PhiloMadrid - Pub Philosophy Meetings in Madrid
29 November 2020
PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 29th November: Pandemic – how responsible are we now?
26 November 2020
Pandemic – how responsible are we now?
How responsible are we for the progress of the Covid Pandemic?
Short: Pandemic – how responsible are we now?
Topic by Sara
Essay by Lawrence
After nine months of the Covid Pandemic we can go back to the subject not because things have changed but rather because things haven’t changed that much. Infections are still high, some countries more serious than others; travel is still limited and controlled; and economic activity is still scrapping the bottom.
From our perspective we have to be clear about what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for someone to be responsible? And what kind of responsibility? Do we mean strict responsibility? The kind of responsibility when people were sent to jail if they did not wear a mask during the 1918 Flu pandemic? Responsible by virtue that they are hold seats of power when this pandemic is taking place? How far should heads of governments be held responsible for the progress of the pandemic in their country? And responsible for inciting, encouraging or pushing false information that might encourage someone to harm themselves by taking their advice. I will start with medical environment.
On the medical front a number of vaccines are well down the pipeline, indeed, the “experts” talk about having a vaccine by Christmas and a large part of the population should be vaccinated by March/April. The issue is not whether the vaccines won’t work, they do if the development tests and toxicity tests being reported are in line with vaccine development protocol. Indeed one of the vaccines is already being investigated because a study group failed to follow the protocol.
Of course, the naysayers, who are against science and vaccines, are having a great time pushing their ignorance. And social media is giving these misguided people an undeserved platform to spread their ignorance and make them feel important. Look for example this article from the World Economic Forum, There's no vaccine for the infodemic - so how can we combat the virus of misinformation? ( https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/misinformation-infodemic-world-vs-virus-podcast/ ) that deals with what the WEF call an “infodemic”.
The more intelligent arguments from these miss-informants include arguments that these vaccines include such things as nanotechnology; as far as I know some of these Covid vaccines do include nano-technology to protect the active ingredients when the vaccine is frozen. These people try to give the impression that they know the science by inventing conclusions from hearsay. There is a good document on the WHO website about the subject of vaccines here:
How are vaccines developed? https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/covid-19-vaccines/how-are-vaccines-developed .
The issue is not whether we should or shouldn’t trust such modern technology such as a Covid 19 vaccine, and one that has been developed at break neck speed, but rather what should we look out for when looking at the risks of such technology. And there are many factors that should concern us. Transparency is one of them.
It is well known that flu vaccines and most vaccines are made by incubating them in eggs. Except some people are very allergic to eggs and, therefore, cannot be vaccinated with the flu vaccine. Did you know that? I knew that vaccines were incubated in eggs but never made the connection between how traditional vaccines are made with eggs and some people being allergic to eggs. Except eggs are not used for the Covid-19 vaccines nor are foetal cells.
My point is that some people are still responsible for spreading fake information that could endanger the lives of other. This is why these people qualify as mischief makers given that a few minutes consulting a search engine would show real issues we have to consider when preparing vaccines.
Even in the medical scenario there are many pitfalls experts may encounter in the day to day research activities. Hence because we know that vaccines work, our concern should not be whether vaccines work, but rather whether there are enough safety nets and redundant safety systems build in the research programme.
Some might object as usually happens that people are not qualified to discuss the medical problem. We mustn’t fall into the fallacy that unless we are pharmacists or virologists we cannot say anything about the subject, but even then we have to recognise our limits and our mistakes. On the subject of the Covid pandemic what matters are the facts and they are very limited. Feeling omnipotent about knowledge of the Covid pandemic could be very dangerous as demonstrated in the United States. Of course we expect qualifies scientists are involved in making that vaccine but as philosopher we are not interested in inventing a vaccine but in the thinking and methodology people use their expertise.
In the context of our question the “We” could be interpreted as a collective “we” and as an “individual” we: you and I; and not to mix up this with the Royal We. Many have put their trust on the principles of Herd Immunity especially politicians maybe because the words are easy to understand. And many still dare to push this idea of herd immunity. At this point it would be apt to refer to the 1918 Flu pandemic, but I think what is more relevant for herd immunity is the Black Death (Eureasia and parts of Africa 1346-1353: Wikipedia: Black Death).
