It is heartbreaking to see people in their seventies and older being turned away from places like the Good Samaritan Inn in Kingston when there has been news of healthy citizens, who do not fall under any of the categories in phase one slated for the Covid vaccine, getting their first dose in the past week or so. Discretion was used to give these younger, low-risk Jamaicans a chance to avoid the fatality of Covid, yet discretion is not to be used to grant the high-risk elderly the same privilege.

One cannot blame the doctors and nurses at the Good Samaritan Inn for following the directives of the Ministry of Health and Wellness. Indeed, I applaud them for abiding by the regulations set out by the government. They have been told that, for now, they are only to vaccinate health workers and members of the security forces. However, can someone please explain what happened at St. Joseph Hospital when the reported one hundred people, who were supposed to wait their turn like the rest of us, showed up and each sat to take a dose from another person who needs it more? What of the messages I’ve been receiving from some people who have directly and proudly been told by young and healthy friends that they got the vaccine this week?

Jeremy Bentham believed in “The greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people”. This is the essence of Classical Utilitarianism, which relies on each person promoting the overall good. Bentham thought that an action was bad when it led to unhappiness, without any redeeming happiness. It had no utility. “If a law or an action doesn’t do any good, then it isn’t any good.” It would take many more pages than this to get into the nuances of Bentham’s beliefs, but one important thing to note is that he viewed all pleasures equally. The pleasure I get from eating an ice cream would therefore equal the pleasure a doctor gets from saving someone’s life. The pain I feel from my puppy dying would be the same that you feel from the death of your best friend. With no qualitative differences between pleasures nor between pains, one could argue that pleasure or pain of an animal is the same of a human. Harming a puppy would therefore be just as bad as harming a human. John Stuart Mill disagreed with Bentham’s whole hedonistic approach and felt that pleasures and pains, good and bad, were in fact qualitative. One good thing was not the same as another good thing, and the two did not have the same utility. The same stood true for bad things. Over the next one hundred years or so philosophers, such as Henry Sidgwick and then G. E. Moore, refined their predecessors’ Utilitarian theories, until Utilitarianism came to be known as Consequentialism.

While there are many debatable flaws in the hedonistic approach of Classical Utilitarianism, it has paved the way in the formation of policies and legislation. It is why nations have laws. It is why epidemiologists, other scientists and the World Health Organisation all come up with recommendations for the roll out of things such as vaccines. It is why governments form policies when it comes to things like the roll out of vaccines. The more modern idea of utilitarianism, whereby one looks at consequences, accounts for what one could arguably describe as practical and ethical considerations. It is more practical and ethical to vaccinate healthcare workers, people in direct public service, the elderly and those with pre-existing illnesses before younger and healthier citizens. This is more useful, don’t you think?

So my question to the few entitled elitists, who drove out to get your Covid vaccines, is this: Did you consider the immediate and longterm negative consequences your actions would have on thousands of fellow Jamaicans? Let’s be frank, one selfishly entitled soul can and does encourage a sheeplike mentality, and a flock of you have prevented a plethora of elderly people with co-morbidities from getting the vaccine in the last week. Who knows what the knock-on effect will be, but I ask you this: Will your actions achieve “the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people”? Was it worth it for you to push yourself up in the line? Is it more useful to get your vaccine before those who have a greater risk of dying from Covid than you?

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