whYNOT

Forced to 'do good' because of the threat of liability consequences. "Voluntarily" is self-contradictory. That's not a free and benevolent society, it's a nervous and litigious one.

How does "increasing the risk" play out? Who defines what increasing/decreasing risky behavior is? Apart from the vanishingly low possibility of proving liability, the millions of liability suits citing this person or that, could take years to settle, mostly get thrown out and tie up the Justice system. For what ends? To gain satisfaction? To get pay back, of a sort? Punishment? I have said and I maintain that still, that the responsibility one has and can count upon, is to be SELF-responsible. Or: I take care of me and my grandma as do you. If I consider myself at risk, I will lay low, isolate or cover myself, and never consider pressuring anyone to do the same. To do so would be "self-lessness" on my part. (And hopefully I don't have to keep emphasizing, that it's rational to be respectful of others property rights, courteously accepting of others preferences when engaging with them - etc. etc.) If one takes reality to be one's only authority, inclusive of the reality of human beings and the myriad things that could and will inadvertently occur to transmit and re-transmit a disease - and considering all these forced protocols are evidently imperfect (at best) - NO ONE can rationally state "you have a right not to be infected". The virus is a natural phenomenon not a loaded weapon waved around by an identifiable individual. It's odd that the sovereignty of the individual needs to be mentioned. Many people I know, hear and read of, who have little clue of Objectivist ethics, have conviction in individual choices, self-responsibility, self-ownership and the moral right to be left alone. The rising victim/victimizer mentality is what we are observing during this pandemic. A clear off-shoot of social metaphysics, or simply "the blame game", that had earlier already seeped into every culture everywhere. A victimology that can be understood under the broad category, 'other-ism'.

I am glad you agree DM... However, "life" has been and is being sacrificed to the "living". Put another way, *not dying* has been elevated to the Number One - and No. 2 - priority, not, *the life and living*. When was there anything so rotten as what has been done to people who are highly unlikely to/never going to die from coronavirus? Who was it called altruism the death cult?

Does one have "the right" to not be involved in a traffic accident? Please keep this straight. What I said: "one doesn't have the right to NOT be infected". I have not implied or stated that someone has the right to infect you. But what happens if you (or I) catch Covid? Are you going to investigate any likely suspects for the one who "violated your rights"? Then do what? In the improbable event you can find and prove who he/she is? Blame him? Lay charges against her? It would hardly enter my mind. (A slight possibility I had contracted the virus a while back, I took it easy at home and didn't consider more than briefly about where or who from). I'd said to you much earlier rights are not going to be of help here.

Oh the second statement I don't deny. Of course Covid poses a public health danger. That's fundamental to all of this. Originally I put it that one does not have the right to not get infected (leaving off "by another" - since one can be infected by coming in contact with a surface). Still, including by others, I was trying to show (with possible auto accidents) that mishaps happen. With the best of intentions and prophylactic care someone else might infect you by chance, stumbling against you, coughing spontaneously, etc. . (And here I'm slipping into the common jargon I strongly oppose: i.e That he -personally - "infects you" - personally. One needs to depersonalize this thing, to be objective). So I think that's true to the reality, not being extreme - One doesn't have the right to NOT be infected. Reality ahead of rights. There is, one can observe it, a certain amount of hyper-control exhibited by most people's attitudes to the pandemic for one, among many other areas, a reliance on -the magic- of science and technology to 'save' them, which is self-defeating. Not suggesting fatalism and determinism, but I think we understand that not everything is totally under one's powers all the time and also not under the total control of science or medicine - which is where some scientists themselves criticize what they view to be the contemporary "scientism" - science treated by people, especially modern secularists, like Faith and Dogma.

