Reconsidering Inducing Immunity? A Reply to Our Critics

In this article we respond to critical comments from colleagues on Inducing Immunity? Justifying Immunization Policies in Times of Vaccine Hesitancy (MITpress, 2024). We explain why we have chosen to focus on John Stuart Mill's harm principle as a basis for developing our argument for mandatory immunisation policies. With help of our critics, we subsequently elaborate on our conception of harm and argue that this is not opening the door to illiberal policies. We discuss the role of coercion and the idea of the 'best-interest of the child', and we further develop our account of trustworthiness of a vaccination policy.