Epistemic Responsibility

Epistemic responsibility is the responsibility we have regarding our beliefs.

According to Wikipedia: 

Intellectual responsibility (also known as epistemic responsibility) is a philosophical concept related to that of epistemic justification. Loosely speaking, justification is the reason that someone holds a rationally admissible belief (although the term is also sometimes applied to other propositional attitudes such as doubt).

Debates surrounding epistemic justification often involve the structure of justification, including whether there are foundational justified beliefs or whether mere coherence is sufficient for a system of beliefs to qualify as justified. Another major subject of debate is the sources of justification, which might include perceptual experience (the evidence of the senses), reason, and authoritative testimony, among others.

And why, you'd ask, am I going all philosophical on your ass? Well, because I'm kind of torn about the whole vaccines thing. Not because I doubt their effectiveness or because I am not vaccinated (the answer is no and yes). It's because lately I have learned that people I love and/or held in high regard are total anti-vaxxers. Yep, I discovered some of those in my midst and I'm not happy.

I'm not happy because anti-vaxxers are not often confronted with the effects their beliefs have on others. Anti-vaxxers cannot justify their position and therefore come up with all kinds of unfounded  ideas and conspiracy theories -also see TERFs and climate deniers- to make appear their blind incoherence and lack of evidence as an argument. They do not care about the damage they are causing because they do not have intellectual responsibility, they get their 'information' from groups that already share their beliefs that the vaccines are bad or ineffective and are prone to believe all kinds of conspiracy theories. They accept their belief without sufficient evidence and whether this belief leads to harm to others or not, they have done wrong in my book. Both epistemically and morally.

Oh, 'they're just stating their beliefs' or 'they have the freedom to do so'  or 'they're entitled to their opinion'' is what I've heard. Well, there is not such thing as a 'private' belief (and being entitled to their opinion is an informal fallacy). They are talking about what they believe and that causes that belief (dangerous, harmful, unfounded and unsubstantiated) to spread and cause more damage. Their beliefs can cause harm to themselves and in the case of the anti-vaxxers, to others. Beliefs have consequences. 

Anti-vaxxers choose not to act on the options they have: they could choose to have the vaccine but they don't do it. They don't do it in spite of the mounting evidence that vaccines mitigate the effects of the pandemic and would help them and others stay healthy and 'go back to normal' (they don't mask, either and they congregate with others, so you can imagine how I feel about that, too). Suffice it to say that I have not seen them in a long time, but from time to time they do see some people I see, so I have stayed away from other people I care about BECAUSE of them. 

It's a shitshow and the problem is that I cannot bring myself to feel sorry for people who get COVID-19 and the dreaded Delta variant and get intubated or worse, they die: they have brought it on themselves. It's the most likely effect of their unfounded beliefs and when I hear an anti-vaxxer or COVID-19 denier has died I can't help but hear the tiniest violin playing a tune in the background. It also irks me the position in which anti-vaxxers have put this country: they are putting themselves and others at risk of getting sick (or worse) just because of their sense of entitlement and privilege. Then they complain we can't 'get back to normal'. The vaccine is widely available and its efficacy has been proved. They just choose not to get it. I don't feel sorry for them. They make me mad.

Shit, that was long winded. I should have just said that anti-vaxxers piss my off and call it a day.

XOXO

THEWEEK

P.S. that video is from 2016, so that can tell you that Americans were and still are a bunch of idiots who learn nothing from their mistakes...