Reference solution

Moral Questions

1. Can it be morally justified to make vaccinations mandatory for members of the military?
2. Can it be morally justified to punish a soldier
for refusing a mandatory vaccination?

Final Actions

Prohibited

• It is not ethically justifiable to force vaccination.
• It is not ethically justifiable to completely discharge the soldier after the 24-hour period has elapsed (exception: the soldier's non-vaccination poses a significant risk to others).

Maybe allowed

• It may be ethically acceptable to extend the deadline for the decision to vaccinate (but that doesn't solve the problem if they still refuse).

Permissible

• It is ethically permissible to assist the soldier's decision-making process by informing him or her of the medical facts of the experimental treatment/vaccination.
• It is ethically permissible to offer medical counseling regarding experimental treatments, provided that the counseling is not detrimental.
• It is ethically permissible to suggest a transfer to another job where the experimental immunization is not required.

Further reflections

Main ethical issues

The main ethical question at stake in this scenario is the question whether an employer (here the armed forces) can make some form of medical treatment obligatory for its employees and if so what form of measures the employer can take against employees who refuse the treatment. In the present case, an additional factor is that the vaccination is still in an experimental state and not fully approved by the competent medical bodies. In other scenarios one could of course also imagine different forms of medical treatment, such as medical enhancements, doping etc.

Force protection or paternalism

The goal of the vaccination is of course to protect a population (i.e. the soldiers) from getting the virus. The reasoning of the military authorities to do this can ultimately have to goals: protect the individuals and hence vaccinate them for their own good on the one hand; but they obviously also want to protect the health of their troops as a whole ("force protection") to not endanger the mission. From an ethical perspective this is relevant since in the first case the individual may well renounce the offer and accept some risk, whereas in the second case the individuals' view does not really count but it is rather the population at large who is the beneficiary.
So the example is another one where paternalism plays a role, that is an authority deciding for the good of someone else and without actually consulting the concerned people or even overriding their (assumed or expressed) wishes.

• Read another analyis on p. 298ff. in a Chapter by Sidel and Levy that also inspired our scenario.
• On paternalism you may consult the Stanford Encylopedia entry
• Wikipedia entry on Force Protection

Research

An additional layer of complexity is added to the scenario by the fact that the vaccination against "Phantrax" is said to still be experimental/ not approved. This means that applying it to a large population (such as all military personnel of a mission) has to be considered as some form of research or at least trial phasis. As a consequence, the respective rules of research ethics should be applied and they include more stringent forms of informed consent, the protection of vulnerable populations etc.

• WMA Declaration of Helsinki on medical research
• On medical research you may also read our introduction at the MME Scenario Collection

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Would it be ethically justifiable for military authorities to mandate vaccinations primarily for the sake of "force protection"—prioritizing the collective health and operational readiness of troops over individual autonomy—and how does this align or conflict with principles of paternalism, where decisions are made on behalf of individuals for their own perceived benefit, potentially without their consent? Visit us Teknologi Telekomunikasi Written on Sun, 13 Apr 2025 19:04:28 by Sains Data