Masking Up and Getting Vaccinated: My Rights vs What's Right

The Rise of the Delta Variant

Earlier today I read an article by the by the chief of the Pathology and Laboratory Service for the Central Iowa VA Health Care System. Dr. Stacey Klutts. He is a health care expert, and his expertise is not just in medicine generally but in the very area of medicine that gives one a deep understanding of the virus, the vaccines, and the benefits of masks. He explains clearly why it is so, so important both to get vaccinated and to wear a mask as the Delta variant of the SARS-COV-19 virus surges across the country. He has no political agenda. He simply wants to help keep people alive and healthy.

In briefest terms, his point is this: the COVID vaccines offer robust protection against serious illness and death, but does not prevent the virus from getting an initial foothold on the surface of the throat mucosa. This means that a vaccinated person might be infectious for a couple of days (significantly shorter than the infectiousness of the unvaccinated), but is unlikely to get very sick (or sick at all) since the virus meets a primed immune system as it tries to spread beyond that initial infection point. Beyond this, his focus is on the Delta variant, which is many times more infectious than earlier strains--as infectious as the measles, meaning it is as infectious among humans as any disease we know. This Delta variant is sweeping through the south and heading north fast. He likens it to a tsunami, with vaccination as the high ground of safety. Getting as many people to safety as possible is critical--and mask use by everyone, vaccinated and unvaccinated, helps disrupt the rate of spread enough that we can get more people to safety.

Individual vs Collective Decision-Making

The question is what we should do, individually and collectively, with this information. And here, I want to focus on the phrase "individually and collectively." The first question is about what is the right thing for me to do, what is the right thing for you to do, what is the right thing for all of us as individuals to do granted this information. The second question is about public policy--and questions about public policy are generally about what we as a society will require and what we will permit.

These are different questions. When we are talking about public policy, individual rights loom large and often clash with matters of public welfare. The aim of public policy is to promote the public welfare, but individual rights impose constraints on how we do so. But how much do they constrain? How important does the public good at issue have to be in order to justify a constraint on liberty? These are hard questions, and they are the questions that become front-and-center when our conversation turns to mask mandates and vaccination mandates: does the individual have a right to refuse to wear a mask or get a vaccine, or does the state have the authority, given the urgent public health needs during a pandemic, to require these things?

My purpose in this blog post is to set aside those collective questions altogether and focus on the individual question: "Given the medical information currently available and the situation we are currently facing, what ought you and I to do?" That individual question often gets obscured or lost amidst the debates over the collective, public-policy questions.

What I Have a Right to Do vs. What is Right for Me to Do

In most of my moral philosophy classes, at some point I have to talk about the distinction between what we have a right to do and what is the right thing for us to do. Suppose I'm planning to go to a philosophy conference but learn that my sister will die without getting a liver transplant, meaning she needs a piece of someone else's liver--someone who's compatible. Let's suppose I'm a compatible donor, and it will be very hard to find another in time to save her if I don't volunteer. But if I do volunteer, I'll miss my conference.

I have right to refuse, given that it's my body. But what is the right thing for me to do? That I have a right to refuse really just tells other people what to do. It tells them they can't make me go under the knife to save my sister's life. It means, probably, that it would be wrong for the government to legally require me to donate a piece of my liver to my sister. So, it probably follows that is it wrong for the state to implement public policies that in any way, even with certain constraints, require people to donate organs to dying relatives.  But that doesn't settle what I should do. Should I miss a conference to save my sister's life? Absolutely I should. Her life matters more than a philosophy conference.

Sometimes the question of what we have a right to do is clear, but the question of what's the right thing to do is muddy. Sometimes it's the other way around. Sometimes--as in the case above--both questions are easy to answer: because it's my body I have a right to refuse even if it means my sister's death; and if I exercise that right by heading off to the conference and letting her die, I've done something seriously morally wrong. You'd be justified in thinking less of me. Doing that would, morally speaking, make me a pretty bad guy--even though I have a right to do it. Because the right thing for me to do in this case is clear as day: I should forego the conference and save her life. That's the right way for me to exercise my rights.

So let us assume that the information in the linked article is correct. There's excellent reason to do so. The author, Dr. Klutts, is an expert on precisely the matters at issue. He has studied all the evidence and explains it clearly. And he appears to have no reason to lie. Furthermore, what he's saying is endorsed by every competent physician whose expertise and character I trust--even if a few stray physicians in fields other than epidemiology and virology, whom I otherwise know nothing about, express a contrary view on YouTube videos. (I looked at one such video a few months ago and was able to google some of the claims as I was listening to uncover research studies that flat-out refute what she was saying and, in one case, makes it obvious that she was confused about some key distinctions--Thanks, Google Scholar!)

