Moral relativism regarding Covid

[Notanotherteenmovie1]

Just been thinking about this. The whole blame culture around Covid, that it's 'selfish idiots' who get it.
That we must 'do our bit', 'for the greater good' and "protect the NHS".

So people saying this, do you also :

Not drink or smoke anything?
Never drive a car which will put you at risk of an accident?
No junk food?

Or, do you give money to charity to save people dying of malaria or cancer for example?
Do charity work?

Not drink or smoke anything?
YES
Never drive a car which will put you at risk of an accident?
YES
No junk food?
YES

Or, do you give money to charity to save people dying of malaria or cancer for example?
YES
Do charity work?
AND YES

Your point?

Well for balance you should add to the list some of the other things that put pressure on the NHS:

Eat unhealthy food
Miss a day's exercise
Have children
Engage in sports or other activities that might result in injury
Intend on growing old....

Etc. etc. etc.

What a load of old bollocks.

This isn't about never putting strain on the NHS, this is about not kicking it when it's bleeding out in the gutter.

Life isn't black and white.

Not sure your examples are in any way comparable.

Moral relativism is an interesting point when it comes to covid but I look at different examples.

It’s selfish not to forego seeing family for months on end because of protecting the vulnerable apparently.

Yet vulnerable communities around the world are suffering horribly because of climate change, driven in no small part by the carbon footprints of those of us in the west. But will these people who preach about the vulnerable make changes to their lifestyle, far less intrusive than the covid restrictions, to reduce their carbon footprint?

That’s one example, there are many more eg buying from unethical companies etc

The vulnerable only seem to matter when it’s those in the West.

Not everyone thinks people who contract covid are to blame for their own misfortune - I certainly don’t. It’s a virus - it spreads.

That illustrates the problem imho. People deciding that they know exactly what motivates anyone, usually people whose stance they disagree with. It’s a complete lack of awareness.

OP, you don’t need to worry about moral relativism on this because your instructions are set out in law. It is black and white.

None of those things are contagious......

@AnImposter

None of those things are contagious......

I’m not sure that matters, because the principle of making sacrifices for the benefit of others still applies in the OP’s example of driving a car, both in terms of injuring someone else in an accident, and in terms of tens of thousands of deaths per year from air pollution.

Your examples are of people exposing themselves to greater personal risk within the bounds of normal socially acceptable behaviour outside of catastrophic global pandemic.

That doesn’t compare to people behaving in ways that put other people at risk in the context of a catastrophic global pandemic.

Complete false equivalence.

@Fridget

The vulnerable only seem to matter when it’s those we know in the West.

Corrected your sentence for you.

It's amazing how many people also thought that benefit levels were too high, a disincentive towards working, and only claimed by scroungers - until they found that they couldn't actually live on furlough levels, never mind benefits. Or that children in the UK didn't really face poverty and two carrots is enough replacement for a free school meal when that is possibly the only meal that child gets.

Social blindness starts at home - if you can't see what is under your nose, then why should you care what some company in Bangladesh does?

That doesn’t compare to people behaving in ways that put other people at risk in the context of a catastrophic global pandemic

The car driving one is very similar, the difference you make not driving is almost nil, the overall impact is such that millions die. It's much the same with spreading a virus, indeed from a strict perspective you're actually better off contracting the virus and isolating thus preventing spread entirely than you are from continuing to drive.

The problem with blame is that people rightly think "poor pensioner contracting covid and dieing, but they had to go out, we couldn't lock them away", but don't think "poor teenager contracting covid and being perfectly fine, but they had to go out, we couldn't lock them away" That's the equivalence problem.

And yes, there's a whole hypocritical aspect with everything else that harms others that so many of the over 50's and vulnerable have historically done, but that's entirely distinct to how people talk about blame in respect to covid specifically.

there's a whole hypocritical aspect with everything else that harms others that so many of the over 50's and vulnerable have historically done

Wow, top marks for managing to get an unwarranted swipe at older and vulnerable people again. Only the over 50's and the vulnerable ever do hypocritical things, of course.

