Outbreak Diary - Day 018

I'll be the first to tell you that morality is, by definition, subjective. A rock cannot be good or evil, because a rock is an object and has no will, it is amoral - and if a quality is reliant upon will and a thinking agent (a subject), it must be subjective. But, that doesn't change the fact that we can reach a general consensus, a kind of "agreed upon opinion" - this is essentially what people mean when they say common sense, they're referring to this vague, consensual group-opinion.
So, morality can seem objective, even though it isn't, because there are so few opponents of the group opinion, that they become "exceptions that prove the rule".

What the hell does this have to do with coronavirus? Well, a lot, as it turns out. Discussions of coronavirus talk about the curve - here in Australia we often talk about "flattening the curve". When people say that, they're referring to a graph representing the cases of coronavirus.
Now, it seems that the specific graph in question has changed, to "the curve of new cases of persons that are suffering from the virus", which has gone down. I blame journalists for changing the focus. Although the two tend to correlate, the graph for new cases changes more noticeably. It's harder to report on something slow and gradual and make it seem "immediate" and "exciting", so they switched to statistics that fluctuate more drastically. But, when we actually talk about the cumulative cases, we see exactly what people mean by "flattening the curve".

source: https://www.flattenthecurve.com/covid-19/

You have probably seen this online, or perhaps even on the news, as they talk about COVID-19. The idea is simple, that if we take measures to prevent the spread of this virus, then less people will become infected with the disease, but if we don't more people will be come infected. Therefore the curve in this graph becomes more flat.
Do you know what that sounds like to me? Because it has a familiar ring to it...
Have your heard of the Trolley Problem?

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

Also known as the Train Problem, in the scenario, you are a man standing at the fork of the tracks of a railed vehicle (i.e. a train, tram, trolley, etc), which is currently headed for five people (i.e. rail workers, a passenger car, a lost family, etc.) who for some reason (i.e. a tunnel, deafness, speed of the vehicle, etc.) will be hit and killed by the train. You have the ability to switch the tracks, to another line, however there is a single person (i.e. a rail worker, a fat man, a deaf wanderer) on this track. The problem is thus: Would you take action, knowing one person will die, if through inaction five people will die?

The actual purpose of this ethical question is to determine schools of moral thought, specifically Deontology and Utilitarianism. I won't go into great detail, and this is a little simplified, but generally deontology is reliant upon choice and motive, specifically the value of a subject's actions (i.e. the act itself is judged); whereas utilitarianism is more concerned with utility and benefit, specifically the result of a subject's actions (i.e. the consequences are judged).
The argument is simple, that premature death is not good, therefore the act of killing is categorically wrong (so the act itself has no moral value) therefore taking an act that results in a death is wrong - therefore, you must not switch the lever.
However, if premature death is immoral, then a result that leads to five premature deaths, as opposed to one, should be considered five-times worse (so a result of five deaths has less moral value than a result of one death) therefore taking no action that results in five deaths is wrong - therefore, you must switch the lever.

Now, let's look at Coronavirus, because moral philosophy can give you a stomach ache if you look at it too long...

We have a situation which is remarkably similar. This is a naturally-occuring virus, no one is the cause (not even a runaway train) and it will result in the random deaths of a great many people, if allowed to spread freely through the world's population. If we did nothing, then many people would die, but they would die because of something in nature - insurance companies and gullible people might call it an Act of God, but either way it is an act of nature, no one is to blame.
However, if we choose to act, we willingly put a great many people out of work and alter the freedoms everyone takes for granted, and we know that many people will die nonetheless, but we know for a fact that the resultant deaths will be a much greater deal less.

Now, I don't know if it is five times less. From what I've seen, it's probably a lot higher than that (and we're talking orders of magnitude), but this crisis isn't over yet, so we won't know the consequences until much later.
But, nonetheless, it seems to quite easily prove my point, that despite there being several schools of thought, Kantian ethics and the categorical imperative has been utterly pulverized by utilitarian thought. We're taking a deliberate, harmful action - which indirectly leads to a portion of people dying, and directly leads to financial, cultural & social hardship. Yet, not only have many people embraced it, but some governments have been criticized for not embracing it fully, properly, or quick enough.


There is one small snag in this comparison, however... and that is the switch. See, the switch in the trolley problem is binary (on or off). This is a hypothetical question, but even if you could attempt to hold the lever in the middle, no man's hands are strong enough to derail a train, tram or trolley, so the train will follow a path nonetheless.
But, with coronavirus, there is actually a spectrum of possibilities to choose from- the downside being that through our actions, we are effectively choosing how many people we would like to die, instead of all.
If we had taken no action, approximately 60% of people could become infected, approximately 4% of which will die (approx. 168,000,000 people [168 million]).

[Author's Note: These are generous estimates, as currently, 0.02% of the world is infected, 5.8% of which have died (approximately 88,500 recorded deaths, at time of writing).]

Now, I am no mathematician or statistician, so if someone has better numbers than me, let me know. But, based off of projected "peaks" for coronavirus cases, and assuming a decline in cases that reflects it, we're looking at...
Current best case scenario is, approximately 0.1% of people become infected, approximately 4% of which will die (approx. 280,000 people [280 thousand]).

So, our switch isn't binary, there's not two choices "do or do not". There are over 160 million potential outcomes. Through every action we take or do not take regarding the spread of this virus, we are making a choice of how many more people, than ~280,000 deaths will occur.
With that in mind, I hope all of you stay home for Easter... I'm not exactly a fan of dying, but 280,000 deaths is enough in my opinion. What do you think? The choice is yours.

I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and I have been hearing a lot of conspiracy theories regarding coronavirus lately, so I'm going to see what I can learn about these. Until Next Time, stay home, stay safe and enjoy your domestic Easter festivities.