Modern societies accept with value that the protection of Public Health must be a collective – not strictly individual – issue, hence the relevant reference to many Western Constitutions. The government of the country is called upon to maximize the protection of Public Health through specific policies (eg incentives for vaccination, sanctions for those who avoid it). In a living democracy it is expected that there will be an inflation of views both on the underlying values and on the policies that implement it.
And when we disagree with the democratic constitutional state, as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rightly remarked, it provides for ways in which we resolve its epistemological differences – this is what we do e.g. in the courts. Through legitimized institutional processes, we rule on the validity of opposing knowledge claims. One group says vaccines protect, the other group disagrees. In the scientific community, differences are discussed. The scientific methods and the related ethos of constant questioning and refutation help us to distinguish what is that and what is not. But on one condition: that we are interested in the truth. We do not necessarily all care.
It was scientists who once assisted the tobacco industry in claiming that there was no causal link between tobacco and lung cancer, as scientists conducted miserable experiments on syphilis in the black population unknowingly in the United States in the 1930s. of science shows that in democratic societies at least, selfish scientific claims or immoral scientific practices are finally revealed.
This is another reason why democracy is valuable – freedom ensures conditions of cognitive validity. Surprisingly, in modern knowledge societies, the generalized dispersion of knowledge does not necessarily lead to agreement but to confusion and polarization. On issues inherently controversial, the more we know, the more we disagree. The reasons are many. The modern media and communication, especially the specialized social media, diffuse not only valid knowledge but also misinformation – selfish beliefs, uncontrollable claims and inaccurate data.
An article in the prestigious scientific journal Lancet in 1998 about the alleged link between the childhood MMR vaccine and autism was enough to inflate the anti-vaccination movement. Subsequent criticism, discrediting, and withdrawal of the article from the magazine did not prevent the damage. Once some parents began to doubt the vaccine, they would hardly be convinced.
Research shows that people tend to avoid risk when it is unknown, uncontrollable and destructive. Risk taking depends not only on information but also on the emotional relationship of the individual with the risky activity. Charlatans, selfish, and / or cleverly unorthodox scientists or narcissistic celebrities take advantage of emotional momentum. Social media gives them the loudspeaker to be heard. The result is that we see a small but not insignificant and particularly noisy, sometimes violent anti-vaccination movement.
Misinformation when it is elementary is combined with the following elements:
First, it adopts the cognitive claims of a few selfishly unorthodox or eccentric scientists, whose claims, however, have proved inaccurate or problematic.
Second, it circulates unconfirmed rumors or publicly held beliefs.
Third, it focuses self-affirmatively, usually, out of context, on decisions of competent bodies.
Cognitively speaking the most important thing to do in the pandemic is to maintain our rational vigilance – to constantly seek valid knowledge, knowing that validity is, like all human beings, imperfect and militant. The rational attitude based on well-meaning criticism is also the moral attitude.