Interesting use of the term Moral relativism. That aside. I smoke, sometimes drink, often drive a car, very rarely eat junk, but then I do not accept this meme "protect the NHS"

When I think about Covid and about the risks to self and others I think about protecting life and health. Ok, so that can't be achieved if the NHS is collapsed under the weight of so many admissions. But first and foremost I think if we follow the rules less people are infected. Less people are infected, less people will be admitted, less people will die. So, the NHS is protected, but only because the emphasis is firstly on prevention of infection. If we worked backwards and said "protect the NHS" we could quite literally close the doors to all Covid admissions, because protecting life is secondary to protecting the NHS, even if people literally died in the car park of their nearest acute hospital. And that of course would be moral, because we were saving the NHS.

Only the over 50's and the vulnerable ever do hypocritical things, of course

Of course not, but in situations where we're specifically discussing what such people are saying discussing other people is an irrelevant strawman.

I don't blame people for getting covid or think people are selfish idiots for going to the range. They are selfish idiots for breaking if they break the rules though.

I would never drive if it was dangerous or break the law unless it was an emergency situation.

Yes to charity work.

Sorry forgot yes to protecting the nhs

I’ve been pondering the motives for posing the question you have OP. Is it despair that hypocrisy exists or is there a particular cause you feel has fallen to the wayside?

The framing of your questions suggests that unless a person practices a lifestyle completely devoid of risk of needing the NHS their opinion/feelings are invalid. It also suggests that if people care about something they can only expect to be taken seriously if they take every comparable issue just as seriously.

That’s actually a really damaging sentiment. Some people champion a cause passionately, some care about multiple issues with much less actual concern. Both are valid and valuable. Caring passionately about the concentration camps in China doesn’t mean there’s an unawareness or less concern about sweatshops or climate change.

Why and try make people feel bad about caring about something because they don’t care about everything? What’s the psychology on that?

I’ve been pondering the motives for posing the question you have OP

When people demand that you do something that harms yourself to protect them, but refuse to acknowledge let alone take steps that inconvenience themselves to protect you it is very hard mentally - your self esteem "Why do they say I don't matter?", threads like this are a response and an attempt to find out if the people don't realise, or if they really don't care.

I can understand the motive, but it will not get the answer they want, people are generally too selfish, and they do know they're asking you to make changes for them, that they wouldn't make for you.

I think this is a good point. What's been asked of some people ie losing a year or more's income or a business, is the equivalent of expecting the next person to hand over that sum to say an African children's charity to prevent childhood deaths from dirty drinking water (which probably kills at least as many children globally annually as covid). I don't imagine they'd be prepared to do that.
There was a generally resounding "good" when the foreign aid budget got cut.

So we're effictively being told we're to prioritise one thing over all else, regardless of personal cost, and that we're selfish cunts if we don't.

Both are valid and valuable

Therein lies the rub at present. The message is Only Covd Matters.

@sirfredfredgeorge, I haven’t seen any evidence that it’s not acknowledged that this is very hard although granted I haven’t seen everything on the internet/every news outlet etc. Everyone is being broadly asked to do the same things but it can never encompass everybody’s individual needs. This is a disaster scenario (a bloody long one) and it just can’t work on a personal level for everyone or even most people. Disasters mean suffering which is particularly awful for those who were already suffering before any of this.

I appreciate where you’re coming from @MaxNormal but I don’t think I can agree with you. If you don’t donate your salary to starving people then you don’t suffer any immediate personal consequence. If your personal finances have suffered during the pandemic then going out to work or calling for restrictions to be lifted puts you at risk of individual harm in a more immediate way than losing employment. Unfortunately the risks that you face impact the very system that we’re trying to stop collapsing so the repercussions are wider than just you. There’s no obligation to care but that’s why we have restrictions implemented at a higher level. If we were all left to fend for ourselves it would quickly become carnage.

Blimey the human race wouldn't have ever climbed a mountain, or crossed an ocean.

@MaxNormal

Both are valid and valuable

Therein lies the rub at present. The message is Only Covd Matters.

Is it? Or is it that covid has made things harder/ impossible so it needs dealing with so everything else doesn’t suffer any more than is absolutely necessary.

We could just let it do it’s thing but that certainly doesn’t guarantee everything else would be fine.