Corona, Controversies and Careers

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Immanuel Can »

Skip wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 9:06 pm Don't you believe in sickness and death?
Of course. They're part of life.
[remove a potentially infected individual from the lectern where she can stick the virus on 30 students at a time. ]
Well, she can stay more than six feet away, and still run her classes very effectively.
Six feet away, with a mask on, in motion, not face-on, outdoors. Better still, remotely.
Not necessary. For that matter, they could put her in a lecture theatre, and keep everybody twenty feet away from her. They could put a plexiglas shield up, if they wished. And that situation would be far safer than merely going to a grocery store, which everybody does every day.

The firing was totally unnecessary.
So let me put it to you. If you work for...say, a newspaper. And your boss says to you, "Either you take this chemical into your body, or you're fired." Do you think your newspaper CEO has competence or the right to mandate that to you?
Which chemical?
One you, for any reason you like, suspect is unnecessary and dangerous. Something that has not been around long enough to be scientifically proven not to have serious side effects. Something new. Something you don't want to take.

But if you don't take it, you'll be fired.
The CEO and management don't need the competence; they need the information.
There is no information on the ultimate effects of this vaccination. It hasn't existed nearly long enough for the studies to be done, or for cohorts of test subjects to exhibit results. There are also no control groups for it at all. And we have no idea of the long term, especially on effects after years, or effects on young people's development.

So the CEO is making it up, or being naively trusting of the word "science" when advocates of the vaccine use it. He doesn't know what the vaccination will do to you. Neither does the scientific community. And you know that.

What do you say now? Is it still your body, or does your employer have a right to force you to take it against your will and judgment?
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 11:00 pm
Skip wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 9:06 pm Don't you believe in sickness and death?
Of course. They're part of life.
[remove a potentially infected individual from the lectern where she can stick the virus on 30 students at a time. ]
Well, she can stay more than six feet away, and still run her classes very effectively.
Six feet away, with a mask on, in motion, not face-on, outdoors. Better still, remotely.
Not necessary. For that matter, they could put her in a lecture theatre, and keep everybody twenty feet away from her. They could put a plexiglas shield up, if they wished. And that situation would be far safer than merely going to a grocery store, which everybody does every day.

The firing was totally unnecessary.
So let me put it to you. If you work for...say, a newspaper. And your boss says to you, "Either you take this chemical into your body, or you're fired." Do you think your newspaper CEO has competence or the right to mandate that to you?
Which chemical?
One you, for any reason you like, suspect is unnecessary and dangerous. Something that has not been around long enough to be scientifically proven not to have serious side effects. Something new. Something you don't want to take.

But if you don't take it, you'll be fired.
The CEO and management don't need the competence; they need the information.
There is no information on the ultimate effects of this vaccination. It hasn't existed nearly long enough for the studies to be done, or for cohorts of test subjects to exhibit results. There are also no control groups for it at all. And we have no idea of the long term, especially on effects after years, or effects on young people's development.

So the CEO is making it up, or being naively trusting of the word "science" when advocates of the vaccine use it. He doesn't know what the vaccination will do to you. Neither does the scientific community. And you know that.

What do you say now? Is it still your body, or does your employer have a right to force you to take it against your will and judgment?
But you don't know what the virus will do to you either, or its long term effects. It's just a matter of choosing one or the other.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Immanuel Can »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 12:34 am But you don't know what the virus will do to you either, or its long term effects. It's just a matter of choosing one or the other.
It is.

But the question is, "Who gets to choose for you?"