If you assume this, then the question of what we should do, what's the right thing to do, is pretty darned clear even if the question of what we have a right to do is a matter of major ongoing public debate. The question of whether the government can mandate vaccination and mask-wearing pits public health against individual liberty in ways that can make things muddy very quickly. But that doesn't mean that the question of what each of us should do is equally muddy.

The No-Brainer Moral Question

If the information contained in this article is correct, there isn't a lot of room for controversy about what the best choice is based on concern for your own health and the health of your loved ones, your neighbors, your fellow citizens, and the health care workers who are exhausted and, in many cases, at an emotional breaking point. Getting vaccinated promotes your own health and makes you less likely to infect others. Wearing a mask promotes your own health to some extent, and to a greater extent makes you less likely to infect others. The Delta variant is so transmissible that it will sweep through the unvaccinated population very quickly unless we slow it down with masks and other mitigating measures. Slowing it down gives us more time to get more people vaccinated--and the more people who are vaccinated and the slower the spread, the more likely it is that our healthcare system will be able to handle in the influx of seriously ill COVID patients.

In the light of this information and looking at things from the standpoint of consequences, masking and getting vaccinated are pretty clearly going to have better consequences than not. Of course, something might be immoral even though it has good consequences if doing it violates someone's rights. But my getting vaccinated doesn't violate others' rights. My wearing a mask doesn't violate others' rights. So if we're looking at the question of what I should do, the better consequences of masking and vaccinating win the day. The same is true if we look at things from the standpoint of the ethics of care: If I care about myself, about my loved ones, about the people in my community and the health care workers who treat them, I will want to show that by taking steps to make their lives better. Masking and vaccinating do that. 

When our focus is on the question of what is the right thing for individuals to do, rather than what the law can rightly mandate, there's little room for moral argument. It is one of those no-brainer cases where it's hard to come up with an argument against masking and getting the vaccine. 

My Plea

So here is my plea: Please don't let the controversies about the morality of health care mandates get in the way of seeing what's the best choice for each of us to make as individuals. I understand why people are concerned about legal mandates to get vaccines (and, to a lesser extent, mask mandates), even though I also believe that there is a legal place for public health-related mandates. But that's a debate about what people have a right to do or not do and what the government has a right to require. The question of what's the right thing for you and me to do is a different question. And while there is some variability in answers based on individual life circumstances (I know someone for whom mask-wearing triggers tachycardia), for most of us the question of what's right to do in this situation is far less muddy that the question of rights and government authority, at least when we think clearly enough to separate out the two questions.

So if you think the government shouldn't mandate masks or vaccines, by all means make that case in the public sphere (and be prepared to engage honestly with arguments for the opposing views). But don't confuse that argument with the question of what is the right thing for you and me to do.

In other words, it makes perfect sense to wear your masks, get your vaccine, defend the right of your neighbors to refuse to do likewise...while arguing that the right thing for them to do, the right way for them to exercise their rights, is to follow your example and get vaccinated and wear masks.

And whatever you do, please, please don't do something that hurts you and your loved ones and your neighbors and your community and the health care workers we all depends on just as a way to assert your right to do it. We have a right to do things we shouldn't do. But in making decisions, it's the "shouldn't do" part that defines our moral character.

How the COVID Delta Variant Changes the Stakes

 As I tend to do when I'm worried about something, I've been reading up about the Delta variant of COVID-19. What does the emergence of this variant, which is outperforming all others today in terms of spread, mean for us? I have drawn two chief lessons. I share them here in case they are helpful.

LESSON 1: Not If but When.

The high transmissibility of the Delta variant means it is largely no longer a question of if you will get infected with COVID, but when. The remaining question is this: When you are infected, will your immune system be primed to fight off the disease quickly and efficiently—likely so quickly and efficiently that the virus is licked without you ever realizing you were sick? 

 It you are vaccinated, then the answer will be yes. If not, then the first time the virus enters your body, your immune system will be scrambling to figure out how to fight it. It may succeed--or, as has happened to too many people, it may flounder and go haywire in ways that jeopardize your life.

You will meet the Delta variant sooner or later. Its spectacular transmissibility pretty much guarantees that.

This means we are now in the situation of comparing head-to-head the health risks associated with getting the vaccine with the health risks of getting COVID. That didn’t used to be the case, at least not quite. Before the Delta variant came along, someone could reasonably say, “If I get the vaccine, I’m sure to face the risks associated with that. But if I don’t, I might never get COVID and so never face the risks associated with either one.” 

