You’ve backed me into a corner, because I’m both your student and someone who thinks highly of Feiglin and Common Sense.
1. The model people’s claim is that lockdowns definitely do not reduce morbidity. There absolutely is a debate about that. To say there is no debate is a serious mistake. Contact causes infection, so a lockdown that prevents contact should help, but on the other hand, locking everyone in their homes means everyone will be in an enclosed space, which is much more infectious than an open place, so from that side a lockdown should do harm.
2. Are you aware of the fact that recently 18 states in the U.S. began the process of removing all restrictions? It started with Texas and ended with Alabama and Wyoming. It seems to me that it is hard to say Common Sense’s claims are bizarre or dubious if many states are going in their direction.
3. Here is a link to the Florida governor’s remarks in a Fox News interview. From minute 4:15 to minute 5:10 he says that in Florida, with the second-largest elderly population in the U.S., and without a lockdown, it reached 26th place in deaths per capita in the U.S. Above Florida in mortality you can find younger states that did have lockdowns. Therefore he concluded that lockdowns are not based on facts. https://youtu.be/H-OX7J3QLuA?t=253
4. “For example, the claim that lockdown was invented by a dictatorship with no respect for rights and therefore should not be used is demagoguery of a sort I have rarely seen in my life” — that formulation of the claim is my interpretation of the video above. The main claim is that lockdown was never tried and never discussed in the scientific literature before the lockdown on the city of Wuhan. Embarrassingly, I don’t have the tools to check that claim, but I do know the Talmudic rule that a person does not lie about something that can easily be discovered. To refute this, we would need to find some scientific article/scientist speaking about total lockdowns before 2020. Is there such a thing? I haven’t found one (though again, I’m not sure I did a good job searching).
5. “Is there any country in the world that imposed lockdown only because the Chinese invented and implemented it?” That’s not the claim. The claim is that China invented lockdown and that influenced everyone else to follow its lead (through the World Health Organization, apparently, in the video). Nobody is going to start shooting people in squares. How did that come out of what was said…? The conspiratorial smell didn’t necessarily come from here. I don’t know why you made that connection.
6. Regarding Midaat’s claim that the model is contradicted by the data: with a very simple Google search, one can see that mortality in lockdown-free Sweden in 2020 was not far from previous years and was even lower than in 2012 (relative to population size). These are publicly available facts that everyone can check. How can one still accuse the model of being impractical?

Hello,
I don’t see what corner is involved here. There is no obligation at all to accept what I say, even if you regard yourself as my student. That is part of what my students are supposed to learn from me. 🙂

This argument seems pointless to me, because every one of the claims, down to the last, is beside the point (just like those of “Common Sense”). Briefly:
1. It is obvious by simple reasoning that a lockdown reduces morbidity, even if within the nuclear family it may go up. It is far more controlled and manageable when we are in lockdown. This seems to me almost tautological, or at least very basic science.
2. The decision of states to remove lockdown says nothing. For two reasons:
A. It could be because of the economic consideration and not because of the claim about reducing morbidity. I wrote that in my remarks.
B. Besides, I’m not sure these states are exactly the pinnacle of scientific thinking. There are other things done in U.S. states that I wouldn’t rush to imitate.
3. Not to mention quoting the governor of Florida, who is a well-known epidemiological expert. This is especially evident in light of his comparison, which is of course absurd. There are counterexamples in every direction. That is not how science works. There are also people who smoked their whole lives and reached a hundred. So what? Does that mean smoking is good for your health? This is the kind of argument made by conspiracy theorists and alternative-medicine people. It seems the governor of Florida is probably a rather minor epidemiology expert.
4-5. That is exactly what they argued. The issue of respect for human rights is irrelevant, and they inserted it. Feiglin and his friends of course see that as everything. So what if China has no respect for human rights? Therefore nothing can be learned from it? The question is whether lockdown helps or not, not who invented it. After that, one weighs the economic cost and then decides. The fact that it was invented in China is irrelevant in any way I can see. It is first-rate demagogic ad hominem.
You absolutely do have the tools to check the claim about lockdowns being invented in China. For a start, read the articles I referred you to and you will see that lockdowns were used already during the Spanish flu and more. What difference does it make whether it was TOTAL or not? What is TOTAL anyway? Even today they do not really do TOTAL. Again, cheap demagoguery.
6. Comparisons of mortality to previous years are irrelevant. This is another old claim of conspiracy theorists and COVID deniers. The question is what would have happened without the lockdown, and how dense it would have been on the timeline (flattening the curve), not just what happens over the course of a full year.

