Herd immunity and the harm principle: Too narrow or too broad

Area of Science:

• Bioethics
• Political Philosophy
• Public Health Policy

Background:

• Vaccine mandates are often justified using ethical principles.
• John Stuart Mill's harm principle is a key concept in liberal political philosophy.
• The relationship between individual vaccination decisions and collective herd immunity is a subject of ongoing debate.

Purpose of the Study:

• To critically analyze Pierik and Verweij's argument for vaccine mandates based on Mill's harm principle.
• To examine the challenges of applying the harm principle to vaccine refusal and herd immunity.
• To explore alternative ethical frameworks for justifying vaccine mandates.

Main Methods:

• Philosophical commentary and conceptual analysis.
• Examination of the narrow and broad interpretations of the harm principle.
• Critique of the application of the harm principle to collective goods like herd immunity.

Main Results:

• The narrow interpretation of the harm principle fails to justify vaccine mandates due to the minimal impact of individual refusal on herd immunity.
• The broad interpretation, while addressing the impact issue, potentially undermines the liberal underpinnings of the argument.
• Existing liberal frameworks may be insufficient for robustly defending vaccine mandates based on herd immunity.

Conclusions:

• Defending vaccine mandates via herd immunity requires either novel liberal arguments or non-liberal justifications.
• The application of Mill's harm principle to vaccine mandates presents significant philosophical obstacles.
• Further ethical inquiry is needed to establish sound justifications for public health interventions like vaccine mandates.