It is estimated that between 75million-200million died during the Black Death. I would argue that this is more relevant for our argument because with so many people dying it took seven years to stop this episode of the plague. In later episodes of the Plague in London this affected the poor more because the rich left the capital. (see for example A history of herd immunity in The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31924-3 ). Many factors could have stopped the plague, but what we know is that it couldn’t seriously have been herd immunity. If herd immunity took seven years and some 75 million dead then surely it would be criminal to suggest such a strategy in the 21st century. But criminal not because so many people will die, but because intentionally acting so that many people will die.
What is clear though is that infection of the Plague happened in concentrations of mainly poor populations. So yes people who advocate herd immunity are indeed responsible for their actions and criminally responsible if any of these people were in a position of authority. Sure people in authority don’t want to create extreme anxiety and maybe panic the population but this does not justify implementing criminal policies. Proposing herd immunity as a policy to fight the virus is precisely to condemn people to die. Do you want to die because someone else thinks it’s a good idea?
At the individual meaning of “We” (what you see in the mirror) what the plague and similar pandemics and epidemics show is that being poor is a sufficient condition for being a candidate to be infected. Living amongst groups of people and unable to move to wider spaces then being poor is a sufficient condition to increase the risk of being infected.
The reason why I used the Plague episode in my herd immunity argument is because at the time people did not know about wearing masks, viruses and bacteria and anti-bodies and so on. It was a model where we could test the hypothesis that Herd Immunity is the tool to stop pandemics. What is important for us is whether herd immunity justifies six years of the epidemic and 75 million dead?
From the Plague period we see that Johann Mikulicz, head of surgery department Wroclaw, Poland in 1897, started using a type of medical mask: see A history of the medical mask and the rise of throwaway culture (The Lancet: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31207-1 ). By the time of the 1918 flu pandemic masks were mandatory and subject to imprisonment if not worn in public. Masks work, and therefore, it is the responsibility of the individual to wear a mask. But consider the idea that in 1918 people were jailed for not wearing a mask and today some governments have conflicting policies about mask wearing. Of course, both in 1918 and today, 2020, there were people who organised against mask wearing, but it is unacceptable that such movement should exist today.
Today we ought to be much smarter with technology and what’s more we have immediate access to reliable information about such things as wearing masks. The problem today is that many people do not understand the difference between having a right or a freedom and having a duty that emerge from these tights and freedoms. No legal system would give unfettered power to an individual to cause physical harm or death to someone else (not even the military).
Being uncomfortable wearing a mask during a pandemic is not a dictatorial imposition; it is people cooperating to protect each other. Wearing a mask is cooperating to protect others.
What is relevant for us is by not wearing a mask a case of breaking the classical idea of breaking the social contract. Where we give up some of our jungle liberties for the benefit of all of us? And ought governments who introduce what I called “criminal policies” that are in breach of this Social Contract be liable as individual or as a collective? It seems to me that the Social Contract theory was a good idea at the time but not robust enough in the real world.
What we know for sure is that the Covid-19 pandemic is not going to go away anytime soon. But our enemy is not the virus, but rather, on a good day, complacency.
Best Lawrence
telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.comBest and take care
20 November 2020
PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 22nd November: The ethics of space exploration
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19 November 2020
The ethics of space exploration
Topic by Cristina
The ethics of
space exploration by Lawrence
A few ethical issues were mentioned during the previous meeting on space exploration which I won’t mention in this is essay.
There are two issues with this question of ethics in space exploration. The first is: what to do with ethical problems that arise from exploring space for example should we spend the money on something else, occupying other planets, and space junk in our orbit.
The other issue is more philosophical in nature. Does space exploration lead to a new set of ethical principles that are not yet considered here on Earth? Or, maybe principles that won’t be possible to experience here on Earth. This scenario mainly assumes space exploration by humans or types of explorations that involves human intervention, for example robot exporation.
