People need to be protected from themselves sometimes. Just because someone is an adult, doesn’t mean they will always make correct decisions. Plus, you are never sure if they are doing it without being coerced and silenced at the same time by some powerful mafia.
> Just because someone is an adult, doesn’t mean they will always make correct decisions.
It is impossible for you to substitute your definition of correct for another person’s own when it comes to their body and their life without denying them agency and declaring yourself their superior, and in the process violating their rights to self-determination.
If they are harming no one but themselves, you have no moral basis to deny them their freedom to do so, unless you deem yourself competent to be their parent or guardian simply on the basis of that single decision of theirs, which is not reasonable by any stretch of the imagination.
> People need to be protected from themselves sometimes.
The only protection that most people want is protection from people who think this way about their lives, myself included.
That’s why society as a whole makes that decision about what they consider correct and what they consider incorrect through laws and ethical standards. Unless you are in a dictatorship, laws and ethical standards are representative of the majority.
“Society as a whole” cannot decide anything, as “society” is an abstraction, and a leaky one at that.
If an individual can’t decide for another, no assemblage of individuals can legitimately claim that authority either.
I certainly don’t want to live in a place where it takes hundreds of years for the majority to finally decide that, for example, racial minorities really do deserve equal protection under the law (or a hundred years to reach the point where it is not legal to enslave them).
Ultimately the law of the land is might makes right. In a democracy that tends to lie with masses of people (sometimes counter balanced by protective laws), in other instances it tends to rest in the hands of the few.
Ultimately power has to rest somewhere. If it's nowhere then someone will come and take it.
The modern alternative isn't some panacea. It's the corporation and the indifference of rights so long as it doesn't negatively impact the bottom line.
But even countries which aren’t under dictatorship have laws to protect people against themselves. Even those who are on top of the list of most democratic countries.
> "Nobody knows better than me what is better for myself and mine."
Smokers and anti-vaccination also use the same argument. Even though their actions are also dangerous to other people(kids). I am sure they felt oppressed when public smoking was banned. Smokers will tell you that smoking isn’t different to dangerous sports or unsafe sex. Yet, dangerous sports/unsafe sex isn’t banned.
This is completely different. Smokers and anti-vaxxers are harming the public in a significant way. I wouldn't care for smokers if they could only do it in a hermetically sealed room where no smoke escapes from. Neither would I care for anti-vaxxers who are completely segregated from society so they don't hurt herd immunity.
The argument against banning smoking in public is that it forces others to inhale the smoke against their will simply by sharing space, not that the person doing the smoking has no right to put it into themselves. In a sense, it is an anti-pollution law.
I agree with that. But I also think there is other reason for anti-pollution laws, which is in addition to saving people, also saving the Earth, too, which is also important (independently of if the people are saved; some people want to do so for the people but I think that is only a part of it).
And if someone does have a hermetically sealed room no smoke will escape from, I suppose that is OK, so shouldn't be illegal except forcing someone to do against their will.
A libertarian might argue that that falls under restricting an individual's right to harm others. They might believe that individuals don't have the right to increase the risk to people who can't vaccinate for heath reasons, and they might believe that parents don't have the right to harm their children by depriving them of their health.
Maybe we shouldn't protect people from themselves, but we should definitely protect people from the consequences it others disastrous mistakes. I don't need my idiot neighbors playing with fireworks.
That’s why I said sometimes. It isn’t all the time that you need to protect people but kids needs to be protected. People who are mentally ill must be protected from themselves. In some cases, even forcefully put them in mental hospitals. There is always a grey area.
Laws should not protect people from themself (education should do that instead). It can protect people and animals and trees from some bad stuff some people are doing (e.g. fireworks, as message 21620305 mentions), while trying to not be so restrictive. I think even mentally ill people should not be protected from themself (unless the condition is temporary).