Or again, "What right has your employer to be the one who makes that choice?"
Skip
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Skip »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 11:00 pm [sickness and death?]
Of course. They're part of life.
So are choices where the outcome is not all one might have wished.
[ Better still, remotely.]
Not necessary. For that matter, they could put her in a lecture theatre, and keep everybody twenty feet away from her. They could put a plexiglas shield up, if they wished.
Sure. They could build her a whole special bubble. And one for every other instructor, as well. What's a few M$ here and there, when it comes to hounouring the whim of someone who could be replaced, at no cost, in two weeks?
The firing was totally unnecessary.
But fast, simple, cheap and effective.
[Which chemical?]
One you, for any reason you like, suspect is unnecessary and dangerous. Something that has not been around long enough to be scientifically proven not to have serious side effects. Something new. Something you don't want to take.
But if you don't take it, you'll be fired.
No, I would already have resigned.
There is no information on the ultimate effects of this vaccination.
There is no information on the ultimate effect of anything. Therefore, nobody should make any decisions until all the facts are in.
So the CEO is making it up, or being naively trusting of the word "science" when advocates of the vaccine use it.
Every human being who doesn't live in a cave, naked, on the roots and berries he can gather from the wild and eating them raw is being naively trusting of science in its current state of development. We know what some of our inventions do; we know what the threats against which they were invented do, and we weigh the odds, every minute of every day.
Is it still your body, or does your employer have a right to force you to take it against your will and judgment?
It's my body, and if I disagree with an employer's policy, my feet carry it over to a different place of employment, or maybe even a different occupation altogether.
So let me put it to you. If you work for...say, a newspaper. And your boss says to you, "Either you take this chemical into your body, or you're fired." Do you think your newspaper CEO has competence or the right to mandate that to you?
The competence, as previously noted, is irrelevant. The right to set workplace policy, of course he does. All employers do, within the law.
Vitruvius
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Vitruvius »

This is why everyone hates moral philosophy professors!

Covid is a matter of public health; and a collective response is necessary to address it. Requiring vaccination for employment is ethically consistent with that collective response. Refusing the vaccine, and worse - making a video encouraging others not to take the vaccine, undermines the collective response. Were her decision a personal one - and based on integrity of the person, I wouldn't agree with it, and she should still be sacked, but I'd have to accept that is her right. Weeping publicly that there are consequences of asserting her rights in denial of her responsibilities makes her conduct unethical.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Immanuel Can »

Skip wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 4:01 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 11:00 pm [ Better still, remotely.]
Not necessary. For that matter, they could put her in a lecture theatre, and keep everybody twenty feet away from her. They could put a plexiglas shield up, if they wished.
Sure. They could build her a whole special bubble.
Nothing so exotic. Other than a single piece of plastic, the infrastructure is already all in place. And it's surely much cheaper and less disruptive to keep a successful, existing instructor than to have to hire and retrain another. So it's the simplest solution, the obvious one.

But they were silly.
But fast, simple, cheap and effective.
As above, it's none of the three.
No, I would already have resigned.
So you wouldn't have accepted the employer's alleged "authority" to demand you get medical treatment?

Well, you agree with Julie Ponesse, then.
There is no information on the ultimate effect of anything. Therefore, nobody should make any decisions until all the facts are in.

Nobody says that.

But we cannot pretend we know what the true effects of the vaccine are. For things like the polio vaccine, we have an extensive track record, massive documentation, and plenty of tests. For these vaccines, we've got nothing substantial, nothing of any length at all.
It's my body, and if I disagree with an employer's policy, my feet carry it over to a different place of employment, or maybe even a different occupation altogether.
Again, you're backing Ponesse, then. You're just doing it earlier than she did.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Immanuel Can »

Vitruvius wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:23 am Requiring vaccination for employment is ethically consistent with that collective response.
The vaccinations are new, speculative, insufficiently tested and potentially of durable effects. What you're essentially arguing, then, would be that employers (not the individual herself, nor even medical experts) should have the right to compel the taking of such a vaccine.

And the reason people hate this question is that they want to think the vaccines are the answer. They don't care about the facts: they just want security. So they'll take even false assurances, assurances they have every reason to know are not genuinely scientifically demonstrated, just so they can get feeling normal again.

