the lives of others.

Though as I mentioned in the OP, one could easily say, “who cares about what’s ‘fair’ to a bunch of privileged middle class Americans when people’s lives are at risk? So they don’t get to pick the right brand of flour or get to be with friends; boo hoo to the people in the emergency room. If they aren’t willing to make the choice that does NOT put others at risk, they are simply bad people and don’t deserve any further thought or consideration.”

If we think of each decision as “I am willing to risk murdering an immunocompromised person or sustaining lifelong disability for myself to do X now rather than wait a few months,” then what room is there? That’s the reason for my OP; I’ve seen discussion that borders on this, and when I thought about it, I wasn’t 100% sure how to justify myself. (Although I think I could take a pretty good shot, it disturbed me enough to inspire me to finally make a thread about it.)

As we have mentioned: risk is not binary 0/1. And IMO parsing the decision in those terms is madness. Someone trying to make others feel like worthless shit because they make a choice based on a reasonable risk/benefit assessment (*) is the one whose personal values I’ll question.

(* e.g.: getting the vaccine and wearing the mask, if not medically contraindicated? You’d be a reckless fool not to: risk/benefit waaaaay to the advantageous end. Have a long-planned small family gathering of vaccinated people who were tested in the past day, who have not been to any other gatherings the week before nor will be the week after? I will not judge that.)

The mention of the risk/benefit analysis (which had been mentioned before, granted) triggered a sort of insight for me.

If you start with the premise that any such “benefit” in question is more likely than not minor, entirely selfish, and easily put aside for a short, finite amount of time, then it doesn’t really matter what the risk/benefit calculus is, because the return is so small and personal that an outsider probably can’t conceive of why you can’t put aside a few luxuries to make the risk zero, especially with how a lot of folks seem to underestimate.

I mean, Covid got into Antarctica, despite multiple layers of testing and days upon days of quarantine. “You’re willing to risk your health and the health of others for a stupid party? Just have the damn party after this is over! What the fuck is so difficult about that?”

Lots of people will die before “it’s over”. Some of covid, some of old age, some of all sorts of other stuff. Life is finite. Teenagers don’t get to be teenagers “after it’s over”.

I’m not saying to be totally reckless, but telling people they must lock themselves in their homes “until it’s over” isn’t fair, either.

Sure, but what I wonder sometimes is, does “fair” for individuals matter when we’re talking about a global pandemic with millions of lives at stake? I mean, yes, everyone acknowledges that kids are harmed being held out of school, but at least they’re not in the hospital or dead. Sure, I suffer some mental harm from not socializing, but it’s not physical harm, and I’m sure overburdened hospital staff give lots of fucks about my precious mental health.

I get that by thinking of myself at all, that is, by definition, “selfish.” But what led me to wonder this is imagining myself getting long Covid and damaged lungs, even through vaccines/boosting and masks. I mention this to someone, and they sneer, “so you’re handicapped for the rest of your life. Was that hamburger worth it?” I’m just not sure I have an answer to that.

I don’t give 98% of my income to feed the starving, either. But i don’t give zero. I think we do all owe society, and the rest of humanity, some level of care. But not a “give up everything” level of care.

Now… Is that hamburger worth the risk of long covid? That’s not about selfishness, that’s my balancing risks and rewards to me.

Right, you give to charity because you can afford it. Why is it not the same with social activity and going out? It seems that what I’d give up is so trivial and so easily made up for, like begrudging a ten dollar donation when I make a million a year, that I had difficulty seeing how it’s not the more moral choice to stay home under literally any non-extreme circumstance.

I mean, it’s just game night. Who the hell cares about my game night other than me?