I think these arguments nicely illustrate the failures and the demagoguery in the arguments of the “Common (Un)Sense” people.

“There is no dispute that they reduce morbidity.”

Meaning, before COVID there was no illness in the world…

If you look at just one issue, you immediately understand that lockdown increases morbidity—maybe not in the short term, but yes in the long term. A few months ago it was published that the lockdowns led to a not insignificant increase in the weight of substantial percentages of the country. And that in itself is enough to cancel out all the benefit of a lockdown meant to slow the rate of COVID infection.

And the honorable rabbi also forgot that lockdown was not intended at all to prevent COVID morbidity but rather to prevent overload in hospitals.

But if we’re talking from the standpoint of concern for public health, which is the most important subject in the world, and let anyone who doesn’t think so die, then perhaps we should consider setting up ghettos and labor camps specifically for those who did not inject the Pfizer substance into their bodies.

Hello Oren and Rabbi,

Over the past year we’ve been witnessing an amazing phenomenon (in my humble opinion…): smart, sensible people, with both Torah and general education, have simply decided that when it comes to COVID, reason gets thrown into a corner….

Any fact, any datum that doesn’t support the hysterical policy—is immediately dismissed with the excuse that it’s “made up by conspiracy theorists / ignoramuses / frauds” (where did the criticism of ad hominem arguments disappear to…)

A fresh example: the mass Purim parties that were supposed to cause a terrible outbreak, but in practice something else happened—still the gates of excuses haven’t been shut, the main thing being not to admit, heaven forbid, the failure of the whole conception.

I’m too small to understand the reason for this…

Maybe we need to let time do its thing…

In the name of Yehuda:

Because of a technical problem, the response below is not going up under the latest responsum titled “Green Passport”:

A. Here is a response to the claims in the Davidson Institute article, which is the more serious of the two you brought (as Midaat itself testifies):

https://mobile.twitter.com/MatanHolzer/status/1349120093792448512

(The two articles are a response to the film by Guy and Orly:

who interview experts who know something about the subject.)

B. Among the leaders of the model are senior experts in epidemiology and in the spread of epidemics, as can be seen in the model’s Wikipedia entry that you referred to.

C. The claim is that they copied lockdowns from China without epidemiological justification.

See a 2007 document, for preparedness for epidemics in Israel, discussed in the film, which speaks of lockdown only when there are tens of thousands of dead, because of the enormous damage caused by lockdown.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.health.gov.il/Subjects/emergency/preparation/DocLib/tora/BIO_TORA_PANDEMIC_FLU.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjXyPvQrK_vAhU5IMUKHew5ABMQFjAEegQIFxAC&usg=AOvVaw2U4-WIjHC38l-3YHRgEzyQ

On the enormous cumulative damage of lockdowns, as opposed to the doubtful benefit in them, see the remarks of Prof.
Asher Elhayany:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=172989197928728&id=110430917517890

D. On the justification for the green-passport policy, see the response of the senior experts here:

https://m.facebook.com/machatzlakorona/photos/a.100865091940634/133614388665704/?type=3&source=48

Many thanks, and have a good and blessed month!

Regarding the effect of lockdown on direct COVID mortality, beyond Prof. Asher Elhayany’s analysis of the cumulative damage caused by lockdown, the claim is that of course at first glance lockdown shows a graph of declining morbidity and mortality, but in the end, from an epidemiological analysis, nothing is gained when the lockdown is lifted; afterward you pay the same price as if there had been no lockdown, in which case there is also a waning wave because of immune equilibrium (herd immunity).

This is relevant to the first and second waves, before the vaccines arrived.

In this context one should know that there is a difference between the immune equilibrium (herd immunity) needed in summer, when the virus is “weaker,” and the immune equilibrium needed in winter—see Sweden.

In the name of Oren:

1. “It is obvious by simple reasoning that a lockdown reduces morbidity” — Professor Udi Qimron, an immunologist, thinks otherwise https://youtu.be/mW4rxiNc-jQ?t=1168 (the link goes to the relevant minute). Likewise Dr. Dan Yamin, an epidemics researcher, says that locking down schools increases mortality https://youtu.be/mW4rxiNc-jQ?t=1293
How do you argue from your own reasoning against experts in the field, and call it a tautology or basic science…?
2. Obviously that’s not proof; I wasn’t trying to win the discussion with it, it’s just support. Of course states can make mistakes. All in all, I would expect the level of contempt toward Common Sense to go down if many states follow their path.
3. The cigarette comparison is a good one, I need to think about it. To begin with I’d say that we know for certain about the danger of smoking; about the effectiveness of lockdowns—we do not.
4 and 5. The fact that lockdown was invented in China is a reason for suspicion. Of course lockdown can be useful. I’m only claiming that every idea that comes out of there should be examined suspiciously, given what we know about the regime. During the Spanish flu there were restrictions on certain events. The definition of Total is closing an entire country, closing borders, businesses, and so on. Here is Dr. Avi Mizrachi saying that a general lockdown in this sense did not exist until COVID.

