Government Takes a Paternalistic Approach in Fighting COVID

Andrew Marshalleck

Amid the pandemic, the Briceño administration has taken a series of steps that will culminate in the requirement of a vaccine pass at the end of the month.  When the announcement was made last Thursday, it prompted numerous questions about whether the government was usurping the rights of ordinary citizens.  Attorney Marshalleck says that style of governing is referred to as paternalism.

Andrew Marshalleck, Attorney-at-law

“Paternalism is the policy or practice on the part of the people in positions of authority of restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those subordinate to them in the subordinate’s supposed best interest.  So basically in the interest of helping you protect your own health they’re going to require, impose certain regulations to require that you behave in a certain way.  As I said, at the outset normally, as individuals, we can make those decisions for ourselves in our own best interest and nobody has to force them upon us.  But it’s a matter of weighing the risks to society as a whole presented by allowing individuals to make those choices privately, where the need for regulation comes in.  If the risk to society as a whole grows beyond a tipping point where the private decisions of persons are putting a majority to unnecessary risk, then I can see that there is an argument to be made that it’s reasonable to curtail that individual choice.”