Okay, however one has to accept the probability of mishaps. This is not initiation of force, not infringement of one's rights, although you haven't suggested such. Forceful harm can be done to one completely accidentally, as with a truck ahead on the road which suddenly swerves into your path. You could call him a damn fool, but the driver wasn't 'out to get you', personally - to infringe on your rights. One habitually takes avoiding action with these unpredictables. Such potentially dangerous episodes don't keep one from ever driving, they come with the territory and one remains alert and adaptable to any situation. The rights argument for masking etc. is inadequate, I think. One person claims that the protocols/harsh laws are impeding his freedom to lead a proper life of quality, another claims the protocols are allowing many their rights to go on living. How can there be a dichotomy between life and living? Both coexist and will continue so. Without any restrictions at all on anyone, but - with a non-sacrificial ethics. And if even there were irrefutable evidence that the protocols were slowing and stopping the corona spread, I would still maintain that much greater, incalculable damage was being done to individuals/mankind than the (reasonably avoidable when self-responsible) risk of death, or actual deaths themselves.

"A zoonosis is an infectious disease that has jumped from a non-human animal to humans. Zoonotic pathogens may be bacterial, viral or parasitic, or may involve unconventional agents and can spread to humans through direct contact or through food, water or the environment". Declaring this virus to be the enemy to be combated by the population was a mistake. The coronavirus of the family corona of the family virus, is an act of nature,so to speak, like a lightning strike or hurricane. We have abundant knowledge of what these ancient viruses generally are and do (where and whom they most likely 'strike' and how severely) and proceed from there, soberly but without panic. The scientists and medics and so on, are the ones who do the serious combating. Next mistake, a subconscious one, is that because we can't in real terms *see* the presence of a virus, instead the zoonotic carrier, a human animal, becomes the feared/hated 'enemy' by transference. Sometimes, the enemy is us. So this virus was personalized through guilt onto every individual (the one time altruist-collectivists recognize individualism, btw) . The metaphysical given and the man made need to be carefully separated. You didn't catch it from HIM or HER, by their evil acts - you caught a natural infection, full stop. That was the healthier, sane and rational attitude to previous flu outbreaks.

Scratch that. I withdraw my remark. One has the right to freedom of action, period. That goes for all, the healthy and those at possible risk, no distinction.

Allowed by whom? The "requirement" as you put it, is a straw man. If it were only that simple, only one's choice, such behavior is easy to follow, good hygiene and simple good manners (I've said). You must have seen that the governments are strenuously enforcing masking and social distancing. With the threat underlying that if they so decide, we will return to a level of lock down, with large fines and possible arrests, therefore police powers. (Which has been enforced today by the South African Gvt. - drunk on power - because of slight new outbreaks at coastal vacation regions). You people didn't behave, so now the whole country must be punished. Additionally, the social pressure to conform isn't pleasant, by those who are enshrining helpless victims, as is their favorite narrative, against the 'selfish' oppressors (The Granny killers). Those who rationally and selfishly want to live and work. With these together, by fear of force and social intimidation/shaming, fewer people venture out, economic life is far from recovery and businesses are still failing around the world. More people are suffering further. "Requirement"?

The most egregious offense on the principle of individual rights is to remove anyone's freedom of action. As one sees fit - which can be one's choice to interact with co-workers or family and friends, to continue one's career, livelihood and all other valued and necessary activities he deems good for his life. It seems you are making a secondary concern, that one *may* be of risk to others health, and therefore -perhaps- violate their rights, the primary. But again, if those others are at health risk, they could or should stay out of the active, healthy individual's way, not he, mainly, to stay out of theirs.

Yeah, proves the point. Hard enough to do with HIV, now work out for and prove to the court 1. that X infected Y with the flu or corona. And 2. did X act in the knowledge of his own infection? And 3. was his a deliberate and malicious act? A non-objective law is irrational, immoral and unworkable.

Did We know? Yes, implicitly the public was aware. Epidemiologists knew for the last century, and did they insist on governments enforcing any "protocols" for flu? The influenza is transmissable and could be fatal to a few. Did anyone take strict actions to avoid passing on the flu? No. Usually one would take off work, take some meds and take himself off to bed. Was there an obsessive fear regarding transmission of the flu? No. Were children taken out of schools? The blame was not *personalized* onto individuals as Covid has been by authorities (and self-righteous citizens). I ask that one considers what the only logical outcome can be to making people personally responsible and personally liable. We can see the economic and psychological effects to lockdowns, actually could have foreseen them. Add to that - mass arrests for those who don't mask and who gather in numbers, didn't properly sanitize, and charge them with culpable homicide, concluding in a police state or nanny state. Or, Everyone takes care of himself and those close. One doesn't give up his life to favour the anonymous other 'out there' who *might* be susceptible, or who *might* die - so chooses to take reasonable risks to continue normal functioning. Neither the Gvt or other people can interfere with that choice.