At minute 18, the film presents a 2007 Ministry of Health plan for dealing with epidemics. In a level-5 epidemic, like 1918, which would claim 45,000 dead, one should impose targeted lockdowns on outbreak centers. Meaning that even then, a general lockdown simply was not on the table, no matter what.
6. “The comparison to previous years is irrelevant” — how is that logical…? The exclusive criterion for evaluating policy is examining the actual results on the ground. In our case, checking the number of dead. And the exclusive criterion for checking the number of dead is comparison to other years known to be reasonable years in terms of mortality. Where is the flaw in what I’m saying? What do you mean by “what would have happened without the lockdown”? And I didn’t understand your remarks about density on the timeline.

My answer:
Density on the timeline means that even if over the course of the year there is a smaller number of deaths, if in a certain week the number is very large, that creates a problem that requires dealing with (flattening the curve).
Beyond that, I don’t see anything new here. As far as I’m concerned, the discussion is exhausted.

I do not see how one can justify depriving individuals of rights such as freedom of movement, worship, occupation, and the like because of considerations of public health or the common good.

The prohibition on lying, for example—according to quite a number of philosophers—remains in force even if a good result would come of it. Telling the lie is a bad act in itself, and the good result does not change the inherent evil in the act itself. So too in our case: the only question is whether an action a person is about to perform is inherently defined as a dangerous action toward another who is exposed to the result of that action in a direct, concrete way. The fact that lockdown is supposed to improve public health (let us assume that is completely true) is irrelevant.

Likewise regarding mRNA injections—which impair the normal human functioning of cells—as I claimed here not long ago.

The exceptions are actions permitted under the principle of double effect.

Go on, Copenhagen, go on, and let all flesh together behold the [censored] failures that are deontology.

For someone coming from a conception in which the state (and in foreign tongues, the national—and in German, the national) is the supreme value, then certainly it is possible and even obligatory to deny individual rights when that benefits the regime.
And all means are kosher as well in order to get the general public to believe that the state is taking care of them, and not that they are being sacrificed for the state.

So go on saying “with God’s help” while you are in supreme fear of COVID.

And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor Me with their lips, while their heart is far from Me, and their fear of Me is a commandment of men learned by rote; therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, a marvel and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.”

Copenhagen,
I have written here more than once that the categorical imperative and other abstract, general principles, when applying them, need a dash of common sense added. Application is not the logical operation of the theoretical principle, just as in Jewish law it is not like that, so too in morality it is not like that. Understanding the situation and the art of application are arts of mature people. Kant indeed spoke of a prohibition on lying even where it would cost human life. He too had not yet grown up. I would not want to depend on the mercy of such a moral child.

And from here, an answer to Tolginus.
Such a conclusion is not a flaw in deontology itself, but in the mixture between it and common sense. I was young and now am old, and I have not found anything better for the body than a healthy mixture of these two. Each of them on its own is problematic (and even in practical implementations. See column 122, regarding practical implications of deontology).

When you say “in the mixture between it and common sense,” do the words mean “in the mixture between it and consequentialism”?

[All sorts of characters have gathered here at this holy inn, and I am the type whose mind simply cannot grasp deontology for its own sake, not much and not little. I exercise great restraint not to pour upon it forty se’ah of abuse and insults by the measure of the Hazon Ish, so at least I engaged in a bit of demagoguery out of pleasure (and horror) at seeing into what icebergs deontological devotion drives its followers as they drink the cup of poison. I came only to needle, and anyone wishing to needle me in return is always gladly invited.]

Indeed, just as saving a life overrides moral and halakhic prohibitions, so too it overrides the commandments of the categorical imperative. Obvious to those who understand.

And why does the danger to the lives of five schoolchildren toward whom a cursed train is traveling not override the moral and halakhic prohibition against shortening the life of the fellow standing on the bridge?

In my opinion, it does not necessarily fail to override, but there is a side according to which it does not override. That side is based on the idea that the value of life is infinite, or at least that the gap is not large enough to justify the prohibition of murder. In order to permit it, you have to assume that the gap between one life and five lives is strong enough to justify the prohibition of murder.

On the first option, what is the difference between “the value of life is infinite” and giving up the healthy mixture that you said you had not found anything better than.

