Does one who theoretically has the power to do anything really have free will? You can do anything so in theory you would, because why wouldn't you? — Outlander

That simply doesn't follow. Having the power to do something does not entail that one does it. Otherwise there would be a contradiction involved in supposing one to have the ability to do things one is not doing. Yet clearly there is no contradiction.

Imagine I can conceive of doing A. Well, I have free will over whether I do it or not. My conceiving of it does not in some way compel me to do it.

Now imagine I can conceive of all actions. Well, I still have free will over which one I perform. The fact I am now able to conceive of all actions does not in some way restrict my free will: far from it, it means I am able to do anything at all if I so choose.

Well, that would be God's situation, would it not? For were he unable to conceive of some actions, then he'd not be omnipotent - yet by definition he is. So he's as free as can be.

Why not? What would prevent him? Or, define "omnipotent," or find another word, to get around this problem. — tim wood

Nothing prevents him. He just doesn't. Nothing is preventing me from hurling the boiling hot cup of coffee into my own face. But I am not hurling it into my own face.

You have yet to even raise a problem. Say what the problem is, and do so in a way that does not conflate having the ability to do something with actually doing it.

I don't know what you mean. Beauty does not lie in any old beholder - not in you or me. Beauty lies in one beholder: God.

The feelings by means of which we are aware of the beauty of things, are not themselves constitutive of the beauty of those things.

And beauty is not constituted by the beautiful things themselves - they 'have' beauty, but do not constitute it (which is why 'what is beauty?' is not answered by simply listing all the things that are beautiful).

Though our sensations of beauty are not themselves constitutive of the beauty they give us an awareness of, they could only give us an awareness of beauty if they in some way resembled it. Or so I would argue. And as a sensation resembles another sensation - that is, sensations are like sensations and nothing else - then the beauty of a thing must reside in it standing in a sensational relation to something else. And as minds and only minds can bear sensations, the beauty of a thing must consist in it standing in a sensational relation to a mind.

And as aesthetic reasons conflict with other reasons, that mind must be the mind who is the source of all reasons. And as that mind will be God, beauty consists of a thing standing in a sensational relation to God.

I suspect that we are not in agreement as I would be astonished if that was your view too.

You mean he cannot do it because he cannot choose to do it? I'm thinking you do not understand the claim of omnipotence, being all-powerful. — tim wood

No, I mean he can do it. I think you don't understand omnipotence. Being omnipotent means being able to do anything. So, he can create a stone that is too heavy for him to lift. I fail to see what you're having trouble grasping.

If he did that - if he created that stone - then he'd no longer be omnipotent. Being able to not be omnipotent is an ability an omnipotent being has. It's just an ability that an omnipotent being, by hypothesis, does not exercise.

This isn't hard.

I know it - if it is true, that is - by means of ratiocination.

And it means that beauty is subjective - that is, that it is made of certain feelings a person (God) has towards something - but not individually or collectively subjective.

So, beauty is like moral goodness in this respect.

But you're not addressing anything I have argued. I have made a destructive case: I have argued that beauty is 'not' individually or collectively subjective. Do you agree with the arguments I made in support of that claim?

Note, someone could agree with my destructive case, yet disagree with my positive claim about what beauty itself consists of. (A Platonist, for instance, would agree with my negative case, but would argue that beauty is a form that the objects we call beautiful are somehow reminding us of).

Yes, it would be. If he did it, then there'd be something he couldn't do - and so he'd have given up his omnipotence. Which is something he can do. (I mean, you are surely not so foolish as to think that being omnipotent involves being unable to give up any of one's powers? How would that be omnipotence worthy of the name? It would be a constraint on one, not empowering at all)

You seem to have a problem understanding the difference between being able to do something and doing it.

You are able to smash your face into the screen of your computer, yes? Are you doing that?

An attitudinal relation that an object stands in to God. Ask me another.

Now try and address something I argued.

What problem? God can make a stone so heavy he cannot lift. There. Solved. (Not that anything needed solving).

Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Some people perceive to be beautiful things that are not, and some fail to perceive the beauty of things that are. That is incompatible with beauty being in the eye of the beholder. Thus the beauty of an object or experience is not in the eye of the beholder anymore than, say, the shape of an object is. (That the object appears square to me, but circular to you, does not mean that the object 'is' square and circular, but merely that at least one of us is getting a false impression).

What if you are in a bad mood when you see a masterpiece such that it elicits no special feelings in you - is it not beautiful at that time? No, you would not say that: you would say that you failed to appreciate its beauty at the time due to the bad mood.

And consider the unappreciated artist, of which the most famous example is Van Gogh. Virtually no one thought Van Gogh's paintings were brilliant masterpieces when he produced them. Did that mean his paintings were rubbish back then, but gradually became brilliant? In that case he was not an underappreciated genius - for at the time he received the appreciation he deserved, namely none as his paintings were awful in most people's eyes. (But they weren't actually awful, were they?)

And what of the artists themselves: do they think that beauty is in the eye of the beholder? No, Van Gogh and the few other artists who recognized that his paintings were great, were perceiving something that others were not. That is certainly how they themselves understood matters. They did not think that Van Gogh paintings were poor to most, but good for them - they thought they were good and that most people were just too dumb to notice.

I do not follow your reasoning.

God is all powerful, by definition. So God can do anything. He is not constrained in any way. Thus he does have free will.

God knows everything - that is, he is in possession of all knowledge. Why does that imply he lacks free will? Note, because he is all powerful, he gets to determine what is and isn't an item of knowledge. So the body of knowledge does not operate to constrain God. God constrains what can be known, but knowledge does not constrain God.

And God determines what is good and what is bad - he wouldn't be all powerful unless this were so. So goodness and badness do not operate as constraints on God.

And God is not 'programmed', for who could program God save God himself? (And to program oneself is not to undermine one's free will, but is rather an exercise of it).

'Western philosophy' which can be shortened to just 'philosophy' is the practice of using reason to find out what's true. (Anyone can do it, as it is not geographical).

The view you have expressed was defended by Parmenides and Zeno of Elea.

What rational support does it enjoy? That is, for what evidential reason do you think it is true?

Consequentialism about morality is silly. Invariably what consequentialists do is go from this intuitively plausible premise: 'this action is right because of its consequences'; to 'all actions are right because of their consequences'. That's stupid - it's like reasoning that as I like this cup of coffee because it is hot, I must like anything hot (and the hotter the better). It simply does not follow that because Xing in circumstances S was right due to the consequences of Xing, that therefore Ying in circumstances T must be right because of its consequences.

So, 'getting' to the consequentialist conclusion seems to involve committing a fallacy. The evidence adduced - that, intuitively, some acts are made right by their consequences - is used to support a conclusion that it does not support - that all right acts are made right by their consequences.

But as if that was not bad enough, the theory is exposed to a raft of counter-intuitive implications. For example, take the form of consequentialism known as utilitarianism. There are different kinds of utilitarian, but the two most prominent are hedonistic and preference utilitarians. The hedonistic utilitarian holds that the right act is the act that maximises happiness. And the preference utiltiarian holds that the right act is the act that satisfies the maximum quantity of preferences. Now take an obviously wrong act - such as an act of rape - and consider the utilitarian analysis. First, the utilitarian will have to count the pleasure and preferences of the rapist, not just those of the victim. Well, that's already absurd, yes? Even if their calculation delivers the right verdict - that the act is wrong - they got there in the wrong (indeed, obscene) manner: they weighed the happiness of the rapist against the hapiness of the rapist's victim. Yet intuitively the rapist's preferences and happiness count for nothing. No ethically right minded person would, for instance, consider the rapist's pleasure and preference satisfaction a silver lining to an otherwise unhappy, preference frustrating cloud! Second, if you have enough rapists getting enough pleasure from their act of rape, then the utilitarian won't even reach the correct verdict - there will come a point where the utility of the rapists outbalances the disutility of the victim. Yet intuitively it does not matter how many rapists are raping the person - the act is wrong regardless.

This is just the tip of an iceberg of counterexamples. I can only think that those who continue to find the theory plausible are more obsessed with 'having a theory' or reducing morality to some simple algorithm than they are in respecting the evidence.

