Asking the question, “are we responsible for others or merely for ourselves?” is hardly new.  It was on people’s minds throughout our written history. Philosophers and great thinkers nearly universally agree with the Golden Rule (of Jesus): “Love your neighbor as yourself.” One of my favorite catchphrases that speaks this truth is from Sea Education Association of Woods Hole.  This venerable institution has a creed: “Ship, Shipmate, Self.” The collective “ship” is one’s primary responsibility. Your “shipmate,” your neighbor, is next in line. One’s self is last in line. We are often encouraged to put other’s safety and needs above our own. The monkey climbs onto our backs.

As individuals, we sense this “moral burden” for others. A “burden” is often uncomfortable and rarely effortless. We also experience a world that encourages us to experience pleasure in everything, avoiding the unpleasant at all costs. Tension exists between living for pleasure (which never seems bothersome) and living with a moral compass (the burden of an ethical existence). Bearing a burden isn’t nearly as easy as enjoying the fun. Often it is difficult, even painful.  

What about a collective moral burden?  

Making an individual ethical choice (that burdens us as individuals by some form of self-limitation for our benefit) is one thing. Another issue is times when we ought to bear a moral burden to benefit the whole. We hold responsibility as an individual at all times; we are asked to bear a moral burden for society’s benefit at particular times and in particular places.  During these times and in these places, the moral authority is no longer centered in our self but in public and in collective.  

When we make our individual choice to bear a personal moral burden, dialogue is internal. We may struggle with it for days or hours, we may ask for advice, but the choice at the end of the day is ours alone. The realization and decision to bear a collective moral burden are dynamic (and engaging); the dialogue is not internal and silent. The conversation is external, spoken, argued, pontificated. Ultimately, some entity recognizes and enforces the collective moral burden. Such an entity comes in all shapes and sizes: a neighborhood committee, the legislature (or governor) of a state, a queen or king of a kingdom. Here in the USA, we work through representative democracy wherein those elected are asked to care for the people’s will.  And as a population living under such a government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” we choose our authority, and those we elect hold power and influence over us.  The pressures on the elected members of our society come from a myriad of places such as fellow politicians, the press, polls, correspondence, and the voters themselves.  It is in this undeniable tension that any collective moral burden is placed on the shoulders of our brothers and sisters in our great republic.

All of this has brought us to the current theatre. Center stage is a novel coronavirus that has killed, to date, nearly 600,000 of our fellow citizens in the USA. Our collective response, crafted state-by-state and governor-by-governor, displays the variety we all recognize as our American mosaic. Decisions, once made, are revised, and the revisions are further clarified and expanded or retracted. At times, our response to the virus seemed to change overnight. Many of us experienced movement restrictions, loss of spontaneity, inconvenient responsibilities, and more (depending on which of the 50 states one happens to reside). Businesses navigated through unprecedented changes, with some thriving due to the social rearrangement while some struggle to survive under mandated restrictions.  Some individuals and businesses responded to the government’s added burden with vigor, hoping to make a safe passage through the pandemic based on the governor’s guidance.  Others chose to ignore or modify the guidelines from their own internal compass, trusting themselves over the will of the elected authorities. 

Whether our elected officials used their moral authority in a way that did the most good, preserved the most lives, caused the least damage is something that history will judge.  But at this time, I want to be sure we all agree on this:  our elected officials had every right (and indeed a legally binding obligation) to enact guidelines, regulations and restrictions due to the collective moral burden of protecting the populace during a global pandemic.

Reflecting the evolving responses, our shared burden changed over this past year as well. A year ago, we strove to “flatten the curve.” Together we made every attempt to assure that hospitals were not overwhelmed with the sick and dying (as had occurred in Bergamo, Italy at that time and in India at this time). For those of us that survived the virus’s initial wave, we experienced a bit of relief at successfully preventing the widespread failure of our hospital system. Soon, managing the virus, mitigating deaths, and hoping for a vaccine arose. More waves of death hit us, the pressure built for a final solution.  

Our scientists were in uncharted waters, grappling with data while also attempting to be press agents. Science became a theatre akin to football games, and every one of us became a Monday morning quarterback. Our politicians battled each other. The press sniped from their lofty post, shooting twin bullets of dread and fear. They also fed us an hourly update of the same. The viewer/reader returned again and again to a fetid, fear-creating contemptuously divisive trough. If any of my fellow Americans were to say that the past year was one of national unity amid a crisis, I assume they are writing or speaking fiction.

Amidst this inferno of politics and press, our scientists pressed on towards creating a vaccine, towards giving us hope over this virus, tirelessly exploring multiple technologies in order to achieve their goal in record time. In late 2020, vaccines arrived! Vaccines, the great hope to end the crisis, became available and started being used. I like the Brit’s term for getting vaccinated: getting a “jab.” We finally have a light at the end of a very dark tunnel after a very dark year.

What happens next?  What happens to our collective burden, and the moral authority of our elected officials, once everyone who wants a jab gets one? Can our shared burden be laid to rest? What happens if someone decides that they do not want to be vaccinated? 

Let’s agree that during the past year, our shared moral burden has been to protect those who would suffer and die, without a choice, from a horrible disease. We could choose to practice all the guidelines derived by the CDC and our state governments to safeguard those who needed protection. Why?  Because every human life is worth equal value under the law.

Our choice to protect each other was center stage. I have argued that it was indeed our moral responsibility to do so. Early on in the pandemic, a friend helped me as I wrestled with how to keep my business open.  “Protect your team, and you will protect everyone,” was his advice.  For me, that bit of advice was a welcome mantra that guided every decision I’ve made during the past year.  My goal was to do my best at protecting those under my authority as best I could. I donned my mask. I read the guidance from our governor and implemented the required restrictions to my best ability.  I informed and encouraged my team every week. I enforced and prodded, I encouraged and informed, I hoped for the vaccine. We succeeded and excelled at every single change and provided an absolutely safe place for people to come and feel somewhat “normal.”  

So again, what to do once the vaccine has been jabbed into every arm that desires it? Do we shed our collective moral burden? Can we be free from caring for our fellow citizens via restrictions on businesses and selves?  I believe the only possible answer is “yes”, we can.

How to measure that moment?  How to decide the time is right?  I do not believe that the vaccination rate (how many jabs are getting into arms) is a good benchmark for releasing our moral burden. The sole metric this seismic shift of collective burden should be one thing:  that those who want vaccination, received vaccination. Once those who have desired to be free from the chance of viral infection, possible hospitalization, and death have received a vaccine, we no longer shoulder any shared responsibility. Once vaccination availability is widespread, and people can grab a jab on the fly, it truly becomes a personal choice, a personal burden, and no longer a collective moral burden.

I believe the moment we achieve “grab a jab,” the government no longer holds any moral authority to restrict businesses and individuals. Our collective moral burden no longer exists. On some day in the next few weeks, our collective burden, the monkey, clambers off our back, and our government loses its moral authority to bind us under restrictions. 

I will continue to encourage everyone to get vaccinated. I believe vaccines are miracles, and I would like for everyone to grab a jab.  You’ve got your monkey.

Ethics Pandemic Writing