On Rights, Freedom, and Covid

“We have to make sure this transcends politics,” he said. “It can’t be the mask game again. Vaccines are not political”—President Biden (reported by Politico, 3/15/21)

When I was home for the holidays, I visited my 80-year-old aunt in a rehab facility where she has been since she fell a few months back. My mom and I were chatting with her when one of the staff came into her room to inform her that she had been exposed to Covid the previous day, and that she would need to quarantine for the next 14 days. At the front desk on our way out, there was a man yelling about constitutional violations—every visitor had to answer a series of questions about their vaccination status, travel history, and known Covid exposures to enter the facility, which he clearly understood as infringing on his right to privacy. Standing next to him was another man, “wearing” his mask under his chin, and behind the main desk, the receptionist had her mask under her nose. Well of course my aunt was exposed, I thought, if these are the facility’s practices. Like many of my fellow citizens, I remain flummoxed by the behavior I witnessed: why wouldn’t everyone do what they can to prevent an 80-year-old from being exposed to a potentially lethal virus? Why wasn’t the facility itself doing more to protect its residents, all of whom are there because they are vulnerable—isn’t protection, after all, its very purpose? How does selfishness get transformed into a constitutional right in some people’s minds? In order to explore this situation and the questions that arise from it, I would like to consider the nature of the political itself and its relation to the underlying issue of individual freedom.

To do that, we need some background on the political theories that contributed to the creation of our founding documents that ground freedom and the political in the notion of individual rights. Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan is a marvelous example of this school of thought. In Leviathan, Hobbes explores the purpose of government, distinguishing civil society from what he calls the State of Nature. Hobbes argues that human beings are naturally free and equal: we each have the same fundamental right to life and autonomy, and we each have the same basic ability to act on that right. This condition puts us in competition with each other: everyone has the same right to life, so everyone has the same right to the goods that enable our survival. You and I are both hungry. We see the same apple tree, and we both want (and need) those apples. In the state of nature, there is nothing to stop us from fighting to the death to get them: we each have the right to do what we need to do to survive. Nothing is out of bounds—I can steal the apples you have spent hours picking, I can assault you to get to them, etc. Hobbes describes this situation as “a war of all against all.” Perpetual competition is not, it turns out, a good way to live. As Hobbes puts it, life in the State of Nature is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” If I’m constantly looking over my shoulder for someone who wants what I have, I do not have the luxury of industry of any kind: it would actually be foolish to try to plant a garden, for instance, when the chances are good that someone will come along and steal all the food I have carefully grown. Poetry? Literature? Music? Philosophy? Architecture? Impossible. So, living in the State of Nature is less than ideal.

Hobbes sees human reason as the way out of this horrible life: we can think about the nature of human existence and make choices about better ways to be. Realizing that a short and painful life is no good, we consider how to ensure a longer, less painful, perhaps even flourishing life. It becomes clear that if we work together, we can create some peace and security among ourselves that will put a stop to perpetual competition and allow us not just to live, but to live well. How do we accomplish such a goal? We agree to set aside some of our natural rights, such as the right to kill each other, in exchange for the protection and safety provided by civil society. We make implicit promises to each other: I won’t kill you if you won’t kill me; I won’t steal your possessions if you don’t steal mine; I won’t harm you if you don’t harm me; etc. These simple agreements allow me to plant a garden: if I no longer have to worry about you killing or harming me, then a modicum of trust exists between us.  And the security of a (relatively) peaceful and cooperative society eventually enables genuine flourishing for the entire populace: grocery stores, schools, businesses, technology, health care, all emerge out of a safe and secure collective life.

On Hobbes’s view, then, it is in my best long-term interest to limit my natural freedom (which allows me to do whatever the heck I want) so that I might live well with others rather than merely survive. Looking longer term allows me to see the benefits of cooperative living; rather than seeing my fellow human beings merely as competitors for survival, I can see them as enabling and contributing to my flourishing. Rather than acting impulsively on my immediate needs and wants, I consider the effects of my actions on others in the long run. The State of Nature allows me to kill you; civil society insists that my rights end where yours begin: I can do whatever the heck I want up to the point where my behavior threatens others.

The benefits of Hobbes’s view seem obvious to me: even if we human beings are basically self-interested, it makes sense to live together in some kind of secure and peaceful society. Sacrificing my own immediate desires is actually good for me.

In order for this cooperative living to work, however, Hobbes argues, government must be instituted to guarantee that each of us will abide by our implicit agreement to limit our natural rights and freedoms. If someone breaks their implicit promises (not to kill or steal or assault, for instance), the government steps in to punish them for breaking that promise, restoring the peace and security disrupted by the breach. Without that overarching authority, Hobbes argues, we cannot trust each other to hold to our promises. While we each individually agree to limit our own rights and freedoms, government enforces those agreements. Hence the association of government with limiting freedom; hence the notion that politics is about fighting over interests.

When government is understood as limiting individual freedom, and when individuals focus on their immediate (I want a haircut!) rather than long-term desires/interests/wants (I want to live a long and healthy life!), the government itself can be positioned as an impediment to individual choice and freedom. Any government directive, any government policy, can come to be understood as suspicious simply because it comes from the government—it may be seen as ploy/plot to control individuals rather than empower them. That is precisely what has happened during Covid-19’s emergence and spread. Rather than seeing mask mandates, closed businesses and schools, and vaccine drives as ensuring the safety and security of citizens, they have been seen by many as government intrusion on free choice. This view makes a certain kind of sense given Hobbes’s analysis: freedom is pre-political, and the very purpose of the political is to limit individual freedom so that society overall may flourish.

That notion of flourishing is the key to understanding the inherent limits to civil, as opposed to natural, rights: my right to privacy ends where your right not to be harmed begins. Even if I’m willing to risk my own life by refusing to wear a mask or get vaccinated against Covid, I do not have the right to risk your life by doing so. (Hobbes would also point out that I’m kind of an idiot for refusing these potentially life-saving measures, since the virus makes life very much like the State of Nature—poor, nasty, solitary, brutish, and short, a state we sought to leave by entering into society with one another.)  If I do refuse a vaccine or a mask, I give up my access to public spaces, because being in them causes potential harm to those around me. It is not only reasonable for national, state, and local governments to limits citizens’ behavior when it endangers others, it is their very purpose.