[In my opinion, even to save one person one may choose not to save the fellow on the bridge, but that, I understand, is not a healthy mixture, etc.]

In this case indeed there is no room for a mixture. But that does not rule out such mixtures in general.

The case in which a person faces the dilemma whether to utter a lie or to give an answer that will enable a murder is very extreme and remote from situations in the concrete world. First, the whole dilemma arises only when one cannot physically harm the pursuer in a way that would thwart the act—an option generally safer from the standpoint of the interests of the pursued.

Second, there is no moral defect in misleading an enemy by ambiguity or blurred answers, and almost always one can cause a bully who does not deserve a truthful answer to be misled in a way such that the sentence will be true according to some construal, provided it is not blatantly unreasonable that speakers of the language would understand that this meaning is possible (for example, in response to a pursuer asking whether you saw someone, one can say, “Yes, he turned left,” even though the one you saw running left was someone else who was there two hours earlier, or another enemy who just passed there now). For such a statement truly reflects what the speaker thinks and uses words according to a meaning genuinely represented in them.

In any case, no one disputes that there exists a theoretical logical possibility of a dilemma between lying and not preventing murder, and a serious person who is usually in such a situation will grasp that he has here a special personal directive, a temporary emergency ruling, to perform the flawed act—“and who knows whether it was for a time like this that you attained royalty”—in the sense of “It is time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah,” or “a transgression for its own sake.”

As for our matter, it is not that I truly think dictatorial regulations might improve the condition of the nation. We have no epistemological access to all the results and consequences of our actions until the end of all generations, but since observing natural moral law fits human nature, one may be confident that in the end this will also bring the best results, even if from some narrow perspective one can devise a theory that calculates another result in the limited domain under discussion.

This is similar to the claim economists sometimes raise that government intervention in free interactions between people, even if done with good intentions, tends to bring about undesirable results that cannot be anticipated in advance—unintended consequences—and in many cases one also cannot know afterward that they came as a result of the intervention; results which, in the final accounting, are worse than the benefit the intervention was intended to bring.

Rabbi and Tolginus,

In my opinion, the approach that says one may commit direct, uninvolved murder so that the corpse will save the lives of the five, and consequentialism in general, lie at the heart of the problem of human arrogance that leads to casting off the laws of morality, in the sense of “and you shall be like God.” The consequentialist thinks he is the one who will decide whether the other person will continue living or not, insofar as that person does not fit well into his utility calculations, and he is the one who will carry out the act of ending the life he has decided upon.

The more rational approach recognizes the limits of human apprehension and man’s status as subject to the natural moral law. It says: we were not given authority for that. We act only within the authority given to us. And we have no permission to murder, to impose mass forced house arrests (= lockdown), or even to commit a small transgression like a lie—just so that what seems to us a greater good might come from it. We should not presume to “manage” global mortality rates, and it is ridiculous to think we are capable of it.

A person is charged only with obligations to turn from evil and do good: one must not commit murder. One must not restrict the liberty of an innocent person (unless he directly and concretely endangers another person—which is an act of removing risk permitted under the principle of double effect and not an act evil in itself), and so on. Consequentialist approaches necessarily breed dictatorships, and they have failed everywhere they were tried. By contrast, the more natural law was observed, the more society flourished.

The governor of South Dakota—a fine example of a ruler who knows her place:

Copenhagen,

A. In principle you distinguish between action and inaction, and I do not. If we were not given authority to kill Mr. So-and-so by throwing him from the bridge, then we also were not given authority to kill people by letting the train run them over. It is exactly the same thing. There is absolutely no difference in the world between letting someone die and killing him with one’s own hands. For from the root of the mistaken distinction between positive action and passive omission there comes forth a viper, and its fruit a flying serpent.

B. In terms of outcomes, you claimed that deontology actually leads to better outcomes. First of all, welcome to the club; that is definitely a respectable matter even in the language I speak. I do indeed tend to think that deontology developed out of concern for the slippery slope reflected in your words, and that it is one of the tools to entrench an “essential” prohibition on something liable to lead to problematic outcomes. But more on that another time.
If one must take a sweeping rule of thumb, then the rule “never kill without threat or trial” is better than the rule “kill when it seems right to you.” But when I personally think about what is right, I do not need to look for sweeping rules of thumb that can be sold to the masses without qualification; I can think about each case on its own.

C. Unknown consequences also exist for the decision not to impose a lockdown. You seem to be saying that because we cannot know what the consequences are, by default we should take the “natural law.” And I suggest that because we cannot know what the consequences are, we should choose the option that seems to us likely to lead to the best consequences.