1. The shadow of the pandemic is constantly hanging over Europe as well, as confirmed by a recent post in Kathimerini (08/20/2022) titled ‘Anti-vaxxers continue to be helpless in the media’, and the phenomena of its mutation, according to experts, are expected from October next year. Meanwhile, all the issues that divided Greek society into opposing opinions remain always relevant, especially with regard to mandatory or non-compulsory vaccination, where the State Council from the very beginning advocated a mandatory vaccine (a novelty, after all, is resolution SE 1684/2022, which decided that mandatory vaccination of medical workers does not contradict the Constitution), while opponents of vaccination stubbornly deny their inclusion in the mandatory norm.

2. These deniers make various arguments, the main ones being as follows: these vaccines have not yet been tested, some of those who have been vaccinated had adverse side effects, others reject the credibility of scientific experts or believe that religion forbids vaccines (religious ), being susceptible to any kind of prejudice, bigotry, or even willful ignorance. They also deny the obligation of social solidarity with other people (Article 25, paragraph 4S).
And all of them, also called “rightists” (droits-de l’homistes), believe that the legislative measures being taken restrict, especially in view of imprisonment, the free development of the individual and their lives are in danger, and call on everyone, in successive demonstrations, in “disobedience” to democratic institutions (political disobedience, D. Toro) and they call unconstitutional everything that they do not like, in order to eventually turn against Democracy. Thus, it is shown that anti-vaccine advocates put forward arguments that go beyond the “reasonably thinking person” in advance and express their immaturity, thereby not offering an example of determinism.

3. Therefore, it can be argued that anti-vaccinators, in their main provisions (irrationality, religiosity, superstition, fatalism), belong to the category of “anti-enlighteners” (Les Anti-Lumières, Joseph de Maistre, Louis de Bonald, Edmund Burke), i.e. those thinkers, mainly of the 18th and 19th centuries, who by their texts (they were against correct reason and for the preservation of the present religious-political regime) turned against the positions of the “Enlightenment” that dominated the period of the 17th and mainly during the 18th century and is the greatest intellectual heritage that has come down to us since then, and the main basis of the ideology of liberalism (John Locke, Voltaire, Diderot, Kant). Therefore, the skeptics and I are returning to the era before the Enlightenment, that is, to the 17th century!

4. This observation is correct, given that the main goals of the “Enlightenment”, on the ideas of which the constitutional culture (Parara, Economic Freedom, 2019, p. 44 et seq.) of Western societies is based, are primarily: logic against prejudice (rationalism), withdrawal from religion and church intransigence (tolerance), freedom from obscurantism, secularization, but also individualism, which emphasized the value of a person and the respect that we owe him, while deniers are indifferent to their neighbor.
And those who refuse the vaccine on religious grounds cannot invoke the “tolerance” guaranteed by Article 13 par. 1S, on the one hand, in view of par. 4 of the same article. S. (no one can, by virtue of their religious beliefs, be exempted from fulfilling their obligations to the state or refuse to comply with laws), and on the other hand, because tolerance cannot extend to them in cases where their behavior can directly harm a third party.

5. However, the “rationalization” lacking in skeptics requires further education, which is probably lacking in most who seem to be obsessed with bigotry. Therefore, it is urgent to strengthen education (Bildung) as well as cultural development (Kultur) in order for the triumph of “Reason” to triumph, as Steven Pinker urges us to Enlighten Now (Dioptra 2021). Of course, none of them can give Antigone’s argument!

* Petros I. Pararas, Professor of Constitutional Law, Honorary Vice-President of the Council of Europe