That is no longer true, unless you are capable of total isolation.

Of course, no vaccine is totally risk-free, but in a head-to-head comparison of vaccine vs. COVID risk, there really is no comparison. Both have been intensely studied by medical experts. For ordinary citizens, the chances of serious health complications from the vaccine is one in millions. The chance of serious health complications from COVID, if you're unvaccinated, is one in hundreds.

Put simply, from a health-risk standpoint getting COVID is many thousands of times worse.

There are few medical decisions these days where the difference between the options is so stark—similar in clarity to the choice between whether to have ice cream or someone else’s vomit for dessert. The only difference is that in the case of the ice cream vs. vomit, we don’t currently see loads of people playing up the risks of lactose intolerance while trying to make the vomit more appetizing by sprinkling hydrochloroquinine over it.

LESSON 2. We Mitigate Through Mandates or Face a Health Care System in Crisis

You might ask, if the Delta variant is so transmissible that everyone will be exposed eventually, why slow down the inevitable with mitigation measures like social distancing and mask-use? 

There are two answers. First, slowing down the rate at which people are exposed gives us more time to get more people vaccinated. It gives us more time to convince the vaccine-hesitant to get the shot before exposure—something that may save their lives. And it gives us more time to finish researching the impact of the vaccine on children under 12—potentially enabling us to protect our children with safe and effective vaccines before they catch COVID.

Second, given just how transmissible Delta is, if we do not collectively and consistently pursue mitigation measures in settings where transmission is likely--something that will likely only happen if we implement mandates on mask-use and social-distancing wherever transmission rates are significant--the virus will sweep through the vulnerable (that is, unvaccinated) population so quickly that we risk completely overwhelming our healthcare system. 

Delta spreads a LOT faster than earlier variants. A substantial vaccinated population--even as low as 50%--might have slowed the spread of other variants down enough to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. But Delta is a different animal. Unless we take active steps to mitigate spread, it will find the unvaccinated quickly. It will spread among the unvaccinated quickly--especially if we bring bunches of them together in one place (such as grade schools where all the kids are under 12 and so cannot be vaccinated). The most vulnerable among them will need to be hospitalized. Some will need ICU care. Some will die. 

In states that actively preclude mitigation mandates, like Texas and Florida and Oklahoma, ICU beds (including pediatric ICU beds) are already at or near capacity. And that’s before the impact of the school year starting up (here in Stillwater, public schools started up two days ago and the university starts on Monday). Once schools are back in session, if we don’t implement mitigation measures like mask mandates things will get a lot worse a lot more quickly. 

And if you think mask-use will be extensive  and consistent if it is done on a wholly voluntary basis, without mandates, you might want to look around here in Stillwater, Oklahoma, today--and compare what you see with how things looked back before the mask mandates expired in May. Despite efforts to get the word out about the Delta variant and the new CDC guidance, mask use is...spotty.

Spotty masking won't do much good--especially if there is significant overlap between the unvaccinated and the unmasked. Remember, Delta is sweeping through the unvaccinated population, sickening the unvaccinated population, hospitalizing the unvaccinated population, killing the unvaccinated population. Those who are vaccinated can carry Delta to others...but are far less likely to. They can get seriously ill...but are far less likely to. 

Here's the problem. We've got two classes of people: those who take the pandemic seriously and trust the medical experts; and those who either don't take the pandemic seriously, don't trust the medical experts, or both. The former are very likely to have already been vaccinated--and they are very likely to take seriously a strong CDC recommendation to begin masking up in indoor public spaces. But it's the latter who, being unvaccinated, are vulnerable to the current wave of the pandemic--and hence the ones we really need to mask up to avoid a health care crisis. Unfortunately, it is also the latter group that is least likely to mask up voluntarily based on guidance from medical experts--because, for whatever reason, they don't trust those experts.

Of course, some of that latter group will resist mask use even if it is mandated. But mandates still have an effect. Last academic year, all my students wore masks in class, even those who didn't believe it was necessary. They wore the masks because that was the rule. Mandates increase mask-use, and widespread and consistent mask-use--especially among those who are unvaccinated--is a crucial tool in slowing the spread of Delta through unvaccinated populations and thus keeping hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.

An overwhelmed health care system means everyone has less access to lifesaving treatment—whether they’re sick with COVID or something else. An overwhelmed health care system means that doctors and nurses who are already overworked and emotionally exhausted find themselves pushed past the break point.

