Question: Is the deontological or consequentialist lens the correct one to view the Covid-19 mitigation efforts imposed on us by various governments and institutions?

The consequentialist view would approach the question from the point of view of the effectiveness of imposing mitigation measures in accomplishing their stated goals vs the costs imposed by the measures.

The deontological view would approach the question from the point of view of whether the imposition by the state of coercive measures is the right thing to do regardless of any potential benefit from their imposition.

Most of the objections to imposed Covid-19 mitigation efforts have come from the consequentialist (utilitarian) side: The measures dictated by the state were ineffective in preventing Covid-19, Covid-19 was not nearly dangerous enough to justify them, and they simultaneously imposed significant costs a individuals (and thereby the broader society).

On this, the data are firmly on the consequentialist side and have been from the beginning; the data NEVER supported the response.

  • Covid-19 mortality rates were known from the beginning to be highly age stratified and low to very low for most age groups. We had the petri dish of the Diamond Princess cruise ship to demonstrate that very early on. Even in Italy, used in the nightly news to frighten people, the impacts were largely restricted to 1 or 2 hospitals in the northern regions with large elderly populations – and note that the Italian minister who drove the lockdowns there admitted recently that he was driven by an admiration of the CCPs authority and a desire to see something similar in the west and less by an effort to mitigate the impact of Covid. The critical importance of co-morbidities (obesity, vitamin-d deficiency, etc) in predicting death came later, but were still very evident very early.
  • There was never a danger of overwhelming hospital systems (two weeks to flatten the curve) except in very limited areas; excess capacity built out quickly was never used. So the original justification for lockdowns had no basis. Lockdowns had never been recommended in the past, nor was there any studies/demonstrations of their efficacy in the real world. GIGO models DO NOT COUNT!
  • Use of surgical masks (and N-95) have never demonstrated efficacy in preventing viral transmission. Every study in the previous 4 decades demonstrated that. Let’s not even discuss the stupidity of putting the equivalent of a t-shirt over your mouth and nose or just your mouth. Every careful study since has confirmed what we already knew.
  • Maintaining a 6-foot spacing – social distancing – was completely made up. Absolutely no data-driven basis.
  • Later, with the vaccine mandates, a careful look at the original studies would show that even the claimed effectiveness was small (cast as relative to exaggerate efficacy). A bit deeper look at methodology would make it clear that the pretty close to entirety of the apparent effectiveness could be attributed to study design – see main page image and read the article. There was no data to support mandates at the time; Of course it is now apparent that the people pushing the mandates knew the vaccines were not effective in preventing transmission. But even without being aware of the deception, the available data at the time, if one went even slightly beyond the press-releases, did not justify most people taking the vaccines, let alone a coercive mandate.

The consequentialist arguments are very strong – I’ve made them all myself at various times and in various circumstances – there is no utilitarian argument to justify any of the imposed Covid-19 ‘mitigations’. But I am very nervous about a purely data driven argument against the Covid regime.

So what is the problem with the consequentialist argument?

For one, you cannot use facts and data to argue someone out of a position they have not arrived at using facts and data. I’ve re learned that in the Covid-19 era.

Perhaps more importantly, what happens with a virus that is dangerous enough to perhaps justify extreme measures? One could still make the consequentialist argument that most of the measures described above do not work and hence would not be justified ever. However, if you have no deontological basis to object to the state imposing restrictions on you, if the data are against you, you have limited recourse. You’ve accepted the principle that the government can impose whatever it wants on you if can be justified on a cost-benefit analysis and that incentivizes the development of the worst types of government agencies and structure.

As an example, Assem Malhotra, a British heart doctor who started out a believer in mitigation and vaccines, changed his mind. However, he came at it from a purely consequentialist point of view. This came up in a recent interview with him, he was asked why Australia imposed such draconian restrictions. His response was that they’d had a history of very successful interventions, of which he spoke approvingly – very early seat belt laws, very stringent tobacco restrictions and taxes. He supports very strongly soda taxes, sugar taxes and restrictions, even more stringent tobacco restrictions. This is the essence of the consequentialist view: if one is convinced an intervention is good for you, the state is justified in imposing it (set aside for the moment who decides what is good for you). He is/was good on Covid-19, but it’s illusory – as a consequentialist, the Covid-19 interventions were not useful so it was wrong to impose them. If he were convinced they were, I suspect he’d be at the front of the line forcing you, nevermind the incentive in place for bad actors to fudge data/lie to use the conseqeuntialist paradigm to enact policies they know are unrelated to the stated goals – see the Italian dude and lockdowns above.  That’s the danger of a purely consequentialist view unsupported by a deontological substrate.

Brett Weinstien got closer I think; he encapsulated the consequentialist viewpoint when he said ‘not this virus, not these leaders’ with respect to whether mandates were justified; the implication is that in a different situation, the measures would be justified. However, he followed it up with a statement to the effect of ‘I’m not sure there is a virus or set of leaders that could justify it in practice.’ (not exact quote, but the essence).

Whether that last is a stronger statement of the consequentialist argument – the consequences of allowing this sort of power to any leader are dire enough that we cannot justify them – or deontological I haven’t sorted out. Maybe it’s a recognition that the deontological is simply the mathematical limit of consequentialism: we have a set of deontological principles, in the religious and philosophical realms, that derive from 10s of thousands of years of observing the end points of consequentialism.

Leviathan