Human, yes: wise, no. People are scared sheep. It's the job of moral philosophers to keep them cognizant of the moral issues they're desperate to forget. So yeah, moral philosophy can be unpopular, sometimes. But we can't afford to give up morality, can we?

If we knew the vaccines were safe, proven and universally effective, we would stlll have this issue: do you really want to hand over to a lay employer the right to force you to take a medical treatment?

Yes, or no?
Skip
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Skip »

I would be quite happy to let the people who don't trust the vaccine avoid the vaccine until after the virus runs out of steam or victims - if they could only keep it to themselves and not be so hell-bent on contaminating everyone else's environment.

I've had both my shots as soon as I was eligible and will take the booster as soon it's available.

It is the nature of medical science to be reactive rather than proactive : if you wait with a vaccination program as long as it takes to do the usual testing and data collection and monitoring protocol applied to other therapies, you'll be half way into the next pandemic before anybody except a few survivors is immune to the last one - which means you probably won't have to bother developing a vaccine for that new virus, because by the time it was properly tested, there'd be nobody left to innoculate.
Vitruvius
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Vitruvius »

Vitruvius wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:23 am Requiring vaccination for employment is ethically consistent with that collective response.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:00 pmThe vaccinations are new, speculative, insufficiently tested and potentially of durable effects. What you're essentially arguing, then, would be that employers (not the individual herself, nor even medical experts) should have the right to compel the taking of such a vaccine.

And the reason people hate this question is that they want to think the vaccines are the answer. They don't care about the facts: they just want security. So they'll take even false assurances, assurances they have every reason to know are not genuinely scientifically demonstrated, just so they can get feeling normal again.

Human, yes: wise, no. People are scared sheep. It's the job of moral philosophers to keep them cognizant of the moral issues they're desperate to forget. So yeah, moral philosophy can be unpopular, sometimes. But we can't afford to give up morality, can we?

If we knew the vaccines were safe, proven and universally effective, we would stlll have this issue: do you really want to hand over to a lay employer the right to force you to take a medical treatment?

Yes, or no?
The disease is new and of potentially serious effect. I've been watching it since February 2020, and I know this because I wrote on twitter at the time - "Coronavirus is really looking forward to Valentines Day!" Two weeks later... it was everywhere!

Covid vaccine is made in the way flu vaccines are usually made - the specific viral vector is the only thing different from the flu jab they give out year after year; and they were only able to produce this vaccine that fast because they plugged this vector into that process. It's like they were baking apples pies and switched to rhubarb. This vaccine is not new in the largest part; so at worst, you might get monkey powers! Seriously, the risk is tiny. Someone said that statistically, driving to the vaccination centre was a greater risk. I'm not sure that's true, but it's illustrative of the point that everything is a risk.

To the question of compulsion, it's less than ideal - I admit, but then there is a deadly disease of pandemic proportions, and that's not normal service either. That's a state of emergency, and unusually draconian measures are the order of the day in a crisis situation - else chaos reigns and people suffer. The workplace has to consider the risks it is willing to take, given its responsibilities - to students, staff and the wider community, to not become a hub of infection that spreads into the community, they adopted a policy of vaccination. That's perfectly sensible and ethical on their part, do you agree?

While Ponesse may have a problem with that, she can refuse - and suffer the consequences. She is not forced to do anything, so the medical ethics objections are hypothetical. This is really a question of her loyalty to her employer - and whether she buys into their risk strategy re: Covid. And given university politics, and the rigidities of moral philosophy, there's a real danger she's painted herself into a corner over this, and it's cost her her job. She's then compounded her mistake by making videos casting doubt on the efficacy and safety of the vaccine - and that's where she lost the ethical plot. It's a necessary position for her to take, to prosecute her indignity at not being consulted over university policy - but I think she'll find the anti-vaxxer lobby is not where she wanted her statue! I expect that there's an apology video in the offing!
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Immanuel Can »

Vitruvius wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:04 pm his vaccine is not new
Yeah it is. And it's supposed to deal with a brand new virus, one that we have known little about so far. There are no studies of any length on either its efficacy or its long-term effects, for the simple reason that there has been no time. So it's speculative: and as with the AstraZeneca version, they're still getting it wrong, clearly.
To the question of compulsion, it's less than ideal
Answer the question. Will you allow your editor at the newspaper to dictate to his employees that they must accept an injection of unknown consequences or be fired?
....they adopted a policy of vaccination. That's perfectly sensible and ethical on their part, do you agree?
That's my question to you. Will you let your editor/boss tell you what injections you must take, even against your better judgment?