An example of the corrupted thinking about Covid and lockdowns, poor journalism in a respectable newspaper: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/27/covid-poses-greatest-threat-to-mental-health-since-second-world-war No, it is not "Covid" which created the mental health threat -- the direct cause were the irrational responses to it!

In case we forget the "ordinary flu": Notice how imprecise the numbers are. Abstract Background Until recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the annual mortality burden of influenza to be 250 000 to 500 000 all-cause deaths globally; however, a 2017 study indicated a substantially higher mortality burden, at 290 000-650 000 influenza-associated deaths from respiratory causes alone, and a 2019 study estimated 99 000-200 000 deaths from lower respiratory tract infections directly caused by influenza. Here we revisit global and regional estimates of influenza mortality burden and explore mortality trends over time and geography.

https://newideal.aynrand.org/its-past-time-for-a-pandemic-testing-strategy/ I had a look at Taiwan, its remarkably low infection and fatalities. Seeing that the ARI people laud the nation's "test, trace and isolate" measures and criticize America's. It turns out: From The Lancet; Regional health; West Pacific - What we can learn from Taiwan and New Zealand. An excerpt: "Results Summary of the COVID-19 status in Taiwan and New Zealand up to August 2020 Taiwan announced its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on 21 January 2020, a 50+ year old woman returning to Taiwan from her teaching job in Wuhan. New Zealand recorded its first case of COVID-19 on 28 February 2020, a woman in her 60 s who arrived on 26 February from Iran via Bali." --- I'd gather that what worked easily for Taiwan's testers and tracers - with ONE identified confirmed case, this woman teacher (and certainly assuming a few others who entered testing positive after her) - and few ports of entry, hardly applies as ARI would have it, to the US, with perhaps many thousands of infected individuals having entered through (the maximum) 328 ports of entry, especially NYC. How are thousands of people entering almost simultaneously, and transmitting Covid-19 to perhaps tens of thousands and they to hundreds of thousands more, Etc., throughout America, possibly going to be "traced"? Not to add, every individual isolated, effectively? Unreal. The comparative geographies of Taiwan's small island with few cities and the USA's, and therefore the range of unrestricted movements of the two populations, is one could one say, a -little- different too...

Was there ever an individual right to NOT be infected by, say, influenza? Was that - liability and culpability - ever brought into law? "You infected that person with influenza so will be held criminally (or accidentally) negligent"? Not that I've heard. No such right or law exists. Just *proving*- beyond doubt - who infected whom is impossible, so cannot be an objective law. The flu also, is/was of danger to some people and a regular cause of death. And went almost totally unnoticed by the general public until now.

The "rights" of others - covers over the underlying moral issue. An argument for altruism in the guise of individual rights. You keep glossing over a fact: nobody has "the right" to NOT be infected by a virus. This is not a right, it's a demand or claim. Simply, I would go to reasonable lengths to not infect you (while maybe unknowingly infected myself) but best, if that possibility worries you - stay out of my way. And certainly if in a high risk bracket, self- isolate, get out of everyone's way. Don't go out on the roads if especially vulnerable to traffic accidents. I mention "self responsibility" again, which many people (not a majority, apparently) still subscribe to, that essential partner of freedom. Not the Nanny state nor 'society' to make one's choices, to look after one and those important to one, but oneself. The ugly outrage surrounding this superfluous masking debate in every place, shows how distant from good will to others most people have gone. Of course. When one's inclination and choice to help others, becomes a counted-upon duty, repetitively, at one's own cost, all the while losing one's own resources and fearing for one's future prospects- wishing others well and helping them, must vanish. O'ists are familiar with that. The knowledge of one's highest values being sacrificed to lesser values or non-values destroys good will. The load placed upon one's self-responsibility (or rational selfishness) and benevolence to be turned to being 'other-responsibility' is a hall mark of altruism. Anywhere and any time you notice presumptuousness from others, you can be sure of the presence of altruist demands and expectations. There are increasing numbers of those who have contracted Covid after being fastidious about masking, sanitizing, distancing, I know of a few. So what's that about? One - apparently the protocols have limited effectiveness in curtailing the spread, therefore, two, masking is seen by most -primarily- to be a sort of symbol of 'loving' concern for others - and not that they articulate this - their notional 'love' equates with self-sacrifice. That is whom the so-called lovers of others hate, over and above their pandemic fears, any individualist dissident who visibly won't knuckle down to their demands for universal sacrifice. While pretending it's all about the pandemic.

