De Leon, Romelie Annette R.

(2014-12210) May 11, 2016

PHLO 120 V Final Paper
The debate on whether or not we should limit the rights of people with infectious diseases
has been going on even up to this day. Numerous philosophers, health authorities, and state
leaders have argued in support of the limiting of these rights. I, myself, am in favor of this
proposition as well – contrary to what our group defended during the debate held in PHLO 120.
My argument for this claim will be presented in this paper. The structure of the argument will be
as follows: stating of the claim (which I have already done), definition of terms, possible
rebuttals and the replies to these, grounds for the claim, warrants, and lastly, the backing. In the
end, I will be stating a summation of the argument to wrap up this paper.
In defining the terms involved in this argument, it is important to note that some of these
definitions are defined in such a way that it would fit into the context of the argument in totality.
In other words, not all of these definitions are not really found in the dictionary. To start, the
expression ‘limiting of rights’ does not necessarily mean limiting all civil rights of a person. It
simply means curtailing some of these rights that might be crucial in protecting the welfare and
health of the greater public. On the other hand, infectious diseases are diseases that can be passed
on from an entity to another. It could be non-contagious when it is not passed around from
person to person, like dengue and Lyme disease. However, what we are concerned with right
now is the kind of infectious disease that could harm the public by being spread out, making
everyone it reaches be down with an ailment; in essence, we are going to talk about infectious
diseases in general.
No matter how reasonable limiting the rights of people with infectious disease are, there
are still a few who disagree. They work on numerous grounds such as limiting the rights of these
people with infectious disease would promote discrimination because having such diseases is
incidental to the person who catches it. The person did not intend to acquire this disease and
therefore must not be held liable for the repercussions of such disease (i.e. having his rights
limited). However, this can be replied to this way: it might be the case that the disease is
incidental; but it does harm other people surrounding that person with disease so limiting his
rights is just right.
Another possible rebuttal can be said: It is not the intention of the person with the disease
to spread the disease, so his rights should not be limited unless he is proven of intentionally
spreading the virus. To this, we can reply that there is no possible way that we could determine a
person’s intentionality. The whole argument will be debunked including the premise of having to
prove the person’s motive on spreading the disease. On the other hand, if, however way we can
indeed prove the person’s intent to spread the illness, then we must be at least one step ahead of
him by limiting his rights before he can act upon his motive.
One more proposition in support as to the assertion that we must not limit the rights of
people with infectious disease is that the person himself can decide on which rights he wishes to
be curtailed and he can do this voluntarily. This asserts that we actually have no power over that
person’s choices. We can encourage him, but in the end, it is he who decides for himself. Still,
this proposition is problematic because if we apply this to other circumstances wherein we limit
people’s rights – say, a murder case – it seems to appear that these people (both the person with
disease and the murderer) are in control of what laws apply to them; neglecting, therefore, the
supremacy of imperatives in each nation, namely, the constitution. As a result of the neglect of
the constitution, what will prevent other people – even the uninfected and innocent ones – to
choose which laws apply to them as well? What prevents them from doing what is against the
law? In so doing, the world will be chaotic and enter into some sort of anarchy – only because
we let the people with infectious disease get their way with the law.
With these rebuttals answered and cleared off our way, we can now proceed to the
grounds by which the claim is founded upon.
The first ground is from a utilitarian form of reasoning. It states that we should limit the
rights of people with infectious disease so we can protect the health and safety of the greater
number of people. Isolating the people with infectious disease can prevent the spreading of the
disease and thus, the public can go on about with their daily routines. This is actually for a long-
term duration, because if a specific group of people – say, the labor force – acquires the disease,
the industry and economy might go off dwindling down. Obviously, the warrant for this is the
ethical principle Utilitarianism by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. The principle states
that we should do that which results to the greatest amount of happiness of the greatest number
of people. The backing for this is the quarantine system being done in airports when a machine
that detects a person’s temperature below or above normal spots a person who indeed has
abnormal temperature, that person will be put into quarantine so as to prevent him to spread
whatever possible disease he has to the people of the place or country he just arrived at. The
quarantine system is most strict in countries or places that has not yet been infected by an
outbreak of a virus.
The second ground is based on the idea that we should limit the rights of people with
infectious disease simply because they can cause harm to others, and in so doing we abide by the
social contract by which the society we live in entered. This social contract was entered by our
society when the people have realized the defect in human nature that will inevitably lead our
community to destruction. Now, we consider the spreading of the infectious disease from one
member of the society as a way by which our society cannot flourish. There will be deaths and
suffering that comes with the disease when remained untreated. Therefore, in order to follow the
social contract and to prevent our society from collapsing, we should limit the rights of people
with infectious disease. The warrant for this is the social contract as proposed by Thomas
Hobbes in his work The Leviathan. The social contract is a rational solution when man has
realized the consequences of the defect in his nature. Man has decided to enter it for the
community he lives in may flourish not only for himself, but for posterity as well. One of the
ways to abide by the social contract is to abide by the statutory laws set by the state. In this way,
whatever the law prescribes to do, one adheres to that simply because it is aimed toward the goal
of human flourishing. The good example or backing for this is the federal government of the
District of Columbia in the United States which implemented, through the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), the Public Health Service Act (alongside with numerous
Executive Orders) to hold people in quarantine and isolation who were suspected to have
diseases such as: Smallpox, Yellow Fever, Influenza, and Tuberculosis. 1 Another warrant we