We’re talking about a health care system in which the human beings who are called to fight this war suffer such serious burnout they can’t continue. And like a kind of feedback loop, an already overburdened system becomes even more overburdened as people burn out and the weight falls heavier on those who remain.

This was a risk before the Delta variant came along, and was a major basis for the decision to shut the country down. Now the Delta variant is in play, with viral loads a thousand times higher than earlier strains and transmissibility rates many times higher. Unless we mandate mitigation measures like indoor mask-use, we will quickly reach a healthcare crisis once Delta starts to spread in schools. 

If the crisis gets bad enough, we won't be talking about mandating masks in schools. We'll be talking another shutdown. And we'll be burying too many beloved dead.

Love your unvaccinated neighbors--by getting vaccinated and wearing a mask.

Love your local health care workers--by getting vaccinated and wearing a mask.

Love yourself--by getting vaccinated and wearing a mask.

The Campaign to Get People Vaccinated: Manipulation vs. Reasoned Persuasion

I've seen the following meme recently on social media, and given the timing of its spread it presumably relates to current efforts to convince Americans to become fully vaccinated against COVID. Here's the meme:

(In the event of any difficulty reading the image, it says the following:

How Manipulation Works

1. FEAR--Do this or something bad will happen.

2. FLATTERY--Do this and you're a good person.

3. BRIBERY--Do this and I will do something for you.

4. VIOLENCE--Do this or else...

By the way...We're at step 3.)

Looking at the meme as a philosopher, there are numerous problems with it. One problem relates to "steps" 1 & 2, and involves the failure to distinguish between what Plato called "mere persuasion" and persuasion that proceeds via "instruction"--or what I'm inclined to call the distinction between manipulative persuasion and reasoned persuasion.

The point is that we can persuade people through a kind of trickery in which we bypass people's rationality and responsiveness to evidence and arguments, instead appealing directly to irrelevant feelings and emotions to shift a person's view in the desired direction.

Or we can persuade people by give reasons and evidence that support the truth of the view we are asking them to accept. 

The former is a kind of manipulation. The latter is not.

So, consider the so-called "step 1" of manipulation in the meme above, labeled "Fear": 

Do this or something bad will happen. 

Consider this step in relation to what the meme was surely intended to be a commentary about: the ongoing COVID vaccination campaign. Suppose that I point out that while COVID infection often has only mild health repercussions, in a significant number of people (much higher than for viruses like, say, the flu), it can lead to serious long-term health problems and even death. We've been able to isolate some of the risk factors for serious illness, but not all--and many apparently healthy people have died from the disease. 

Suppose, furthermore, that I point out that the vaccines for COVID have been shown to be very safe and effective--and especially effective at prevent serious illness.

And suppose, furthermore, that I note that with widespread vaccination, we will be able to return to our normal lives without either seeing a surge of COVID-related deaths or whole classes of vulnerable people being forced to isolate themselves to avoid infection. But without widespread vaccination, we'll continue to face the tough choices we faced before vaccines were available: either we radically altar our collective way of life to protect the vulnerable (with the economic, social, and personal costs that this brings), or we don't, in which case vulnerable people will either be dying in frightening numbers or forced into seclusion.

And suppose I conclude on the basis of all of this that if we don't collectively make a commitment to vaccinate as widely as we can--which at a minimum means vaccinating ourselves and may also mean urging friends and family to do likewise--then the circumstances in our country will be far worse for many people than would be the case were we to make that collective commitment to vaccinate.

Suppose I lay out that argument. What I've effectively done here is given reason to think that it is true that "bad things will happen" if we don't collectively commit to vaccinating--bad things that won't happen if we do. But the argument above is based on sound evidence, and it logically supports the conclusion. In other words, it is a good argument for reaching the conclusion that if we don't do this, bad things will happen (or keep happening); and if we do this, those bad things will be avoided.

An argument like that is not manipulation. If you are about to drive without a seatbelt and I point out the differential accident survival rates of those who do and don't wear seatbelts, I'm engaged in reasoned persuasion, not the manipulative kind. Likewise with the vaccine argument above.

Of course, reasoned persuasion is open to criticism and response. It evolves through dialogue, through considering objections  and responding. Reasoned persuasion, because it is oriented towards uncovering the truth, is open to being tested in the light of critical questions and the like. The point here, however, is that reasoned persuasion, which is not manipulative, can have the form of saying "Do this or something bad will happen." What distinguishes it from manipulation is that it is backed up by reasons and has an orientation towards speaking the truth.

