VACCINE DODGERS, TAKE UP YOUR ARMS

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, head of the Archdiocese for Military Services in the U.S, said this month that “no one should be forced to receive a COVID-19 vaccine if it would violate the sanctity of his or her conscience.” Many people who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine dub themselves “conscientious objectors.” This term is more often used to describe those who refuse to go to war.

In both contexts, the objector relies on personal reasons not to participate in a common effort to confront a common enemy. But there the similarity ends. Objectors to fighting in war can cite three concerns: the moral reluctance to kill; a belief the nation’s position in a particular war is wrong; or the most primal of concerns — the fear of being killed.

Each of these has a moral or rational empirical basis. The reluctance to kill has deep roots in human moral and religious history. Likewise, the belief one’s country is prosecuting an immoral war may be sincere — and may even be correct. As for the fear of being killed, while there is no moral basis to place one’s own well-being over the common good, it is at least rational — because it is empirically true that going to war can get you killed.

But refusing the COVID-19 vaccine is neither moral nor rational. There is nothing morally objectionable in the vaccines. And when vaccine refusal is simply an act of self-protection, it is misguided — because the science overwhelmingly indicates vaccine risk is minuscule, and because any such minuscule risk is outweighed by the higher risk of acquiring — or causing someone else — a serious case of COVID-19. Thus, fear-based vaccine refusal is either misinformed or selfish, or both.

This a variation on the “prisoner’s dilemma,” a standard exercise in game theory: A and B are arrested for crimes they allegedly committed together. The prosecution has strong evidence to prove a minor offense punishable by one-year imprisonment. The prosecution has weaker evidence of a more serious crime carrying a penalty of up to 20 years. A and B are placed in separate cells and each offered a deal: Confess to your joint commission of the greater crime. If you both refuse to confess, you will each be convicted of the minor crime and serve one year. If you both confess, you’ll each be convicted of the greater crime and serve five years. But if only one of you confesses, the confessor will go free, and the other will be convicted of the greater crime and serve 20 years. It is in A and B’s joint interest to both remain silent, and as a result, each serve a minimal sentence of one year. Mutual betrayal would yield a worse outcome — five years each. And betrayal by only one prisoner would get him or her off scot-free, but yield a catastrophic 20 years for the other. Despite the fact mutual silence is clearly the best joint course, pure self-interest (the hope of getting off scot-free) may cause one or both to betray the other.

So it is with a vaccine that imposes a small burden on the vaccinated in order to eradicate a deadly disease. Today we are all prisoners in this natural experiment. The optimal course is for all to get vaccinated. In doing so, we would each suffer an unpleasant day of fluishness and a minuscule risk of some yet-unproven reaction. By this joint effort, COVID-19 would be quickly controlled. Yet this has proven unattainable because vaccine refusers — like the betraying prisoner — seek to escape even this minimal sacrifice, in the hope others will get vaccinated and eventually achieve vaccine herd immunity, providing safety for vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.

Vaccine refusers often recite the mantra of “personal choice.” Unfortunately, those who have made a project of fetishizing “freedom” have encouraged the belief that personal choice makes any decision inherently defensible morally. But personal choice is simply the ability to make a decision; it is not a justification for that decision. The law recognizes one’s personal choice to behave rudely, to waste precious resources, and (in almost all states) to stand idly by and watch a child drown in a pond. But even a gradeschooler can readily see the fact these are personal choices does not make them right.

So those people dodging the vaccination may have personal choice. And they may sincerely believe the medical experts are wrong, and that the vaccine puts them at some risk. But they should ask themselves are these good justifications for not doing their part to help us all control this deadly virus?

Invoking personal choice does not make any vaccine decision inherently defensible morally.