1
Source: National Conference of State Legislatures, 2014. Retrieved from:
http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-quarantine-and-isolation-statutes.aspx
could apply to this ground is the notion of ‘paternalism.’ Paternalism2 is the idea that there are
circumstances where measures need to be taken by authorities to protect the public’s health, even
against the will of the person with the disease. There are two forms of paternalism: a ‘soft
paternalism’ and a ‘libertarian paternalism.’ It is most suitable to use the libertarian form of
paternalism where an effort to persuade a person to do such and such rather than use compulsion
or force.
The last ground for limiting the rights of people with infectious disease is that limiting
the rights of these people is actually beneficial for the people themselves. Exposing oneself in
public while sick is more dangerous since he is not only spreading the disease, but also inhales or
at least intake the substances present in the environment that can worsen his ailment. The
consideration of the rate of pollution present today in our environment as a factor for worsening
diseases is my warrant for this ground. The chemicals present in the air brought about by the
vaporization of industrial waste and smoke from vehicles can worsen the case of a person with a
communicable disease of the respiratory system – this is my backing. I have personally
experienced this when I caught acute bronchitis that was caused by a virus or bacteria. It was the
type of bronchitis that is contagious. The smoke from the streets that I inhaled during that time
worsened my case; I had a hard time breathing and if I am able to breathe, it was only short. I am
unable to inhale a suffice amount of oxygen to be able to breathe properly. Only after I have
nebulized did my breathing started to normalize. Therefore, given the pollution now, one’s rights
should be limited when he has infectious disease so as not to worsen his case.
As a review and in summation, the argument has three main grounds in support of the
claim that we should limit the rights of people with infectious disease: (1) it is right to limit the
rights of these people because it will benefit a greater number of people; (2) limiting their rights
is a form of abiding by the social contract by which we use as a means toward human flourishing
and; (3) it is also beneficial for those infected people to have their rights limited since it decrease
the chances of their illness getting worse. The warrants, respectively, are the following:
Utilitarianism by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, the Social Contract by Thomas Hobbes
and Paternalism by Ruth Faden and Sirine Shebaya, and lastly, the harmful chemicals brought
about by pollution worsens the illness. In the beginning of this paper, I have also presented three
possible rebuttals against the claim of limiting the rights of people with infectious disease and
the answers to these rebuttals. First is the possibility of discrimination for having the disease is
incidental to the person, to which I replied: yes, having the disease is incidental; nevertheless, it
harms other people and we must prevent this evil. Second rebuttal is the unintentional spreading
of the disease that leads us to thinking that it is unjust to limit the rights of these people. I have
replied to this in this way: it is impossible for us adequately present proofs of these intentions. If,
however, we do find the intention of this person to indeed spread the disease, then it is still right
to have his rights limited so as to prevent him for acting upon his motive. The last rebuttal goes
this way: we should let the person freely choose which of his rights he is willing to be curtailed
because he has a freedom of choice. Our reply to this is the assertion that if we are to apply this
other circumstances, it would seem that the laws of our society is relative and not universal in the
sense that people can choose which law applies to them – which, obviously, would lead to our
society’s destruction.

2
By Ruth Faden and Sirine Shebaya (2010). Public health ethics. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved
from: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/publichealth-ethics/
 With all of these in mind, I again assert that we should indeed limit the rights of the
people with infectious disease, not only for us nor for them, but for the sake of human
flourishing.