To get vaccinated or not to get vaccinated, this is the question. Three suggestions in order to decide and thus keep our conscience clear!
Critical thinking article
This article will not contain any advice on what you should do about vaccination. However, you will find some suggestions that you may not have considered, which might help you in making a decision and being at peace with it.
We are going through a period that undoubtedly has many of the characteristics of a real war. Several camps have been formed, confrontations are taking place in all fields at all times, fundamental freedoms are limited and their limitation is immediately equally legitimately challenged… And the most indisputable and important fact: someone dies every day while other lives are saved as a result of our actions/inactions, decisions/indecisions and mistakes. Sometimes, this feels like a confrontation where you don’t know which are the conflicting parties, while they even forget what they are fighting for themselves!
To get vaccinated or not is the question and the dilemma of the moment! It is the latest version of the much better known: To be or not to be! It is a personal decision that refers not only to what is most important to us but also to the consequences of our actions, this is why it’s firstly an ethical decision. Everyone’s stake is health and life and the way we select and relate these days to information makes the difference between the life and death of a loved one or perhaps a stranger, it places us- whether we want it or not, in the camp that will save the situation or the one that will delay the return to life we want with costs that we are unable to calculate.
And yet how do we make the decision of getting vaccinated? 370 years ago Descartes – the first and among the greatest modern philosophers, decided to base his morality on the following ethics: to be guided in all aspects by the most temperate and wise opinions, applied by the most judicious people he would have had to deal with. The title of his work is very current: The discourse on the method of leading our rationality well and seeking the truth in science.
Descartes’s suggestion that we can follow is that we all have the ability to select and understand how and where we can find the most temperate and wise opinions related to the spread of a virus! Who are the most competent people with the highest judgement we are dealing with in this matter? You have two options when you don’t know what to do in a particular field: whether start speculating about that field and listen to all conspiracies, or to seek for the opinions of specialists and experts. And it may help you wonder, what would those people who best master the field of the spread of infectious diseases do, would they get vaccinated or not?
A guide to consider when analyzing current information is:
Another model for making a decision available to anyone is offered to us by Benjamin Franklin. When he was uncertain of which decision to make about an action, he used to take a sheet of paper, divide it in two and write in those two columns: why yes and why not! Then he would list all the fair reasons why he would have taken the action. At the end of this, he would count the reasons for or against and make a rational decision! As we all know, Franklin made many fair decisions by using this simple method!
If you haven’t decided yet even after this method, you can get inspired by the Stoics, who are practicing negative visualization and think of the Supreme evil. Write and then reflect on the worst things, on the worst case scenario that could happen and that goes through your head. For example, which would be the worst things that could happen if I got vaccinated? Possible side effects (those in the vaccine leaflet). What are the chances of it happening to me? They are measurable and more or less likely, depending on individual medical history. Then let’s ask ourselves which would be the worst case scenario if I don’t get vaccinated! Do I have the certainty that I won’t get sick? That I will not get a severe form of the infection? That I will get out of it alive and without any sequelae? What could the consequences be upon others? Could I transmit the illness to those I care for, elderly parents, other vulnerable people, whether I know them or not? How would I feel if I realized that I had contributed to the spread of the disease, even without knowing that I caused someone’s suffering or even death?
As we can see and think, the decision of getting vaccinated remains primarily an ethical decision, as Pope Francis clearly stated at the time he got vaccinated!
As for me, I already went through the infection in November, exhibiting mild symptoms, but one of my student’s case contributed to the decision of getting vaccinated (he is 46 years old)! In the ATI ward where they were treated for almost two months, only two patients survived out of the 18 who were admitted at one point or another, one of whom was Tiberius-my student!
I believe we will only recover our lives if we do not postpone the decision to get vaccinated!
