Kwame Anthony Appiah teaches philosophy
at N.Y.U. His books include ‘‘Cosmopolitanism,’’
‘‘The Honor Code’’ and ‘‘The Lies That Bind:
Rethinking Identity.’’A friend of my husband’s has repeatedly
voiced anti-vaccination views. Recently, I
found that he procured vaccination papers
without being vaccinated so that he could
travel and go out in public. Th is act of
fraud has crossed the line for me. He often
travels to countries without high vaccine
levels, so the chance of him hurting others
is high. I asked my husband to consider
drawing back from this friendship to show
that he is not condoning this. Am I making
too big a deal of it? During Covid, it’s been
diffi cult to keep up friendships, so a loss
of this one would be hard for my husband.
Name Withheld
It has been curious, amid the pandem-
ic, to see normally law-abiding people
exempt themselves from laws because
they don’t agree with their rationale.
Even if you thought (against all the evi-
dence) that vaccines do no good, you
wouldn’t be entitled to second-guess the
judgment of political offi cials who have
taken expert advice and made rules. Pan-
demic scoff laws like this man are making
decisions for other people — people who
might not have chosen, say, to consort
with the unvaccinated.
As we look forward to a post-pandemic
(if not post-Covid) era, maintaining your
other friendships should get easier. In
the meantime, I see no reason not to let
this man know where you stand. As the
social psychologist Tom R. Tyler argued in
a classic study, norms of legitimacy, more
than fear of punishment, explain why peo-
ple obey the law. By sounding off , you’ll be
helping to sustain those norms.
What has protected us here is the whole
scheme: vaccinations, certifi cates and so
on. Any individual defection isn’t likely
to cause a great deal of immediate harm.
The main wrong he’s doing is displaying
an egocentric contempt for all those who
have troubled themselves to support the
scheme by putting in the small contribu-
tions that make society work.
My spouse and I are fully boosted seniors.
I am currently cautious in all things, having
a compromised immune system. After the
holidays, we agreed to indoor restaurant
dining with friends who had just returned
from a family visit to the Midwest.
As we were leaving the restaurant,
the wife mentioned that she had a forged
Covid-19 vaccination card. She said
Respond
to someone’s
shabby
behavior with
resentment,
and you’re
treating her
as a moral agent
capable of
making her own
decisions.that she had Covid early in 2021, has
antibodies, tests herself and never got
vaccinated. When my spouse questioned
her husband privately about this, the
husband backpedaled, claiming that she
didn’t have a forged Covid vaccination
card (which could be a felony) but that
restaurants don’t always check for cards.
Th is was the third time we have met
these folks for dinner in recent months,
arriving separately and always at a
restaurant with indoor dining only. Our
cards were invariably checked upon
arrival. Th eir stories just don’t jibe. I am
beside myself with disappointment
at the blatant dishonesty. More important,
I am confl icted having this knowledge
and keeping it to myself, since we know
many of the same people.Name WithheldPeople who have had Covid will gener-
ally gain some measure of immunity as aresult. But they’re even better protected
— and less likely to transmit the virus —
when they’re vaccinated and boosted as
well. You were dining in January, a month
when Covid killed some 60,000 Ameri-
cans. Here we’ve got a woman who, in
ways I’ve just touched on, was shirking
a system created for the general welfare,
and elevating the odds of exposure for
an immune-compromised friend; and a
husband who was lying to you.
You should have told them what
you thought and felt free to share your
concerns with other acquaintances.
This couple abused your friendship
and forfeited whatever consideration
this relationship might otherwise have
conferred. Your attitude to them can be
appropriately reactive.