At the most extreme cases, how should explorers deal with the situation if they come across biological forms of life on some planet or even rock structures? I specifically say biological for the purpose of common life form with, but of course I am not necessarily thinking of human forms or even animal forms or any biological form. The chances are that we might encounter microscopic and insect size forms of life. In the past and still do, we answered this question by activating racism as an answer. We can kill them and harm them because they are not us. And would it matter if explorers come across larger beings?
A few possible dilemmas would be: should the explorers try to eliminate these creatures irrespective of their intentional frame of being? A sort of shoot first and ask questions later strategy. The chances, however, are that an exploration expedition might have the means to identify these creatures, the micro organisms, but not necessarily to deal with them or the harm they might cause.
We are all familiar with the landing on the moon and the subsequent quarantine of the astronauts when they returned back on Earth. The fact that nothing happened to the astronauts on their way back could have been an indication that there was nothing to be afraid of. Of course we know this after the fact, but what could we have done if they did bring back a nasty micro organism from the moon? In reality only a few people can answer this question and they are not telling us: as the aphorism tells us Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
But moving onto planets might be a different matter especially with long range explorations. Mars is already an active file for long range exploration. One idea was to send out a crew of astronauts only one way to the planet. The volunteers will have to remain on Mars till they passed away. There is no question that even today on Earth this would be immoral. Such an irregular context would only be considered in real life emergencies (e.g. nuclear accidents) or war conditions (destroy the enemy in their ports). Clearly if we don’t have the technology to bring people back then we don’t have the means to do deep space exploration. Why should the ethical and moral rules for exploring Mars be different from exploring the Moon?
But consider the case when humans have to evacuate the Earth and groups of people can be put on life supporting spaceship systems, but they cannot come back to Earth. Would they or their descendents have to develop a new set of ethics to fit their experience and situation? I am neutral whether such an ethical system would allow practices that we now consider unethical or the other way round maybe for these people what we allow to happen would be taboo for them. My concern is how strong can ethical systems develop and evolve. Compare the difference between the expeditions by Christopher Columbus and deep sea diving today with safety being the top most concern.
A valid situation for deep space explorers would be to adopt an ethical system based on the scientific method rather than on conjectured dogman. Maybe established behaviours on the lines of having some sub principles that may even go against established ethics. An example might even be our meeting guidelines of not talking about Spanish politics and religion these fifteen years. Such sub principles go against the form and spirit of open philosophical analysis and debate. Of course we all understand the thinking behind such guidelines and the benefits outweigh the limitations. But freedom of speech is more than just an activity, it is a right. I use guidelines precisely because we did speak about Spanish politics this year in the context of the Pandemic.
Thus ethical principles imply that they ought to be followed and the standards when we can chose not to follow them are much higher than say guidelines and protocols. Emergencies and extreme conditions might be a cause to relax some moral standards but consider the extreme case of cannibalism: even the legal standards are not clear here.
The case of R v Dudley and Stephens (1884 14 QBD 273 DC) which centred on cannibalism at sea was decided that “necessity” was not a defence of murder but the death sentence was commuted to six months imprisonment (see for a quick review Wikipedia under “Custom of the sea”). Compare this case with the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (The Miracle of the Andes) the public outcry against cannibalism turned to understanding once the facts were explained by the survivors. But this did not absolve a father who exhumed the remains of his son to bury them at home. He was arrested for grave robbing although he eventually obtained legal permission to bury his son (see Wikipedia Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571).
From these two examples it seems that we still don’t have the right to kill others even if we think we have a right to survive. And peer pressure can sometimes influence what rights we have.
These are extreme situation we can find on Earth killing people is an act of murder in law and is still a no go area in ethics. Species protection seems to be a high priority in our ethical system not to mention legal systems. Indeed our legal system seems to coincide with the ethical system; for example passing the death penalty (legal requirement) and yet commuting the sentence to six months (a moral decision given the circumstances).
In an evacuation of people from Earth or a deep space one-way expedition to Mars who decides what ethical system they are bound by? Surely one of those principles would be: Though shalt not covet thy neighbour’s water rations. But this is nothing peculiar to space exploration unless such expedition is on a one way mission. And that makes a huge difference: can we have an ethical system without accountability?
By accountability I don’t necessarily mean legal accountability, but maybe peer accountability: the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 is a good example of the ethical influence of peer pressure. Earlier I suggested that an ethical system might be based on the scientific method which can equally be a valid ethical arbiter. Thus this method excludes dogma and prejudice.