It continues.

No, it is an expression of my view, which is then followed by a rational defence. That is, I explain why I think my view is correct: I think it is correct because it is implied by widely shared intuitions about relevantly analogous cases.

But anyway, you're either being tedious for the sake of sadistic delight (oo, look at me being torturously stupid to a clever person), or you're genuinely baffled, in which case you need to work with your hands and leave the thinking to others.

In the OP. I am a philosopher and I wrote the OP.

This isn't a medical issue. It's a philosophical one. Not that many are capable of drawing this distinction (including the WHO, which makes ethical judgements it is not qualified to make).

Now, if you need the use of my kidneys for 9 months or you'll die are you entitled to make me give you the use of them? No.

Apply the lesson.

Well, it was stupid. It had no philosophical content. Try thinking about the op rather than asking inane questions that go nowhere.

What? Stop being cryptic. Do you have any kind of response to my argument?

yes.

Yes. A group of cells isn't a person. And yes, this is called clear thinking. It is bound to seem a little strange to you.
Once more, try and address the case I made.

What are you on about? I am talking about what is just in a community - communities of persons. A violinist, some music lovers, and someone with kidneys that the violinist needs the use of. That's a community. A community of a woman, a rapist, a pregnancy and a doctor. Another community. And so on.
What, you think communities are themselves persons and that we all owe them obedience? Are you crazy or stupid? A group of whales is not a whale. A group of persons is not a person. And even if it was - and it isn't- it would just be another person, not one to whom we owe special obligations or who can violate our rights.
Now, try and address my argument. Stop talking past it and address it.

What's your objection to anything I have argued?

You agree, do you, that the kidnapped person can unhook from the violinist without thereby violating the violinist's rights?

And you agree, do you, that the raped woman can have an abortion?

And you agree, do you, that anyone who gets pregnant through catching the pregnancy virus while going about their daily business, may have an abortion as well?

Don't you see what that tells us? In all of these cases someone innocent dies. The violinist, the baby. They have rights to life. But that right was 'not' violated by the people who did things that resulted in their deaths.

Extract the moral: there's clearly a limit to the impositions one person can make on another. The violinist is innocent and needs the use of someone else's kidneys for 9 months to stay alive. That doesn't mean he's entitled to the use of mine, even if it is mine alone that will do the trick.

Now apply that to the lockdowns. Why are we constantly being locked down? To save people's lives. Innocent people's lives. Does that make them just? No, it matters what they impose. And it is fairly obvious that one is not entitled to have others be locked down for months on end just so that you can avoid getting a virus that, should you catch it, may (and the odds are very small) kill you. I mean, in my examples an innocent person will 'definitely' die - yet still, that does not mean that others have to give up 9 months of inconvenience, restriction and pain to prevent that death. So a fortiori they do not have to give up anything comparable merely to prevent someone from being exposed to a very small risk of death! (I mean, you do know the risk of you dying from covid - even if you're unvaccinated - is fairly small, and really really small if you're vaccinated....so small it'd be kinda stupid to worry about it).

Let’s try this again. In what circumstance can a community assert an interest against an individual interest? — Ennui Elucidator

I made an argument. You're not addressing it. You're just asking poorly formed questions. I've already told you I don't have - and am opposed to - substantial normative theories. Do you know what one of those is? It is a theory that gives you some rule - some principle - that answers those sorts of questions and that you can then take out into the world and apply unthinkingly to every and any situation you encounter.

I believe there is no such principle - no useful one, anyway. (One can formulate accurate but useless ones - such as 'do what is right in the situation'; that's correct - that really is what one ought to do - but it provides one with no practical insight).

So, return to the OP and address something I have argued. Use your imagination and see what your reason says about the rights and wrongs of what you're imagining.

Again: if pregnancies were like viruses - so, if you just go out and about your daily business, there's a chance you catch a pregnancy - would women have either to lockdown or else carry their pregnancies to term? Or does your reason says, as mine does, that no, the woman could have abortions?

