Negative utilitarianism in coronavirus times

@wwaycorrigan
[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.] 

Only the very naïve believe that we live in a free world. Where you have a conflict of human interests, the concept of true individual freedom is unattainable.

Lockdown life: Do such measures cause more harm than good?

Delicate balance

My doing whatever I want has the potential to negatively impact somebody else. It's why, as an interconnected species in pursuit of both personal and collective goals — or happiness if you will — we have rules and regulations in place to act as checks and balances on individual and communal wants.

It could be thought of as a sort of negative utilitarianism: aiming to inflict the least harm on the greatest number of people.

In an imperfect, unfair world, it's perhaps the best we can aspire to. The perpetual problem inherent within it, for "freer" societies in any case, is finding that balance between allowing individuals to go about their business with as little interference as possible and protecting others' rights, as well as the environment we share.

Of course, at times one's personal goals merge nicely with the collective good. Everyone's a winner, to a certain extent.

When this isn't so, an arbiter, normally the state in its various forms, is needed to decide how much give and take is allowed in a particular situation.

'If the vaccine is not a success, we're going to have to seriously reappraise the damaging containment measures we've implemented.'

Thus, said arbiter must hold the respect of the parties in dispute in any given conflict. If this is lacking, the carrot-and-stick approach can bring the warring factions onside, provided there is a genuine effort to engage as fairly as possible by the arbiter.

If one or all of the disputing sides feel this fairness is absent, if favouritism or a lack of sincerity is perceived, then we have quite the tricky situation.

The wrong way?

This is a constant challenge for our leaders and decision-makers. We've seen it very much at play in dealing with the coronavirus where there is a not-insignificant minority, this writer included (see also my interview with the renowned British author and journalist, Peter Hitchens) who question the efficacy of the various measures introduced in a bid to contain the virus.

Not only are we sceptical that they actually work, but we also highlight the consequences they are having and could have for years to come across society. Coming back to our negative utilitarianism, we are potentially inflicting great harm on a great number. It needn't be this way.

Alas, this perspective is given scant serious thought as the majority stance of doing all we can to stop this coronavirus dominates the discourse.

Perhaps the majority will be proven right — history will be the judge of that.

For now, we must hope that the vaccine is a success for those who most need protection. (I personally won't be rushing to get jabbed and I don't think it should be compulsory — more on that another day.)

If it's not a success, we're going to have to seriously reappraise the containment measures we've implemented. This is because asking people to stop living in a bid to, potentially, save some lives is not a strategy that can go on indefinitely.
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Coronavirus' auxiliary killers

'For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.' Most of us have heard that statement before, Isaac Newton's third law of motion as it is. It has, of course, significance in our daily lives. That is to say, every decision we take has additional consequences, with these often being quite removed from the focus of the original action.

Stay-at-home orders: Doing more harm than good? (Image from Facebook.)

In the aftermath of the rather panicked, dithering response (eh, thanks China and the WHO for properly forewarning us, not) from many countries to our current pandemic, it is now quite clear that those making the decisions did so, ultimately, with just one goal in mind: 'Stop coronavirus at all costs.' Scant consideration appears to have been given to the knock-on effects of the extraordinary measures introduced.

Once the mantra flipped from 'it's just like the common flu' to 'this is a dangerous and deadly pandemic' (the flu is deadly as well, of course), all efforts were put into defeating it — for the most part, at least.

The early projections of a shocking global death toll — in the millions — convinced governments of the unquestionable necessity of widespread lockdowns and stay-at-home orders.

'As long as a majority believes that coronavirus must be stopped "at all costs" we will persist with measures that are deadlier than the very agent of destruction they're meant to defeat.'

Dissenting voices as to the efficacy of such measures and their unintended consequences were, indeed continue to be, largely discarded. Leaders were looking at those mortality projections if a light approach was taken and no doubt saw in them figures that would also kill their careers.

Be that as it may, while modelling and projections are helpful at the start, they are at root theoretical. They don't reflect the reality on the ground and they tend to treat society as a homogeneous unit. You can't beat real data and we now have a fair amount about coronavirus.

All lives matter

These data, as Dr Scott Atlas — Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and a member of the institution's Working Group on Health Care Policy — and a number of other equally qualified experts point out, show how shockingly (the word some commentators like to use hysterically in reference to the coronavirus death toll and cases) wrong those projections were.

Moreover, again highlighted by Dr Atlas, the lockdown measures, so data suggest, are responsible for a far greater loss of 'life years' than Covid-19. That is to say, government-imposed restrictions are leading/will lead to more deaths than those linked to the virus. The damage has already been done.

As Atlas explains in his Hoover Institution Uncommon Knowledge interview, the numbers show a significant loss of said life years due to unemployment and a general lack of economic activity, together with delayed or foregone healthcare. That's just a synopsis of the issues at play, in the interview he goes into much greater detail.