What would be the difference between Earth ethics and Space ethics? And is there a danger of turning this issue to one of my ethics is better than you ethics?
Best Lawrence
telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.comBest and take care
12 November 2020
PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 15th November: The limits of space exploration
Dear friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: The limits of space exploration.
The topic was proposed by Tatiana and she kindly wrote us an essay on her topic. In my essay I take a slightly different approach less humanistic and more mechanical. And although we did not copy each other we come to the same conclusion.
This question is part of two questions on space. In her topic Cristina looks at the ethics of space. We discuss this topic when Cristina can join the meeting.
The limits of space exploration by Tatiana
https://www.philomadrid.com/2020/11/the-limits-of-space-exploration-by.html
The limits of space exploration by Lawrence
https://www.philomadrid.com/2020/11/the-limits-of-space-exploration-by_12.html
In the meantime you can link to the current news and notices here:
https://www.philomadrid.com/2020/10/news-and-notices.html
-Alfonso has a new website and he gave us link to his latest book of poems: Después
-Oscar's book on his reflections on COVID-19 is still available
-David J.Butler has published a new book "Absent Friends" regarding the
Cementerio Británico in Madrid
Finally, the Skype Meeting is on 15th November at 6:30pm: if you don't have the link already please send me a message. In the meantime sometimes new members have problems connecting to Skype. Having the desktop version helps, and the mobile phone version is also useful. For some reason Skype fails to connect via a browser. Other times you might need to restart your PC, but once you connect there is no problem.
Best and take care
Lawrence
telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.com
PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 15th November: The limits of space exploration
The limits of space exploration by Lawrence
The limits of space exploration by Lawrence
Space exploration covers a range of activities and for the purpose of our topic I will also include space exploitation. Our topic is also one of two topics on space we agreed on Sunday, the other topic is on the ethics of space exploration. For this reason I won’t be including ethical issues in my essay.
So what are the philosophical issues related to space exploration? Let's face it, many issues regarding this topic belong to the philosophy of science, including quantum mechanics, Newtonian or classic physics, chemistry and many more. But of course, the first important issue for space exploration is the state of our knowledge at the time. Knowledge has always been at the forefront of exploration. And by knowledge I mean actionable knowledge and not knowledge that we cannot use for whatever reason.
For example Polynesian voyagers crossing the Pacific Ocean were experts at celestial navigation. Some implications of these voyages, and those of many others, are: 1) the Polynesians were confident and trusted their knowledge so much that they employed it and put it to the test; 2) their technological skills were sufficiently good to put their celestial knowledge into practice. There is no point in having excellent navigational skills using stars if one's boat sinks a few miles from the beach. And 3) they had a system of transferring said knowledge over time was robust enough to survive the times. Sure these navigators are not with us anymore but at the time they were on top of their game.
But a key feature of valid knowledge is that there must solid scope to predict things in the future. The Polynesians would have been able to predict the outcome of following a course, or trace back their course if they were following an unknown destination: they knew what comes next. I can, therefore, assume that the Polynesians were not only good at reading the stars, but also good at reading the clouds, and with at a pinch the state of the ocean. There is no point being experts of the start but know nothing about clouds in the middle of an ocean.
This brings me to another necessary condition when we come to apply knowledge: knowledge about a single discipline is practically useless without cross discipline knowledge. Mastery in reading stars is useless without ocean going boat technology; and as I hypothesised including meteorological skills at least at reading the clouds.
And of course modern space exploration does rest on multi discipline knowledge exchange and dependence. Thus in a fashion we have answered the first part of our question: the limits to space exploration are the limits of our knowledge. This leaves us with the two other terms: space and exploration.
Space and exploration bring to mind astronauts, spaceships and flag waving. Unfortunately, the weakness of our knowledge and our technology are human beings. Basically, humans and space don’t mix very well. Space is big, it is dangerous, and most important of all it takes time to explore, a lot of astronomical time. Humans are fragile, biologically demanding (we need food, water, air, etc) and we don’t live long enough to reach other parts of the solar system that might prove useful. In effect space exploration is best done by robot machines given the state of our knowledge, the rest is just Hollywood.