I haven’t asked you a single epistemology question, I’ve asked you about community interests vs. individual interests and why anyone should be swayed by your continued claim that moral intuition in thought experiments should control governments policy. — Ennui Elucidator

No, you then asked about moral intuitions and about what do make of the fact that people have had different moral intuitions about one and the same activity across time. Those are grander issues to do with moral epistemology that have no place in this discussion.

In this discussion I am arguing that it is unjust to have lockdowns to deal with viruses. I have done this not by simply asserting my view, but by showing how it is implied by a well known consensus of intuitions about seemingly relevantly analogous cases.

My argument does not depend upon the truth of any substantial normative theory about rights and their distribution. I am appealing to intuitions about cases.

What you're doing is focusing on the probative force of rational intuitions (any and all) - which is to miss the point. It's like entering a discussion with a scientist and saying 'but it might all be a dream' whenever any appeal to data is made (how do you know you didn't just dream the outcome of that experiment?). Tedious.

I don't see how your intuitions prove something to be morally correct or incorrect. You can't just say intuitions prove morality, without giving reasoning for this. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Moral epistemology. Focus on what the thread is about, and not on the 'how do we know anything is right or wrong?" question.

Consequentialism about ethics is silly. We can argue over that and how I know it and how you know otherwise somewhere else. But even if it is true, consequentialism would deliver an anti-lockdown verdict for the reasons I have explained. It's the actual consequences that determine the morality of a policy; and it is obvious - obvious - that any sober assessment of the aggregate gains and losses would deliver the verdict that lockdowns to deal with a virus are utterly stupid, consequentially.

What is tedious is that you somehow think that your assertion of rights (that you don’t actually mean as rights as generally conceived) — Ennui Elucidator

Look, if you had an inkling of insight you'd realize that I do know what I am talking about - that I know what I mean by a right and that I know my stuff where morality is concerned, inside out. If you haven't gotten that yet, it's because 'you' don't know your stuff.

What's tedious is your attempt at derailing. No matter what moral issue we were discussing, you'd have made the same ignorant points about moral epistemology - or would have done if I'd happened to have been drawing normative conclusions you disagree with. Yes? So, your 'how do we know anything is right or wrong?" point is off topic - I can answer it, but this is not the place. Focus.

Really? First, you don't seem to understand the example (the decision to unhook from the violinist has consequences for innocent others, as does the decision to abort). Second, this thread is not about whether it is morally just to force people to get vaccinated or not - that's a separate issue (and it is clearly unjust). Third, explain, don't state.

That's why I asked us to imagine that pregnancies could be caught, just as one can catch a virus. Does that change anything? Would our reason now tell us that women ought to lockthemselves down or else accept that they must endure the inconvenience and pain of childbirth?

Note too that in my examples, we have certain death - an innocent will certainly die. Whereas with covid, we have a small possibility of death - if you catch covid (unvaccinated), there is a small chance you'll die.

Oh, how tedious - so this is now to be a thread about moral epistemology? Focus on the issue.

So you aren’t advocating a rights theory — Ennui Elucidator

Yes. A 'right' is simply shorthand for something force can be legitimately used to secure. That's how I use it. But when it comes to figuring out when and where force can legitimately be used, I appeal to intuitions about cases rather than to principles. It's just that when our intuitions are unclear about case x, then if case y is sufficiently similar and elicits clear intuitions, then the clear intuitions can be reasonably carried over to case x.

So it is not a substantial theory. And if one wanted to be pedantic, one could insist that I put 'other things being equal' clauses in all over the place.

you are just using rights language badly to cover up a majoritarian hurrah/boo theory of ethics as expressed by a particular culture? — Ennui Elucidator

Er, what? No, matey. No. You're very confused. I am not a non-cognitivist about ethics and nothing I said implied otherwise. And overlapping rational intuitions that Xing is wrong constitutes excellent evidence that Xing is wrong, other things being equal, just as overlapping visual sensations that Y is red is excellent evidence that Y is red, other things being equal (presuambly you now think I a boo haurrah theorist about colour!).

