SPEAKERS' CORNER
The subtle trade-off between personal freedom and social responsibility
Correspondence to:
Francesco Zambon, Regional Centre for Epidemiology, Veneto Region, c/o Ospedale Castelfranco Veneto, Via Ospedale 18–31033, Italy; francesco.zambon@unipd.it
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The recent debate in New Hampshire, the only US state that does not have a mandatory seatbelt law, about enacting an adult seatbelt legislation has become a matter of public domain.
Basically, the opponents see it as an infringement of personal liberty, rekindling a debate that has been common to many other issues, such as the ban on smoking, or infectious disease control.1 2
The question is what power a state should have to restrict the autonomy of individuals. The general principle in tackling such points is that when a personal choice causes harm to others, an intervention to disallow such activity is usually perceived as legitimate.
Hence, one might wonder what the harm is to others for being unrestrained.
Firstly, the individual is operating in a social context, with a vast network of interdependence. On the one hand relationships with other individuals lead to benefits, on the other hand they
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