Public Health and Individual Liberty

This article discusses the extent to which a government can limit citizens' liberty for the common good in the context of public health practices in Australia. It explores the controversies surrounding tobacco regulations and the harm principle. The article also examines the ethical principles guiding health promotion practices and the potential risks of not understanding these principles.

Running Head: HEALTH PROMOTION
Health Promotion
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Public health and individual liberty
To which extent can a government legitimately limit citizens liberty to serve the common
good? Moreover, to what extent has public welfare’s protection been a pretext for states to erode
or curtail the basic rights of individuals? These are some of the questions which have formed the
foundation of long-running discussions and controversies concerning public health in Australia.
Public health practices are established in recognition that health is a basic good which
governments have a responsibility to promote and protect (Herington, Dawson & Draper, 2014).
It is key to note that such investments mirror the efficiency that particular health issues can be
solved or reduced only through collective actions aimed at the public (Hobbins, 2017). Smoking
is a major problem which has a host of regulatory efforts from the government. Nevertheless,
due to self-regarding nature of the smoking, numerous of the proposed and present regulatory
measures are largely paternalistic; these measures can interfere with an individual’s liberty to
enhance his/her or community welfare. Tobacco regulations. Especially those which are aimed at
directly prohibiting or limiting consumption under particular circumstances, blatantly interfere
with the tobacco-consuming individuals’ liberty.
The government can limit the liberty of an individual if it causes harm to other
individuals. For instance, the harm principle prevents people from causing harm to others. The
harm principle is a liberty-restricting principle which is recognized as the most ethically
legitimate since minimizing or preventing harm to others is a conventional exercise of the
government’s police authority, a typical and basic function of the government. It should be noted
that the regulating risks of public health to reduce or prevent harm to other people has proven to
be the major politically forceful rationale for intervention by the government. Governments are
normally justified to restrict individual liberty especially the tobacco-consuming individual if it

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is necessary to prevent harm to other people (Clifford, Hill & Collin, 2014). The harm principle
has become the basic political, legal, and philosophical rationale for limiting or restricting an
individual’s autonomy. For instance, the Australian government has placed policy regulations for
smoking in certain public places. It is illegal to smoke in public places unless you are in a
designated smoking zone. It should be noted that there are significant health impacts of non-
smokers, therefore, if there are no laws and regulations on tobacco smoking, then many people,
that is, smokers and non-smokers will be highly susceptible to the health impacts of tobacco
smoking (Moan, Storvoll & Lund, 2017).
The government can also restrict individual liberty if it the liberty causes harm to
themselves. The government can justify not all laws and policies of tobacco on account of harm
to others (Morain & Malek, 2017). Tobacco-consuming individuals do not light tobacco in
public areas. Moreover, there is no smoke from individuals chewing tobacco. However, these
activities even though they do not lead to any negative externalities, pose serious adverse health
risks to the consumers themselves. Thus, such conducts can be limited or restricted based on
causing harm to the individuals engaging in the activities. The decision to chew or smoke can be
coerced, uninformed or misunderstood. The principle of soft paternalism guides the justification
to restrict individual liberty on account of these activities. The principle of the soft paternalism of
voluntarily assumed risks states that it is hard for the individual decision-makers to process, use
and obtain information on the effects of their choices (Thompson & Whiffen, 2018). In the case
of regulation of tobacco, overriding a decision of individual smokers to smoke is justified on the
account that choice not prudently comprehended, was not effectively informed, was compelled
or was not autonomous (Room et al. 2019).

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Health promotion ethics
Health promotion is a vital component of public health practice, yet understanding of the
idea is debatable and controversial. There are concerns which have been raised on public health
promotion. The two major concerns include concerns based on efficacy, that is, are the practices
cost-intensive or effective? And concerns based on an individual or community’s autonomy, that
is, to what extent do these practices interfere with the free choice of individuals or community
(Brown & Whiting, 2014). Health promotion practices entail a host of interventions such as
offering information through persuasion, education, manipulation of preferences and coercion. It
is important for a health promoter to understand the ethical principles guiding public health
promotion practices (Resnik, Miller, Kwok, Engel & Sandler, 2015). Any health promoter who
does not understand the ethical principles of public health promotion may face ethical risks. For
instance, health information sharing or education are not considered as intrusive and have been
regarded as effective.
Informing the health benefits and threats may not involve ethical problems since if the
approach succeeds, it is because the groups or individuals found it persuasive or useful and
decided to act on. However, for a nurse who does not understand the ethics of health promotion,
health education or sharing of information can be problematic if delivered in a wrong manner.
This is because it is a potential infringement of individuals right to autonomy, especially such
individuals receive information concerning their lifestyle matters which they did not ask for or
when asked about embarrassing questions, feelings of guilt or shameful questions. A nurse who
does not understand the ethics of health promotion can misuse the persuasion strategy of health
promotion. Persuasion can become an ethical problem when a health promoter like a nurse
determines the health problem of an individual or community without taking into consideration

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what that individual or community wants. The promoter may go head to put pressure on them to
comply with the advice given to them. These practices by the health promoter who does not
understand the ethics of public health promotion constitute paternalism, that is, the imposition of
restrictions on a group or individual by someone else for that good of that person. Thus, such
practices do not respect the autonomy of individuals and face the risk of making that person feel
powerless, vulnerable and offended. Manipulation and deception are also some practices that can
be employed by uninformed health promoters to deliver their agenda. This entails intentionally
taking advantage of an individual or provoking the person to compromise his or her ability to
effectively process information.

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