The same can be said about "step 2." What are the characteristics of a good person? There is no universal consensus, of course, but there are still things we can and do agree about: virtues, or good character traits, that are typical of the people we call "good." 

They care about others. They care about the public welfare. They are willing to mildly inconvenience themselves for the sake of helping others avoid major sacrifices, and they are willing to take small personal risks to help others avoid dire ones. 

Given all the facts laid out in my argument above, you can see that it is easy to construct an argument for the conclusion that, on this broad portrait of a good person, someone who gets vaccinated against COVID is acting as a good person would. (Of course, there are cases of individuals who face a greater-than-typical risk from vaccination, and so might be very good people but choose nevertheless not to vaccinate; but generally, for the vast majority of us, the risk of vaccination is very low.)

In short, everything I said about step 1 applies to step 2: there are non-manipulative arguments for the conclusion that getting a vaccine is the sort of thing a good person as described above would do. Or, put another way, there are moral arguments for getting vaccinated that are good arguments for most ordinary, healthy people. Of course, these arguments are again open to critical examination, questions and objections. People with good motives may be misinformed about salient facts, and so they are unconvinced that they should get vaccinated absent a deeper investigation of those facts. But it is also the case that good people are open to being persuaded by an honest investigation of the evidence.

The point is that there can be good reasons to think that getting vaccinated is the sort of thing a good person, fully and properly informed, would do.

Of course there is manipulative persuasion that appeals to fear, and manipulative persuasion that appeals to flattery. What distinguishes these manipulative forms of persuasion is that they do not invoke evidence and reasons to support their conclusion. Instead, they paint a scary picture without offering clear, sound evidence for the view that the desired behavior contributes to preventing the scary picture from becoming reality. Or they pander to the egos of their audience, making the audience feel good about themselves, and then just trust that those good feelings will spill over onto the desired behavior without offering any solid moral arguments in support of the behavior.

Manipulation is about creating associations between feelings and views through building subconscious connections. You hold up an idea you want someone to believe, and you stoke certain emotions (fear or pride, etc.)--and you hope that those emotions will latch onto the idea in the right way. Fear will be associated with not doing X because of the vivid association created, even though you have done nothing to support the conclusion that failure to do X will have the fearful results. Or that gushy feeling of being a great person is associated with doing X, even though no reasoned moral argument is offered in support of the view that doing X is the kind of thing someone motivated by virtuous character traits would do.

When it comes to steps 3 & 4 in the meme, things are a bit different. 3 & 4 are not forms of persuasion in the sense of convincing you that something is true--either manipulatively or instructively. 3 & 4 are about behavior modification through rewards and penalties. But in labeling 4 "VIOLENCE," the meme ignores the fact that there are a wide array of penalties that are imposed to modify behavior that don't typically fall under the heading of violence--at least not violence in the typical overt form that we usually have in mind when we use the term (there are some less conventional understandings of violence that see all coercive pressures as violent, but I'm not going to dig into those understandings here).

Behavior modification through rewards and penalties is a widespread human practice. Parents do it when they reward and punish their kids. Teachers do it with gold stars and time in the thinking spot, or with A's and F's. Governments do it when they offer tax breaks and tax penalties. Laws are built on negative consequences for disobedience.

It is hard to imagine a functioning society that does not use rewards and penalties when the behavior at issue is important for the sake of social health and success. Of course, there are always pressing questions that we need to wrestle with when we are considering the imposition of rewards and penalties: is the matter important enough to try to shift people's default behavior by adding incentives and disincentives? And if so, what is the best approach: incentive-based, or penalty-based? 

3 is often employed when reasoned persuasion of types 1 & 2 are insufficient. Milder (not-overtly-violent) forms of 4 are sometimes employed when 3 fails, without an overtly violent form of 4 ever being deployed. Many times we stop at 3 because we conclude that the most effective way to proceed is to push on with a combination 1-3. Sometimes the matter is so serious (murder), that we implement a violent (forcible arrest and incarceration) form of 4 immediately without waiting to see whether 1-3 alone, or a milder form of 4, will work. In terms of social tools for getting people to behave civilly and beneficially with one another, we use a mix of 1-4 in ways that don't follow some clear, inevitable pattern.

What is troubling about this meme is that it does not present 3 & (milder forms of) 4 as inevitable features of civil society, where 3 & 4 are employed variously in various situations, in various combinations with 1 & 2, based on assessments of social needs, individual rights, and pragmatic questions about what works. And it does not recognize that the "penalty" side of behavior modification comes in a range of forms, most of it not overtly violent. Instead, the meme represents 4 as violence, and 1-4 as this inevitable progression of increasing severity, with violence the final frightening stage in government population control. And then it ends with saying that we are just about to enter that final stage.