Interesting. That type of angry "Social Justice Warrior" who right now, slams photos on Facebook of families enjoying a Xmas lunch - "They are not masked!" --is only another variant of the social metaphysician, it seems. Social metaphysics I've been considering a large driver of the pandemic's sacrificial guilt and shaming, causing "...blind dependence on and compliance with the value-systems of others, into a state of abject conformity". In fact, isn't SM that other infestation which ails most societies?

Posted February 14, 2010 I think the old idea of a "social metaphysics" captured a certain element of what ya'll are talking about. Social metaphysics can be combined with explicit altruism, or not. "Social metaphysics" comes from the days of Rand's psychological investigations with Branden, so it is not in the Lexicon and Branden's article on the topic is not on the Objectivism CD. Here is a brief definition of the term by the editor of the "Journals of Ayn Rand" ["Social metaphysics" refers to the neurosis resulting from automatized second-handedness, i.e., the type of psycho-epistemology that is focused primarily on the views of others, not on reality.] From "Art and Moral Treason", writing about two unhappy men she knew of and worked with regarding aesthetic responses: They knew-even though not in fully conscious terms-that they were achieving the opposite of their original, pre-conceptual goals and motives. Instead of leading a rational (i.e., reason-guided and reason-motivated) life, they were gradually becoming moody, subjectivist whim-worshipers, acting on the range of the moment, particularly in their personal relationships—by default of any firmly defined values. Instead of reaching independence from the irrationality of others, they were being forced—by the same default-either into actual social metaphysics or into an equivalent code of behavior, into blind dependence on and compliance with the value-systems of others, into a state of abject conformity. The Objectivist—January 1966 "Altruism As Appeasement", writing here of becoming an altruist: [...]

No sense at all. Anyone doesn't want to take the risk of cars accidentally climbing the sidewalk and taking them out, stay home. Who's stopping him? To repeat, living is action and HAS risk elements. "Rights" to drive anywhere are dependent on not being unfit and not driving a dangerously derelict auto (unhealthy, with comorbidities, aged) to drive in the first place. BUT, the living/healthy who are prevented, curtailed or banned from 'driving' because of the possibility of 'accidents' is anti-life and immoral. If you want forced protocols, 100% compliance, then admit that. Then accept a police state which must logically follow.

Okay.

If living for one's own rational purpose is sacrificing others and wrongly endangering others, then you implicitly admit self-sacrifice. Returning to your speeding motorist metaphor, and if highways are filled with speeding cars - simply: Do not walk in the road. If you value your own life you won't place the burden on others to protect it. Do not allow others to "wrongly" endanger your life.

You will have to show me the definition.

The issues have to be clarified, identified and defined in order to correct them and replace them. Right. Otherwise we and many blindly move on and repeat the error.

"Social metaphysics", the wry term, is self-evidently rather treating 'Society' as 'a composite consciousness'. Therefore, is surely an anti-concept. Man has objective consciousness, an individual has an objective consciousness, absolutely. Society is a bunch of individuals each with their own. We are concerned primarily and only with "man's life", or survival-thriving and in the manner proper to man. With the morally right objective approach - excluding the altruist force and duty - both maximum survival and continued flourishing could have been sustained, even in the face of coronavirus. Instead men have greatly sacrificed flourishing to the physical survival. Yet still, couldn't avoid fatalities. Mankind has paid and will pay for this massive mistake for a long time. Never to take one's eye off the main prize: "The purpose...belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own". One must not take away men's purpose, or endanger their own 'life' as well as their living.