Blog prompt 20:
- Which approach to values do you find most convincing and why?
- How is social distancing altruistic according to Appiah (The Ethicist)? What is the point of his “driving with your eyes closed” analogy? What is J.S. Mill’s harm principle? Do you agree with Appiah’s conclusion?
The Common Good Approach is the most convincing to me because it’s very important to take everyone’s health into consideration. Although a healthy economy is good for our society, there is no point in saving our economy if the people that help and run it are getting sick. Contracting this disease doesn’t mean automatic death but it may lead to long term effects. If people continue to transmit this virus, living would be much harder. Having a society full of sick people does nothing good for the country.As stated in the article, “With a tremendous loss of life, we may not have a society at all.” What common good is happening if we don’t protect the people. The people are the ones that help countries run and work.
The reason social distancing is altruistic to Appiah is because it may protect not only Appiah but others as well. “Although I’m at a low (but not nonexistent) risk of falling seriously ill from the coronavirus, I don’t want to make more vulnerable members of the population sick, contribute to the spread of this virus or use up valuable health care resources.” Protecting oneself is very essential and valuable in times like these. Staying healthy is important because you reduce the amount of people who have the virus. Being safe and keeping everyone else safe is the most selfless act anyone can do at this point.
Appiah claims that if one person closed their eyes for 10 seconds on a highway and all other drivers were aware then there wouldn’t be much of a problem. Then he claims that if everyone did it for 10 seconds, there would be a great issue. He uses this analogy simply to demonstrate how this virus may transfer. When one has this virus and is aware, they can prevent anything bad from happening. If one didn’t know they had it and continue to interact with others, they are putting everyone at risk and transmitting this virus more. Even if someone didn’t have it, interacting with those who could potentially have it or interacting with others is still dangerous.
It seems as if Appiah really endorses John Stuart Mill’s “harmful principle”. “As John Stuart Mill’s ‘harm principle’ tells us, autonomy reaches its limits when an action is a threat to others.” I agree with Mill’s. No one should ever put others in harm’s way intentionally or unintentionally. In this case, The neighbor shouldn’t have her boyfriend over and if he would come over then he should move in with her. That way there would be less interaction from the outer world and a smaller chance of catching something, that is if they don’t already have something.
Kermen's Blog 
I agree, I feel like the most logical approach would have to include prioritizing the health of the public, since it wouldn’t be a society without our people in it. Besides, the economy will eventually go back to normal anyway. And yeah honestly, the roommate is being too selfish at this point, by not being considerate for her roommate’s well being.
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I think the fact that this woman’s roommate didn’t take any of those options is ridiculous lol. The ignorance one must have to do something like that and openly refuse any compromise is pretty mind-blowing. So yeah, Appiah did something with that one. I appreciate your opinion on the matter.
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I like when you mentioned without health people there is no society and no healthy economy because if people are sick the economy will be not so good as well. Another thing that caught my attention was how we should be worried about people who may die and people who can get long term effects from the virus because people ignore the fact that it can’t happen to them or a family member so they just ignore the problem. What we all have to do in order to contribute to ending this spread is to put yourself in a position as if yourself or be of your family members had the virus.
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I completely agree with what you said. I liked how you talked about the highway reference, it also caught my eye when I read it because it is absolutely true. As you said the amount of people on the highway doesn’t change too much, what does change is the actions of the people and if they all closed their eyes it would be catastrophic. It would definitely increase the amount of accidents that happen. Much like that of the virus, this is why i thought it was a great reference, and you did an excellent job showing that.
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