Collective Paternalism and Vaccination Programs

One important objection to vaccination policies involving nudging or coercive measures such as restrictions on unvaccinated people’s access to public spaces is that they are paternalistic. This objection is weaker than is often assumed. We defend this claim by (1) introducing a novel distinction between individual and collective paternalism; (2) showing that, across a range of circumstances, vaccination programs involve collective, not individual, paternalism; and (3) arguing that collective paternalism is not wrong for the reasons that, arguably, individual paternalism is.