The Child’s Right to Be Vaccinated

Vaccine hesitancy highlights a problem within current rights constructs under US law. Refusal to vaccinate is ineluctably cast as a contest between parental choice, to which the law traditionally defers, and state concerns for public safety and the individual welfare of children. But rarely is the discussion cast in terms of the child’s right to be vaccinated because our rights talk revolves around the capacity (or lack thereof) of the rights holder. If, however, we recast rights in terms of empowerment, then we can see that rights flow to the child, not because she has the requisite capacity but because she is less powerful. In this sense, rights exist for children because they are children. The authority of the state to mandate immunisation under US law also may be reconsidered because the state is acting to protect the rights of those less powerful – the children who cannot be vaccinated.

Quantity, quality, equality: introducing a new measure of social welfare

In this essay I propose a new measure of social welfare. It captures the intuitive idea that quantity, quality, and equality of individual welfare all matter for social welfare. More precisely, it satisfies six conditions: Equivalence, Dominance, Quality, Strict Monotonicity, Equality and Asymmetry. These state that (i) populations equivalent in individual welfare are equal in social welfare; (ii) a population that dominates another in individual welfare is better; (iii) a population that has a higher average welfare than another population is better, other things being equal; (iv) the addition of a well-faring individual makes a population better, whereas the addition of an ill-faring individual makes a population worse; (v) a population that has a higher degree of equality than another population is better, other things being equal; and (vi) individual illfare matters more for social welfare than individual welfare. By satisfying the six conditions, the measure improves on previously proposed measures, such as the utilitarian Total and Average measures, as well as different kinds of Prioritarian measures.

Auto-Pilot

This chapter considers in depth some of the key elements of the new landscape of individualized pensions provision in the UK, reflecting in particular on some of the state’s emerging functions as facilitator, regulator, and provider of defined contribution pensions. It charts how the Pensions Commission’s vision for state-managed defined contribution was subtly marginalized, resulting in an approach which enables and indeed privileges privatized delivery of auto-enrolment, leaving private pensions provision caught between two radically different regulatory regimes, and rendering the state unable to act decisively to protect individual welfare. The chapter also discusses decumulation processes, including the Coalition government’s radical and highly destructive reforms to the annuities market, and the peculiar role played by pensions tax relief—providing a largely ineffective saving incentive, albeit at great expense.