Doesn’t sound harsh, but sounds exactly like what I asked you about. When do we focus on the community on your account of ethics rather than the individual? That is, rather than evaluating individual claim against individual claim, do we ever get to evaluate individual claim against some other locus of ethical regard? — Ennui Elucidator

I made a case. You're not addressing it, you're just saying stuff. Sounds like waffle, not reasoned argument.

Why should I accept that rights theory is meaningful in this analysis when not one word you uttered was about anyone but the rights bearer? — Ennui Elucidator

I argued my case. I did not put forth a 'rights theory'. I am anti substantial normative theories. I argued by appealing to rational intuitions about relevantly analogous cases. It's how Thomson argues too. No point appealing to intuitions about abortions if you want to gain insight into the ethics of abortions - for clearly people's intuitions about the ethics of abortions conflict (and thus we know - know - that someone's rational intuitions are not accurate on that issue, and so we must look to our rational intuitions elsewhere for insight......hence she asks us to imagine a sickly violinist etc).

All I am doing is pointing out that the widely shared intuitions about Thomson's violinist case tell us something important, namely that our right to life does not give us a right to 9 months of inconvenience and hardship from others.

We're in the middle of a pandemic. A lot of people are scared, including the decision makers. And furthermore these issues - the issue of what measures are justified - have become politicized and polarizing. That means our intuitions about them are probably corrupt and not reliable. That's why I am not appealing to them, but looking elsewhere for insight.

Now, Thomson's violinist cases are well known and well discussed. And there's a broad consensus that they do indeed show that abortions in the case of rape are ethically fine and do not violate the rights of the unborn.

So they're a good, calm, well trod place to go for insight. And what do they tell us? They tell us that an innocent person's right to life does not entail an entitlement to 9 months of inconvenience and hardship from another. THe word 'entitlement' is important: an entitlement is something you can use force to extract from another. If your life, through no fault of my own, has come to depend for its continuation on my having to endure 9 months of inconvenience and hardship, then you are not entitled to that from me. I would be generous if I were to give it to you. But you're not entitled to it. So you have to ask, not demand. And if I don't give it, you have to accept that there are spheres of responsibility and your death in this case falls within yours, not mine.

Applied to lockdowns: it means they're unjust. The innocent people who'll die from the virus - and you and I may be among them, for we just don't know (so this is not special pleading) - are not entitled to have the rest of us endure 9 months of hardship, cost and inconvenience.

Sounds harsh, right? But I may be one of those innocents. I am not being harsh, I am being decent - being decent involves recognizing that there are limits to what you're entitled to from others . It involves recognizing that others have lives and that you're not the centre of the goddamn universe. It involves recognizing that you're not entitled to have others be slaves to your vision of the good life. Lock yourself down, don't insist others lock down. As Shaw said, do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you - they may not share your tastes.

I think a clearer example is the trolley problem, with people that live happy lives. I think it right to pull the lever and murder someone than let multiple people die. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Our intuitions - most people's anyway - about the trolley cases provide yet further evidence of consequentialism's falsity. Most people's intuitions say that it is morally right to divert the trolley into the path of the one to save the five. But most people's intuitions also say that it is morally wrong to shove the fact man off the bridge such that he lands on the tracks below and, by means of his mass, stops the trolley and saves five lives (at the cost of his). Consequentialism delivers the same verdict about both acts, as they have the same consequential profile. Thus, consequentialism is false. (Note, the conclusion is not that consequences don't matter - clearly sometimes an act is right because of its consequences - but rather that other things matter too, such as intentions and not using others as mere means to an end. What's a plausible explanation of the difference between the two cases that accounts for our differing intuitions about them? Well, that in the diversion case one does not use the person one diverts the trolley into as a mere means to an end, rather one merely foresees that they will be struck by the trolley. One does not intend it. By contrast, when one shoves the fat man off the bridge, one is intending him thereby to be hit by the trolley and thus one is using him as a mere means to an end).

But even if it is true, consequentialism would deliver the verdict that lockdowns are unethical. Indeed, it seems to me that a consequentialist about happiness or preference satisfaction should be even more passionately opposed to lockdowns than me, for reasons I have already surveyed above. Lockdowns make even less sense on a consequentialist view than they do on mine.

