The common good demands you wear a mask | Ojel L. Rodriguez Burgos
The debate on how to deal with the Coronavirus after the lockdown restrictions have been gradually lifted across the United Kingdom continues to be front and centre in the newsroom. One debate has been particularly spirited and recurrent; whether the government should force people to wear masks in public. I do not intend to address the policy points or implications of adopting such a policy, this has already been discussed.
However, there is an interesting argument being used against an adoption of such a policy- that wearing a mask violates the natural right or the liberty of the individual. This line of argument is common but mistaken. Because the common good, which conservatism (meaning the arangement of institutions for the attainment of a well-ordered society) entails, demands that you wear a mask.
This debate within political philosophy is nothing particularly new. It might be said it is the central dispute between modern philosophy of liberalism and communitarianism. The debate centred on whether rights are primary over the common good, or as Michael Sandel in his book Liberalism and the Limits of Justice puts it, whether the government must enforce a conception of the good life in order to affirm or defend rights.
This debate arises from the view coming from thinkers which have been central to the development of liberalism as philosophy, such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, among others. That to respect individuals, government must be neutral among ends. Hence, rights which exist do so because of our status as a moral individual and pre-existing the state are primary as the means for individuals to live their own conception of the good life. That each man, in his daily actions and choices, defines himself what the ‘good life’ entails, and does not require any higher autority guiding him or ever making any such decision on his behalf.
As I have argued before, in any practical sense of life, this position is wrong. It bases rights under an abstract creation deprived of communal and moral ties. It supposes man as an atomised entity, who is neither affected by nor has his actions affecting any others. The conservative, philosophical position supports the communitarian approach- that the common good holds primacy over rights, and that government must affirm a conception of the good life. We cannot appeal to any idea of rights without first affirming a community’s conception of the good life on where to base them.
This means that rights are intrinsically, and by nature and purpose, tied to fulfilment of the individual. We come to know, understand, and discover rights in the individual’s and community’s pursuit of the common good. However, this does not mean there is a simple choice between the common good or rights; the choice is of which you should prioritize in the circumstances such concepts should stand in contradiction, the conservative prioritizes the common good.
The reader must be asking what the relationship is with whether one has a duty or obligation to wear a mask and this brief philosophical exposition. The relation is explained by the following question which guides our view if the individual has a duty or if it is permissible for the government to force you to wear a mask.
The question we must ask first then is whether wearing a mask or not impedes the individuals and community’s pursuit of a good life. If the answer is yes, then the burden falls on those who answer in the affirmative by explaining how wearing a mask impedes a person in achieving his good life constrained under the common conception of the community. I believe the opponents of wearing masks have a tough time explaining, in philosophical terms, how it would impede a person and (in particular) a community’s pursuit of the good life. Especially how it would in comparison to the direct risks presented to those who may lose their ability to pursue any kind of life at all.
However, those who answer that it does not have an easier time making the case of why it is a duty and permissible action by the government. Assume for the moment you accept the position that masks can help in preventing coronavirus (I accept that there is a debate within the scientific community if this is true or not). If individuals begin to get infected with coronavirus because of our failure to wear masks, one factor of the many possibilities may lead to an infection. The government begins to pursue a policy of lockdown. Isn’t this preventing individuals and communities from pursuing the good life? I believe most will agree that it does.
However, this raises another problem, whether the government lockdown prevents the pursuit of the good life. It certainly does, but conservatives believe in ordered liberty. Meaning that this is an acceptable policy to pursue if it’s consistent with prudence, subsidiarity and the common good (being the health of our citizens). The same is true with any action to force people to wear masks.
If you accept the philosophical normative positions of conservatism, it is your duty to wear the mask and support any related government action to enforce it. We have not gotten to a position that the government forces people to wear them at all public spaces, but there is no natural right claim to be made against it in the name of “liberty”. Since I have argued that rights can only be known, affirmed and enforced under a common conception of the good life, a good life that may be threatened by not wearing the masks.
Our universal and community-based natural rights are tied to our desire for fulfilment. This means that we are not merely buffered between each other, but we are part of a larger community with history, traditions, customs, and collective wisdom in pursuit of the desire for the common good. That desire leads to a simple conclusion: wear the mask for the common good of all.
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