I touched on this in previous posts, more from the perspective of what I imagined to be the unintended consequences of lockdown measures. Atlas's analysis spells it out more alarmingly.

Of course, talking about lives that will be lost in the future due to our actions today versus lives being lost right now, the latter will always dominate our attention. It must be said there are other preventable-for-a-time deaths occurring simultaneously with those linked to Covid-19, but it's the newness of coronavirus that ensures it dominates the discourse.

It's similar to the outpouring of emotion and willingness to help when people die due to a natural disaster or plane crash compared to a general lack of interest in the millions who die each year from a slow burner such as starvation.

What's more, it is understandable and somewhat forgivable that politicians, when shown worse-case scenarios relayed to a frightened public via sensationalised media reporting, want to show that they're doing all they can to ensure no untimely deaths happen on their watch. (Advisers and the media have a lot to answer for here.)

'The coronavirus-containment strategies that many countries have adopted are the complete opposite of utilitarianism.'

The thing is, as already highlighted, this is tunnel vision in the extreme. However, as long as the vast majority of the public believes that coronavirus must be stopped 'at all costs' we will persist with measures that are indeed deadlier than the very agent of destruction they're meant to defeat.

The coronavirus-containment strategies that many countries have adopted are pretty much the opposite of utilitarianism. We're inflicting greater harm on a greater number. It's one reason why the eminent historian Niall Ferguson sarcastically suggested that future historians will view Covid-19 as a mental illness rather than a virus-transmitted infection.

As Ferguson et al. have pointed out on umpteen occasions, there are smarter ways to tackle this pandemic. From a Colombian perspective, I don't buy it that the country can't implement them.

Yet, the many who appear to believe that coronavirus is the worst thing in the world, ever, tend to view those of us who suggest otherwise as, at best, heartless, selfish individuals, at worst some sort of neo-Nazis. (I'm curious to see the reaction of such types when we're faced with a virus that kills indiscriminately and in huge numbers. I take it mass suicides will be the suggestion.)

Time to broaden that range of vision, folks. Think about the fallout from the actions you blindly endorse and wipe that blood from your own hands before you start pointing accusatory fingers.
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Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

A world in disunion

Those idealistic at heart may have thought that in a world connected as never before, the arrival of a common enemy of humankind would unite us as never before.

You know, like in the Independence Day movie when the aliens attack, we rally together, led, of course, by the USA, to smash those pesky extraterrestrials.

The new normal: Maintaining our distance, on a micro and macro level.

The real-life "enemy" we currently face, covid-19, isn't actually a living thing by most definitions but it attacks indiscriminately, albeit it's far more lethal on certain members of society than others.

Nonetheless, the collateral damage it is causing us, pretty much all of which is self-inflicted in a bid to check the virus' spread, is resulting in widespread harm across the globe. So if ever we should work together as a species, it would appear now is the time.

Self-isolating Uncle Sam

What is actually happening, though, is more of a retreat into our tribe.

OK, some of this is down to what are seen as necessary "wartime" measures. The free movement of people will only spread the virus and as the majority of our decision-makers are unwilling to contemplate herd immunity — there are experts who believe it to be the quickest way to defeat our fiend — it was inevitable that old borders would be re-erected, both between countries and inside national territories.

The question is, will we smoothly return to the kind of free movement we had before? If we do, it's sure to take some time. 

'The immediate fallout from this pandemic will be a facemask-wearing population in a more divided world.'

Other current manifestations of this inward retreat were obvious before coronavirus reared its crowned head.

The United States of America, for example, the country that Hollywood has been telling us for decades will lead us to salvation in the event of an existential threat, has been anything but united of late. Its internal divisions appear to have only deepened during this crisis.

What's more, and unsurprisingly considering what President Donald J. Trump has been telling us ever since he announced his attention to run for the White House, it's very much America first. Global leadership isn't a priority.

It is, to state the obvious, the USA's prerogative to pursue this course of action. I, for one, have no qualms in this regard. The problem is, its leaders don't always stick to it.

Chitaly

Then there's the European "Union". The Italians, not for the first time, have decried the lack of solidarity from EU member states. It would seem they have fair grounds for complaint. Of course, in recent years they've been getting quite cosy with the Chinese (we're terming this courting Chitaly), much to the chagrin of Europe's powerhouses France and Germany.

Speaking of the Chinese, from the outside (trying) to look in, it's a case of following the accepted script. Are they deliberately pursuing a divide-and-conquer strategy? Or are we overestimating them?

Regardless, considering this coronavirus emerged from within its territory together with the general mistrust of the information emanating from there, the suspicion with which China and many of its citizens are viewed by some in the West is only going to deepen.

Thus, the immediate fallout from this pandemic looks set to be a facemask-wearing population in a more divided world coupled with greater state control and curtailment of previous "freedoms" we once enjoyed.

Government-controlled utilitarianism one could call it. We'll be told what the greatest good for the greatest number is. Exciting times lie in store.
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Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".