That you seem to think otherwise can only be, I think, because you are cherry picking what consequences you focus on (which is to abuse the theory, not apply it).

Still, the desire is yours, and so the pleasure from the fulfillment of this desire will be yours too (and I will be happy too, of course). — litewave

These are common fallacies that lead people to conclude that psychological egoism is true.

First, that a desire is located in you, does not make it self-interested. Whether a desire is self-interested or altruistic is determined not by its location, but its content.

If you deny this, then all you are actually saying when you say that we always act out of self-interest, is that we always act on the basis of our own desires - which is true, but not an interesting psychological thesis, for it is entirely compatible with those desires often being altruistic.

So, the first mistake is to confuse the 'location' of a desire with its 'direction'. Altruistic desires are not desires that lack a desirer. They are desires whose satisfaction requires something happening to someone else, rather than to you (there are other, non-altruistic desires like this - such as sadistic desires). If I want you to be happy, then my desire will not be satisfied unless something happens to you - unless, that is, you are happy - rather than anything to happening to me. Similarly if I wanted you to be unhappy - that too is 'other directed' in that something needs to happen to someone else in order for it to be satisfied.

The second mistake is to confuse the consequence of a desire being satisfied, with its direction. If my desires are satisfied, then I derive satisfaction (by definition). But it does not follow that my desire was 'for' my own satisfaction. Whether the desire is self or other directed is not, then, determined by its outcome for its bearer, but by what it would take to satisfy it.

No one would disagree that even if we're causally determined, we still sometimes do what we want. And if that is all one understands free will to involve - which is what Thomas Hobbes thought - then one would be a compatibilist, not a hard determinist.

A hard determinist thinks that free will requires more than this. (Most contemporary compatibilists think free will requires more than this too - but the 'more' it requires turns out to be satisfiable under determinism).

A hard determinist is an incompatibilist about free will, so they think that determinism precludes free will. They would not dispute that if determinism is true we still sometimes do what we want. Rather, they argue that merely 'doing what one wants' is not sufficient for free will, as doing what one wants is compatible with, say, having been programmed to want what you want (or, more straightforwardly, it is compatible with everything one does being the causal product of matters one had nothing to do with). Yet that is not compatible with being morally responsible for one's decisions - which is what free will makes one. Therefore, free will requires more than simply doing what one wants - it requires that one's wants are suitably one's own (and incompatibilists think that it is only if indeterminism is true that one can be said to be the true originator of one's decisions and so on).

Basically, if you think it is, in principle, entirely just to punish someone - and to punish them because they 'deserve' it - for doing what they want, even if their doing so was causally determined, then you're a compatibilist. If not, then you're an incompatibilist.

Putting your theory to one side, what does your reason tell you is the right thing to do? If your reason tells you that you are entitled to unhook from the violinist, then your reason is telling you something inconsistent with your theory.
Perhaps your theory is correct and your intuitions false, or perhaps your intuitions confirm your theory. But your intuitions count for no more than someone else's, other things being equal. And most people have the intuition that one may unhook. So your theory appears false - it contradicts most people's intuitions about what it is right to do in all manner of situations.

I think it is ethical to lockdown someone who has a deadly virus - as I said in the OP - and those it is reasonable to believe have it.
But I do not support locking down those who do not have it or that it is not reasonable to believe have it.
In the case you describe, the extent of a justified lockdown would be determined by whether it was reasonable to believe those in the hospital have been infected. And like I say, the dangerousness of the virus will bear on that - that is, the amount of evidence needed to make it reasonable to believe you have been infected will vary according to how dangerous the virus is.

Yes, I certainly think so.

Yes, others need your advice - they can't decide for themselves. Consulted a lot, are you?

Anyway, what you wrote there was just a personal attack. No philosophical content. No attemp to address the issues raised. Just a childlike venting of frustration. If you find that you can't refute a position, adopt it - that's my advice.

That's how you determine which ethical theory is true? Which one seems more 'down to earth'? What does that even mean?

