Disadvantage, social justice, and paternalism

Viens, A.M. (2013) Disadvantage, social justice, and paternalism. Public Health Ethics, 6 (1), 28-34. (doi:10.1093/phe/pht002).

Abstract

While Powers and Faden do not consider possible anti-paternalism objections to their view, there are two variants of this objection that a social justice perspective is susceptible to. It is worth exploring which responses to such objections may be less promising than others. It is argued that for most public health measures targeting the disadvantaged, theorists and practitioners taking a social justice perspective should bite the paternalist bullet. Insofar as the government has the ability to reduce mortality and morbidity within the population in a way that is fair and in everyone’s interests, then the use of paternalistic means or resultant paternalistic effects should be thought to be the lesser evil.

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