The meme offers no evidence, no reasoned argument, for the view that this is how our nation's campaign to get people vaccinated is evolving. It simply lays out this ominous set of stages, with VIOLENCE (in all caps) about to come hammering down.

So, based on the distinction made above between manipulative and reasoned persuasion, this meme appears to be a case of manipulative persuasion. In that respect, it is distinct from prevailing arguments about the troubling outcomes of large-scale failure to vaccinate, and moral arguments in favor of vaccination, since these arguments (at least the ones I've seen) most often take the form of reasoned persuasion. 

The Straw Man Fallacy, the Principle of Charity, and Deflection Tactics: The Case of Florida Governor DeSantis

Earlier today, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lashed out at a reporter who asked him if mask mandates might have helped seven children in Florida who are currently in intensive care with COVID.

DeSantis responded with the following words: "You're blaming the kids, saying they weren't wearing masks so they're in the ICU. With all due respect, I find that deplorable to blame the victim who ends up being hospitalized."

With all due respect, Gov. DeSantis, I doubt very highly that the reporter was blaming the kids who are in the ICU for their illness. A far more charitable reading of the question is that the reporter was blaming you.

Actually, since DeSantis is unlikely to ever read this blog post, let me stop talking to him directly. The point I want to make here is that there are strategies for engaging in public discourse about controversial topics that are likely to advance mutual understanding and help make progress in reaching wiser collective decision. And then there are strategies that have the opposite effect. DeSantis's response to the reporter falls into the latter category. Often, such deliberate muddying of the water is meant to deflect attention when someone faces a challenge they are ill-equipped to answer directly--and that is almost certainly what is happening in this case.

Let's go a bit deeper, in order to see why. The reporter asked a question. Let me paraphrase it as follows: 

Seven children are severely ill with COVID. The state of Florida does not have masking mandates--in part because Gov. DeSantis is an ardent opponent of such mandates. Would some or all of those seriously ill children have been spared if there had been state-wide mask mandates of the sort DeSantis opposes?

These are not the reporter's precise words, but I think they capture the substance. So what is the reporter really saying here? Philosophers advocate using what they call "the Principle of Charity" in interpreting what others say: if what someone says can be taken in different ways, opt for the interpretation that makes the most sense. Partly this is about choosing the interpretation that is the best fit with their actual words and (since we sometimes fumble for the words or don't quite say what we obviously mean) with their likely intentions to the extent that we can discern them. Partly, also, it is about assuming the best about others when that is possible: if there is a way of understanding what someone says that is plausible and morally decent, then don't choose an interpretation that is wildly implausible or that attributes to them views or aims that are indecent.

The Straw Man Fallacy might be seen as the polar opposite of the Principle of Charity. The Straw Man Fallacy involves attributing to someone a view or position that is at best a distortion of what they have said and at worst foists on them an easily-refuted or outrageous view they would never endorse but which bears enough superficial resemblance to what they actually said that you can get away with making the false attribution. In short, it's about attacking someone for some implausible or indecent view they don't hold and then acting as if you have successfully refuted what they said. 

Rather than a means of trying to engage with the substance of another's words, the Straw Man Fallacy is often a deflection tactic. Sometimes, the aim is to turn the conversation away from the actual ideas someone raised because you aren't sure you can refute them and you want to give the appearance of having won the debate--and since the distortion is easy to refute, you can create that appearance by attacking it. At other times, you use a Straw Man to deflect because the actual ideas the other person has expressed have merit...and if that is noticed it could be bad news for you.

It is no surprise at all that politicians routinely commit the Straw Man Fallacy and ignore the Principle of Charity. But am I right that DeSantis's response to the reporter is a case of this?

Consider. The reporter asked a question. It would be entirely reasonable to treat it not as a veiled act of casting blame or criticism, but as simply a question: Would a different policy have had better results for pediatric health in Florida than the policy DeSantis has been championing? Usually, there is no violation of the principle of charity when you treat something formulated as question as if it were an honest question. Had DeSantis engaged with this question, he might have given his reasons for thinking either that (a) a different policy wouldn't have had better results or (b) even though it might have had better public health outcomes, other considerations (perhaps the freedom of individuals to avoid the inconvenience of a bit of cloth on their faces) is more important that the survival of the state's children. 

Of course, if he tried to make either case (a) or (b) he'd be forced to engage with strong arguments to the contrary. Of the two, he comes out better if he defends (a)--but in that case, he'd invite experts around the country to marshal arguments and evidence that strongly challenge the truth of (a).

