The Prompt:
Public Health and Individual Freedom
Most people want to be healthy, and most people want as much freedom as possible to do the things they want. Unfortunately, these two desires sometimes conflict. For example, smoking is prohibited from most public places, which restricts the freedom of some individuals for the sake of the health of others. Likewise, car emissions are regulated in many areas in order to reduce pollution and its health risks to others, which in turn restricts some people’s freedom to drive the vehicles they want. In a society that values both health and freedom, how do we best balance the two? How should we think about conflicts between public health and individual freedom?
Read and carefully consider these perspectives. Each suggests a particular way of thinking about the conflict between public health and individual freedom.
Perspective One
Our society should strive to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people. When the freedom of the individual interferes with that principle, freedom must be restricted.
Perspective Two
Nothing in society is more valuable than freedom. Perhaps physical health is sometimes improved by restricting freedom, but the cost to the health of our free society is far too great to justify it.
Perspective Three
The right to avoid health risks is a freedom, too. When we allow individual behavior to endanger others, we’ve damaged both freedom and health.
(To be honest, I’m much better at creative writing, so I really do want to improve on my writing. I have no accurate writing score because the last ACT I took, we got our writing time slashed by 10 minutes and my proctor told us that we were all wrong even though no one’s timers went off and people were saying that their watches still said we had 10 minutes to go. Counselor filed a report and no changes were ever made as many students in the same classroom as me got unusually low scores when compared to their others scores.)
The Essay:
There are two things that many in the world strive for today: good health and unlimited freedom. But as we move into a future with poor health choices that affect others in the area involuntarily, we are forced to consider the question: Is it possible to balance both public health and individual freedom? For example, today many smoke tobacco in public. These smokers exercise their own freedom to do so while endangering others as pedestrians nearby inhale the secondhand smoke, causing bad public health. So is there actually a way to balance public health and individual freedom? After having looked at three different perspectives based on a moralistic, political, and cynical based thought process, I have determined that it is not possible to best balance public health and individual freedom.
Although I don’t believe that you can truly balance public health and individual freedom, the first author thought so. He/she thought on a more moralistic level, believing that if the action endangers the public, then the doer of that action must be unselfish and stop doing whatever it is that is dangerous. Although this seems like a good course to take, how many would actually listen? How many of them would be willing to give up their own freedom so others could live healthier lives? How many would relinquish a part of the individual freedom to achieve the “greatest good” for the public (whatever the vague term, “greatest good”, may mean). I suspect very little. Some might actually grow angry that such a deed would be asked of them. Thus I don’t think that it would be a wise solution to the question of how to balance the public health and individual freedom.
Likewise the second author’s perspective and answer don’t seem to hold the solution as well. The second author focuses on a political lens as he/she answers the question of how to balance public health and individual freedom. He/she says that individual freedom is much more important than the public health, and so his/her answer is to just allow the freedom. However I believe that this author fails to think of one weak point in his argument. At one point, he says that “the cost to the health of our free society is far too great to justify it [getting rid of individual freedom]”. Of course there are many others who think this way, and it certainly isn’t a wrong way to think for our own freedom is also very important. However if we allow public freedom and allow people to smoke or pollute our Earth, then one day there may not even be a society whose freedom we must consider.
Thus I believe that the real answer to the question of how to balance individual freedom with public health is that you cannot. That is how we should think about the conflicts between the two issues. There is not a way to balance them. Just as the third author says as he looks at the issue holistically and more cynically than the previous two authors, you cannot come up with a solution for this problem. While it is true that if we allow others to exercise their own freedom in actions such as smoking then the health of a bystander will be at risk, it is also true that the freedom of the bystander will also be violated. Perhaps that bystanders wanted to avoid secondhand smoke but because the smoker would be permitted to actually do so, then the bystander’s individual freedom to actually avoid the smoke would be violated. So there is truly no win-win way to solve this question.
Finally, to conclude, after having read three perspectives based on morals, politics, and a more holistic view of the whole issue, I have come to the decision that there is no way to actually balance individual freedom and public health. To try and preserve one would mean to harm the other. All we can do is wait and see if any better solutions come up in the future.