While it is interesting drawing a distinction between “risky” and “unsafe” on moral grounds, I don’t know anyone else who does the same, and most of the rest of the post felt like it entirely missed the point somewhere adjacent to that.
I do know some people who have a “zero COVID” viewpoint. Exactly zero of them hold the view you describe as “if you failed to take a precaution and ended up getting infected, then you are morally responsible for any negative effects that this caused”. Likewise the distinctions you draw seem to completely miss the point in most of the other categories, where I also personally know people who hold the corresponding views.
This doesn’t invalidate your post, but I thought it might be worth presenting counter-evidence, even if it is a very small sample. Perhaps it’s a cultural variation between wherever you live and where I live?
Perhaps moral blameworthiness is not the right phrasing. I think there is a mindset where the possibility of catching covid is unacceptable in a way which is qualitatively different than other risks. Does that match with your experiences?
I think you’re on-target both about covid and in general, about risk analysis vs. a safety heuristic. There are even degrees of this; even a motorcyclist who drove safely and practiced all reasonable safety precautions would be heckled by someone if they were to crash through no fault of their own, die, and leave behind their family behind. “What did they think would happen?” You could even say that the common victim-blaming tropes are reinforcing a norm that puts safety permanently out of reach, so that they are always “morally blameworthy” or in other words, responsible, for what’s happened.
I think the “qualitative difference” you’re describing is just the safety/risk dichotomy. Risk is irrelevant to safety, and safety is not a way of comparing risks.
There possibly is a moral dimension, but much more about risk of spreading it to others than about catching it. Individuals are responsible for limiting how likely they are to spread it on a moral dimension, but only responsible for avoiding catching it on the usual pragmatic dimension like riding a motorcycle.
Compare: “I went to a nightclub and caught COVID there” vs “I had a positive test but was feeling fine so I went to work anyway”. The former is more likely to be viewed as risky behaviour while the latter is more likely to be viewed as immoral behaviour.
Even then, this isn’t specific to zero-COVID at all in my experience. The distinction between various policies in the people I’ve talked to seems to be more about different models of disease, costs, and benefits over various timescales than anything moral at all.
While it is interesting drawing a distinction between “risky” and “unsafe” on moral grounds, I don’t know anyone else who does the same, and most of the rest of the post felt like it entirely missed the point somewhere adjacent to that.
I do know some people who have a “zero COVID” viewpoint. Exactly zero of them hold the view you describe as “if you failed to take a precaution and ended up getting infected, then you are morally responsible for any negative effects that this caused”. Likewise the distinctions you draw seem to completely miss the point in most of the other categories, where I also personally know people who hold the corresponding views.
This doesn’t invalidate your post, but I thought it might be worth presenting counter-evidence, even if it is a very small sample. Perhaps it’s a cultural variation between wherever you live and where I live?
Perhaps moral blameworthiness is not the right phrasing. I think there is a mindset where the possibility of catching covid is unacceptable in a way which is qualitatively different than other risks. Does that match with your experiences?
I think you’re on-target both about covid and in general, about risk analysis vs. a safety heuristic. There are even degrees of this; even a motorcyclist who drove safely and practiced all reasonable safety precautions would be heckled by someone if they were to crash through no fault of their own, die, and leave behind their family behind. “What did they think would happen?” You could even say that the common victim-blaming tropes are reinforcing a norm that puts safety permanently out of reach, so that they are always “morally blameworthy” or in other words, responsible, for what’s happened.
I think the “qualitative difference” you’re describing is just the safety/risk dichotomy. Risk is irrelevant to safety, and safety is not a way of comparing risks.
There possibly is a moral dimension, but much more about risk of spreading it to others than about catching it. Individuals are responsible for limiting how likely they are to spread it on a moral dimension, but only responsible for avoiding catching it on the usual pragmatic dimension like riding a motorcycle.
Compare: “I went to a nightclub and caught COVID there” vs “I had a positive test but was feeling fine so I went to work anyway”. The former is more likely to be viewed as risky behaviour while the latter is more likely to be viewed as immoral behaviour.
Even then, this isn’t specific to zero-COVID at all in my experience. The distinction between various policies in the people I’ve talked to seems to be more about different models of disease, costs, and benefits over various timescales than anything moral at all.