Another interpretation of the reporter's question falls within the scope of plausibility and might be seen as allowed by the principle of charity, namely the interpretation I posited above: the reporter's question was a veiled criticism of the governor. The reporter was, in the form of a question, really saying that those critically ill children would have been less likely to have ended up in the ICU if DeSantis had championed a different public policy response to the COVID crisis in his state, perhaps one that included a mask mandate in indoor public spaces.

Had DeSantis interpreted the reporter's question in this way, if he didn't want to accept blame for making an unwise public health choice he could either (again) defend the wisdom of his favored public policy by defending (a) or (b)--or to concede that a mask mandate would have had better outcomes for the state but maintain that he can't reasonably be held blameworthy for choosing an alternative course, perhaps because of unavoidable ignorance or something to that effect. In states where mask mandates were lifted before the delta variant surge, I could imagine a public leader offering such a response: "We sincerely believed that vaccinations had brought the virus sufficiently under control that masking was no longer doing enough good to justify the intrusion into personal choice and public convenience." 

But DeSantis's broader policy choices and leadership decisions could render such a move implausible, forcing him to defend (a) or (b). And if he didn't think he had a sufficiently compelling case for either (a) or (b), he might therefore have chosen to deflect with a Straw Man--not because that serves the truth or the public good, but because that serves his own ego and political prospects.

Is that what he did? The answer depends on how plausible it is to take the reporter as, in effect, saying, "The children who are in the ICU are to blame for their own condition, because they failed to wear masks." Is this a plausible reading of the reporter's question about whether a mask mandate would have spared those kids? Or, if not that, is it an implication of what the reporter was asking, even if he may not have noticed that implication?

Clearly it is neither. Here are some things to keep in mind, things that DeSantis surely knows:

1. Children in public spaces are more protected by the widespread mask-wearing of those around them than they are by their own mask-wearing. Such widespread mask-wearing is more likely to happen when there is a mask mandate. Hence, a widespread mask mandate could reduce the incidence of pediatric COVID independent of the mask-wearing habits of the children themselves. 

2. Since younger children, being immature and lacking adult self-control, will predictably fall short in diligent mask-wearing, it falls on the broader society to protect those kids from their understandable failures through adult diligence. In other words, a society that knows kids will be safer if either the kids wear masks diligently or the adult population wears masks diligently, and which knows that kids being kids will fall short in wearing masks diligently, has reason to buckle down and diligently wear masks for the safety of those kids. So, a mask-mandate could help protect children from their own immaturity by driving home with the force of law the importance of adult diligence in protecting children through adult mask-wearing. And the evidence shows that, in fact, mask-wearing among adults is more diligent and widespread when there are legal mandates. So, again, a mandate could reduce risk to children regardless of what the children do--and, in fact, may be wise precisely because we cannot expect young children to diligently wear masks. 

3. Kids cannot be expected to wear masks at home, and so they are vulnerable to being infected by family members who bring the virus home. But mask mandates reduce the rate of virus spread within a community, such that it is less likely that a family member will bring the virus home, exposing the child, in a community with a mask mandate than in a community without one. Again, for this reason a mask mandate protects children regardless of the mask-wearing habits of the children themselves.

In short, a mask mandate is the sort of thing that can reasonably be expected to protect children from the spread of COVID, reducing their risk of getting it and being hospitalized, regardless of whether the children themselves consistently wear masks. Not only has DeSantis surely been presented with this information, but so has the reporter. It is, after all, widely disseminated public knowledge, at least among those of us who have been following the research on masking and COVID. 

As such, it is almost certainly this information that motivated the reporter's question. If the reporter were making an accusation (not merely asking a question) it is therefore highly unreasonable to suppose that the reporter were accusing the sick *children* of failing to mask up. It is much, much more plausible to treat the reporting as accusing state leaders (and DeSantis specifically) of failing to make a public policy decision pertaining to mask use that would have predictably reduced the risk to those children.

DeSantis surely knew that the reporter was not blaming children for being sick. He surely knew that there is a difference between talking about masking policies and individual mask use. The reporter specifically referenced the former. And when you are focusing on policies, it is primarily political leaders who are responsible for whether those policies are implemented or not--not sick kids who might have not gotten sick had the policies been different. 

So, DeSantis was guilty of committing the Straw Man Fallacy and ignoring the principle of charity. And if you ask me, he probably did it on purpose as a deflection tactic, because he was not ready to defend himself against the charge that he'd made and was continuing to make a bad public health policy decision at a time of unprecedented risk to public health. 