Of course, today space exploration is also done from Earth and orbiting satellites such as Skylab. A valuable source of space exploration is done on meteorites and comments parts of which have been falling on Earth since day one! In other words the scope of space exploration can start from here on Earth. Indeed Earth is a good model to understand other worlds and geological structures and in a way space exploration starts at home here on Earth.
Some might argue that space exploration might help us discover alien life. Indeed and many scientists are working on the problem as we write and it’s called Astrobiology. They also stand a good chance of finding some Astro-life forms but not necessarily humanoid life forms. There are many reasons why we won’t come across any Astro humanoids down our high streets and one of them is the same knowledge problems we have for not walking down their high streets, we don’t have the knowledge we don’t have the knowledge to do so. Light cones and event horizons excepted!
We can safely assume that space exploration done with spaceships and astronauts is very limiting as already mentioned. There is nothing that a human astronaut can do on Mars which a dozen robots cannot do at a cheaper price. But could this idea that we need an astronaut to explore space be highlighting the human need to move on and change our surroundings?
One of the reasons to pursue space exploration space by humans is for political posture. Remember the saga between the USA and the Soviet Union about who will be first to go into space and the first to go to the moon. I will not go into the conspiracy theories but it is curious that no one has been back to visit the moon in person. The simple answer must surely be that it is very expensive and very dangerous for basically nothing. What they are doing now on the moon is being done by robots.
By including exploitation in our question we can easily justify the need to explore our environment and move on to settle somewhere else: basically to find new resources, better living conditions, and maybe better physical surroundings. We can see that going back to the moon in person does not make sense because there are no resources that can be exploited now: what are we going to stake by being there? Protect the billion year old dust? It does not make any economic sense to go back to the moon today.
This does not mean it won’t happen in the future but it does mean that space exploration does make sense only when it is economically viable. Hollywood got it right by showing scouts ahead of the caravans, today we are extremely advanced at scouting by sending robots to the four corners of the solar system and beyond.
Although I say economically viable, I do not only mean financially viable but also technologically and intellectually viable. Today we do explore and exploit space for our benefits: communication satellites, GPS, Mobile communications, data satellites, spying, weather tracking, navigation satellites, radiation hitting the Earth, and so on.
This implies that the space exploration model, resulting into exploitation, clearly follows the biological model of migration. Biological creatures, including humans, exploit their local resources, and when this fails we move on until we find a good alternative. We seem to be exploring-exploiting space in the same way we explore and exploit our Earth: explore new frontiers, confirm their economic viability, exploit the location and resources to the limit then move on. Today after only 60 or so years the immediate Earth orbit is like a junkyard with satellite derbies.
But is our need to explore more powerful than the need to exploit? And are we in reality very limited with space exploitation? Curiosity is certainly a powerful motivation for some people. We can easily claim that curiosity is no different from our quest for knowledge. Unfortunately curiosity only works at the individual level: individuals are curious, societies are consumers. Some might argue that space exploration is a collective sense of curiosity, sure but curiosity does no mean wanting to know, but rather actually trying to know.
Of course space exploration can be very interesting, and give a billion euros to scientists and engineers and they’ll seriously indulge their curiosity of nature and everything else. For others space exploration is just a pay cheque at the end of the month. But making financial resources available for space exploration has always been a contentious issue for countries: especially countries that use space exploration for political status rather than curiosity for new knowledge.
Thus a very important limit of space exploration is political philosophy: today sending humans to space does not add much as exploration, what we explore matters today. Wealth distribution does limit how far we can spend on science and intellectual curiosity. And a country’s wealth is limited to economic prosperity, which brings us back to the human conflict between exploration for exploration’s sake and exploration for exploitation purposes.
I personally doubt that we’ll be doing much space exploitation in the near future other than what we are achieving now. Maybe events will be different by the end of this century, however, space exploration should be at the top end of a must-do list. Space technology has always benefited society indirectly this is not an issue, the problem with space exploration is that it is not done at a species level but at the political ideology level. With this attitude we certainly won’t be exploring space that much.
Best
Lawrence
telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com