Arbitrary means 'without reason'. Most ethicists reject consequentialism because it makes predictions about morality that are not confirmed by our rational intuitions. What would be arbitrary would be to ignore that counter evidence. For now your belief in consequentialism is not reason informed or responsive.

Incidentally, if consequentialism is true and the good to be maximised is pleasure or happiness, and the bad to be minimized is pain, then presumably you too would be against lockdowns?
For the virus, if allowed free reign, would kill mainly the elderly, who are a big drain on resources. Their productive years are over, they themselves are fairly miserable, and the resources used to cater to them could produce much more utility if spent elsewhere. So you would reason - if you were a true consequentialist and not simply someone who tries to find negative or positive consequences to justify doing what they were going to do anyway - that letting the virus blaze through us all would be far and away the most utility maximizing policy. And you'd stop the media whipping up fear of impending doom in everyone (lots of censorship - ignorance is often bliss). Just shut the media up and let the virus do its thing. Most of us wouldn't notice. "Steve got ill....and died! He was only 55. He was fit as a fiddle, but by thursday he was dead" "Oh, gosh. That's terrible. Poor Steve. Makes you think, doesn't it? Anyway, what's for dinner? Cough" That'd be it.
And as a good consequentialist, you'd stop covid patients clogging up ICU by just implementing proper triage procedures. If someone has covid and needs ventilating, then they're probably going to die - so spare the ICU bed for someone more likely to benefit from it. It's not how much you need something that matters, but how much benefit giving it to you would achieve.

The clever and wealthy would be able to hunker down and let covid pass over - for in 6months to a year herd immunity would have been achieved and the virus would have mutated into something much less deadly (as is their tendency). And the feckless and elderly and stupid and otherwise expensive, burdensome part of the human community would have been reduced (for without assistance, they do not fare well). In a year or two there would be a massive boom - as there was in the roaring twenties after spanish flu - and covid would be but a distant memory. We'd miss gran and steve, but gran was dying anyway and we've inherited early, and Steve. ..well, you make new friends don't you? (Individuals are replaceable with consequentialism - they're just containers of utility, not bearers of rights).

You are a very bad consequentialist - appalling - if you think the most utile thing to do is to force everyone into their homes, regardless of whether they want to do that (most people really dislike having their freedom curtailed). All those people who have died from covid - they'd have died of it if there wasn't a lockdown, yes? So locking them down just made them miserable to no gain whatsoever. And most of us - the vast bulk - would not be killed by it. So most of us are being made miserable and poorer and being made to lose businesses for the sake of sparing us a flu-like illness (the vast bulk of us would rather suffer a flu like illness than be locked in our homes for months on end at massive cost to ourselves and others....as you can tell by the fact that if there were no enforced lockdowns, most would not have voluntarily locked themselves down, would they?). How on earth - how on earth! - can you possibly think that's a good consequential profile?

So, consequentialism is false. But if it is true, then lockdowns fail any halfway plausible coldblooded consequentialist analysis. Note: deaths aren't a big deal on consequentialism (unless the only consequence you are interested in is keeping the maximum number of persons alive). You don't have a right to life at all. Not if consequentialism is true. We are all just counters on a scale.

Again, compatibilism contradicts hard determinism. Hard determinism is the combination of two views: incompatibilism about free will and determinism about the operation of the universe.
The difference between them is not 'trivial' then. They are opposites. One is an incompatibilism, the other isn't - by definition.

Note, compatibilism is not a view about whether we have free will. It is a view about what it is compatible with. So, one can be a compatibilist and disbelieve in free will. There's no name for that combination, but it is logically possible.

The important point is that compatibilism is incompatible with hard determinism because hard determinism essentially involves a commitment to incompatibilism, and thus essentially involves rejecting compatibilism.

It's no more incoherent than psychological egoism (and no more plausible). Desires can be self directed and desires can be other directed. If I desire that you be happy, that is other-directed; if I desire that I be happy, that is self- directed.
What is silly is thinking that all of our desires are of one kind rather than the other. It's as silly as thinking everyone is over 6ft and if one encounters anyone who appears to be under 6ft, then that's an illusion- must be, because everyone's over 6ft.