There are likely many who see those children in Florida ICU's are a vivid symbol of DeSantis's blundering of this public health crisis. He likely knows this. So when the reporter called attention to this symbol of public health incompetence, out of fear of the political ramifications he accuses the reporter of blaming innocent children for their own illness--even though that is not what the reporter did. 

I sure hope that most people see through this move and continue to push for substantive discussion of public policy questions, and continue to ask whether state leaders who have been resisting mask mandates should rethink their positions as the delta variant surges in states like Florida (and my own state of Oklahoma). Let's demand actual engagement with these questions and not fall for Straw Man deflections.

Socialism, Capitalism, and Talking Past One Another

I've been seeing a lot social media posts recently about socialism. Often, they take the following form: "How can anyone today seriously think socialism is a good idea? Are they too young to remember the Soviet Union and its collapse? And too out-of-touch to have followed the news about Venezuela?" 

The problem, more often than not, is that the advocates of socialism and the critics of socialism are talking about different things--using the  term "socialism" in different ways. They are talking past each other. And it seems to me quite possible that if they understood what the other was saying, they might actually agree with each other. Or at least be able to have a productive dialogue about their real points of disagreement.

I also think that there are forces at work in our society that are committed to stopping such mutual understanding and dialogue from happening, because they benefit from polarization--whether it comes from miscommunication or from substantive dissent.

So this is a short post aimed at, hopefully, countering some of those forces of polarization by clarifying concepts. 

Strictly speaking, "capitalism" refers to a system in which the means of production are privately owned and the goods produced are made available in free markets to those who can afford to buy them. "Socialism" refers to a system in which the means of production are publicly owned and the goods produced are distributed to the public in accord with existing laws (created in whatever way the political system creates laws).

Most actual economies are a mix of these things. In the US most goods and services are privately produced and sold at market. But K-12 education, fire and police departments, the military, infrastructure such as roads, etc., follow a socialist model.

In such countries, it is perhaps better to speak of certain areas of the economy being capitalist or socialist than to speak of the country as socialist or capitalist. So we can say that in the US, the beer industry is capitalist and the military is socialist. But we usually don't. We usually talk about countries being socialist or capitalist.

So when is a country "socialist"? Here we see a diversity of uses.

Countries like the former USSR, which attempted to follow Marx's communist philosophy but got stuck in dictatorship, have been called "socialist".

Democratic countries like Norway with mixed economies are sometimes called "socialist" when their mix has more areas of public ownership than in the US.

The Nazis, during their rise to power, were competing with Marxist-communist groups for the support of disaffected working class Germans and so put "socialist" in the name of their party and adopted a few token socialist proposals as a rhetorical ploy to win support. Because of this self-labeling, some people want to call Nazi Germany socialist.

But the USSR, Norway, and Nazi Germany are all very different from each other. If someone says they'd like to see the US become like Norway (at least in certain ways), it would be a mistake to take this to mean they want the US to become like the USSR or Nazi Germany.

And if someone is talking about socialism in the sense of a country like Norway (as many younger generation Americans do), it would be a mistake to interpret them as talking about socialism in the sense of a country like the USSR (which is the sense that may older generation Americans appear to have).

Many of the criticisms that are right on target when one is talking about the USSR will miss the mark if one is talking about Norway. And so we can easily get a situation where one person is advocating socialism in the sense of "a country like Norway, with more socialized elements than the US but also with privately-owned businesses, free markets, representative democracy, etc." And someone else, hearing the term "socialism," imagines the USSR, with a command system and five-year plans and a dictatorial regime. The ensuing argument goes nowhere because the parties to the dispute are talking about different things.

Put simply, the term "socialism" has come to be used in different ways. Make sure, therefore, that when this term comes up in conversations about public policy, everyone is clear about how the term is being used. There are those who will try to prevent such clarity and mutual understanding because it serves their interests for people to be (metaphorically or literally) shouting uselessly at each other rather than having productive conversations.

For what it's worth, my own view is that the real disagreement in our society--and as such the real conversation we should be having--is about what mix of capitalist and socialist elements is the optimal one at this particular time and place (and I do believe that the optimal mix changes from time to time and place to place based on social and environmental conditions). The US is a mixed economy, like Norway. The Norwegian mix is probably not the best mix for the US today--but is there a mix that is better than the mix we have now? That is the conversation we need to be having, and it is a conversation that is derailed by those who encourage us not to understand what other people mean.

Resist them by asking clarifying questions. Here's one to try: "When you use the term 'socialism,' what do you mean?"