Thread by @magi_jay

I wrote a piece for Foreign Policy about infectious disease control in a liberal society, in which I addressed two questions: 1. are mandates & other restrictions on individual behavior new? (no) & 2. can they justified within liberalism? (yes). foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/02/cov…

Vaccine mandates are not taking us down a dangerous new path to authoritarianism. They've been around for a long time, as have much stricter mandates on human behavior. But just because these restrictions aren't novel, doesn't mean they're justified. So I explored this Q as well

How we justify interfering in individuals' behavior is at the core of debates w/in liberal philosophy. One way to get at justification is through a careful examination of 1. burden to the individual, 2. benefit to the individual, 3. harm prevented to the broader community

These calculations are not always easy but, in the case of vaccine mandates, the ratio of burden-to-individual:harm prevention is a real whopper. Vaccines carry very little risk & undervaccination doesn't just harm a handful of others, but causes mass death + system-wide collapse

I also examined the calculation of individual burden vs. harm prevention in the context of another disease: tuberculosis, which I am a survivor of. In this case, the burden to the individual is extreme. However, the harm prevention is also immense.

In the US, TB can seem like an old-fashioned disease. It is not in the rest of the world. Prior to COVID, TB was the leading cause of death from infectious disease. If untreated, death is almost certain, as the infection eats through your lungs, causing necrosis & deep cavitation

Even worse is multiple-drug resistant TB. Because this bacteria can evade many antibiotics, doctors have to resort to more toxic treatments that can induce neurological side effects, renal failure, hearing loss, & a variety of other injuries. The treatment success rate is lower.

There is also also Extremely Drug Resistant TB. The fact that the U.S. employs strict TB protocols--from quarantines to mandated treatment--has kept us largely safe from both this dreadful disease and the horrific treatment. nytimes.com/2019/08/14/hea…

Overall, justifying restrictions on individual behavior to prevent community harm has long been at the core of liberal societies. In some cases, the answers are not clear. But, for both vax mandates & TB treatments, the degree of harm prevention makes the calculation an easy one.

Finally, I didn't say this in the piece, but the pandemic has often posed problems where the harm calculation is unclear, such as shutting down schools. This created a true burden for individuals. While harm was prevented, harm was also produced. This was not an easy calculation.

Now compare that fraught ratio between individual burden & harm prevention to something like a vaccine mandate for workplaces. Justifying the latter seems like child's play, in comparison.