William of Ockham stood at the middle of the 14th century, addressing first the re-assessment of Aristotelian and Platonic epistemology and linguistics, examining the theological standing of the Avignon Papacy and ultimately dealing with the rights and duties of individuals. Ockham was influenced by Roger Bacon, whose focus on facts and not just logic, were the foundation of the beginning of modern thought.
An erstwhile Kantian philosopher has espoused in the NY Times the following[1]:
Because Mr. Trump contributed to the illness and death of so many Americans, it is understandable that many feel satisfied in seeing him forced to contend with a harm to which he has exposed so many others. The moral complexity becomes greater still when we consider that from a purely consequentialist point of view, there are reasons to view Mr. Trump’s potential incapacity as the best moral outcome. Most famously associated with the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, consequentialism is the philosophical position that affirms that what is morally right is whatever makes the world best in the future. If one believes that Mr. Trump has unleashed a tremendous amount of suffering and death through his mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and that he is likely to continue causing harm on this scale, a consequentialist argument can be made that his speedy recovery from Covid-19 would not be the best moral outcome.
Now, one must deal with the facts not just with the abject hatred that so many harbor. Let me begin with the author's first and last sentence.
1. The source of the virus as admitted by the Chinese was Wuhan in China and their admission was made on 29 January 2020.
2. The virulence of the virus and its transmission was likewise admitted by the Chines on 29 January, 2020.
3. On February 4, 2020 this was seen as a pandemic as I had noted herein.
4. The CDC, a multibillion-dollar agency of the Federal Government, has both the duty and responsibility to deal with such pandemics.
5. The CDC was grossly unprepared and apparently total unable to deal with the pandemic. The classic example was the deficit of PPE and more the case of materials to validate infections.
6. The President is neither an expert in pandemics nor in public health.
7. The US is a Republic meaning that Governors typically have major public health responsibilities, hopefully with guidance and support from the CDC. Neither seemed to work.
8. In New York and New Jersey, the majority of deaths were in my opinion based upon the available evidence a direct result of Governor's decisions to move infected patients into nursing homes. It was akin, in my opinion, to the US Army sending smallpox infested blankets to Indian tribes in the 19th century. The sad fact is that in New Jersey this seems to be a continuing source of mortality. One must remember that the US is not like France, England or China. The Republic nature delegates significant responsibility and thus blame to the States.
9. Thus, the source of the death and suffering must be shared across a wide group of fumbling and politically focused individuals and organizations.
10. The source of the problem is not singular, but a complex set of human factors, local, State, Federal, and international. Clearly if the CDC and the Federal Government had a plan, we never saw it. Perhaps the States did but it is not clear how they handled the issue, other than counting deaths in long term care facilities.
Kantian's fundamentally ignore the biological factors that make humans act. Admittedly Kant was unaware of them more than two centuries ago but perhaps we have learned. Regrettably we will not learn anything from this pandemic perhaps for a century or more if we wallow in the quagmire of political unrest. In my opinion this rather sophomoric morality tale is without merit. We truly need rational minds based on an ever-changing set of "facts" to make beneficial societal decisions. Regrettably we seem stuck in a Roman Circus, with battling gladiators and cheering crowds whenever more blood is shed.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/trump-covid-shadenfreude-ethics.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Posts
