The president of Notre Dame wrote the following sentence in an op-ed about the moral reasoning behind resuming in-person on campus in the fall. “We send off young men and women to war to defend the security of our nation knowing that many will not return.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/opinion/notre-dame-university-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare

Here’s the context before and after: “We are in our society regularly willing to take on ourselves or impose on others risks — even lethal risks — for the good of society...We applaud medical professionals who risk their health to provide care to the sick and suffering.”

The piece uses the analogies to soldiers & healthcare professionals, which I do not think are appropriate, to set up a sentence I do agree with: “The pivotal question for us individually and as a society is not whether we should take risks, but what risks are acceptable and why.”

Something missing from the piece which is crucial to addressing this question is to identify and specify as precisely as possible what these risks are. How sick students, faculty and staff would be acceptable? How many hospitalized? How many on ventilators? How many dead?

The piece contends that “the mark of a healthy society is its willingness to bear burdens and take risks for the education and well-being of its young.” We need much more detail on what these risks are, who is expected to bear them, & why they are essential to college education.