And it seems that even some medical personnel are refusing the vaccine (see below): ask yourself, what do they know, that you do not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUEw0L8VC7o
uwot
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by uwot »

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:42 pmAnswer the question. Will you allow your editor at the newspaper to dictate to his employees that they must accept an injection of unknown consequences or be fired?
Makes a change to have a right-wing nutjob insist that employers have no right to apply terms of employment, dontcha think?
Vitruvius
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Vitruvius »

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:42 pmYeah it is. And it's supposed to deal with a brand new virus, one that we have known little about so far. There are no studies of any length on either its efficacy or its long-term effects, for the simple reason that there has been no time. So it's speculative: and as with the AstraZeneca version, they're still getting it wrong, clearly.That's my question to you. Will you let your editor/boss tell you what injections you must take, even against your better judgment?



I watched the virus spread across the world; it wasn't a surprise. No-one jumped out at me with a needle and jabbed me against my will. No-one held me down, and no-one held Ms Ponesse down either.

There's an institutional policy in relation to a global health emergency, and she - an ethics professor, argues 'What about consent?' The quote "This is why everyone hates moral philosophy professors" is from a TV show called The Good Place. Very funny. It features a moral philosophy professor, who in life, constantly tripped over his own inflexible ethical principles, making everyone's life a misery, including his own. I think that's the story here.

My answer to you is that in this particular instance; a global health emergency, I think it's reasonable for an employer to require vaccination, but only on pain of unemployment. There's a mile of open ground between that and the ethical question of compelling treatment, even amidst this emergency, less yet as a general principle in any post covid scenario!

As for those bad actors in stolen scrubs, no comment. I didn't watch it! Or reproduce the link because, knowingly spreading fake news is a crime! Ethically speaking!
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Immanuel Can »

Vitruvius wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:58 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:42 pmYeah it is. And it's supposed to deal with a brand new virus, one that we have That's my question to you. Will you let your editor/boss tell you what injections you must take, even against your better judgment?
I watched...
So...no answer, then.

Probably because you know I'm right. The employer himself has no justification in making that demand, even if you imagine that the government does.
Vitruvius
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Vitruvius »

Vitruvius wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:58 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:42 pmYeah it is. And it's supposed to deal with a brand new virus, one that we have That's my question to you. Will you let your editor/boss tell you what injections you must take, even against your better judgment?
I watched...
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 10:47 pmSo...no answer, then. Probably because you know I'm right. The employer himself has no justification in making that demand, even if you imagine that the government does.
I did answer your question, and made the argument that you are wrong! If you missed that, it's no wonder you have the opinions you do!
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Sculptor
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Re: Corona, Controversies and Careers

Post by Sculptor »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 12:34 am This is an ethics professor at a Canadian university who is caught in a serious moral dilemma.

Your thoughts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqHfx5SGaWE
I wonder if she has also applied her sense of freedom and eshewed the protection and representation that a trade union would have provided for her interests?
She will learn that having an academic viewpoint on the question if ethics is no substitute for the political arena in which she actually lives.
She might aslo do well to reflect that she not managed to complete her video without lying. The fact is that she will have been given several vaccines as a child for which she had no control and was not offered in a volunteristic way.
She is free to seek other employment.

It's also worth pointing out that she is no longer working but is STILL GETTING PAID. Not much of a conundrum actually.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/on ... ear-a-mask
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