Mill’s Harm Principle and Soda Taxes
Although some leaders in the society may devise laws that can be beneficial to them, organizations often make laws that apply evenly to all members of the community for the common good. However, in this era of personal liberty or freedom, rules, and regulations on different situations will always contradict the will of others. Recently, a couple of U.S cities passed a law to implement soda taxes aiming to reduce soda consumption as a strategy to decrease the high prevalence of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and heart diseases, among other health concerns. Some of the cities that imposed the soda taxes include Boulder, San Francisco, Seattle, and Philadelphia. This move, however, did not please everyone. Some of the critics of this regulation argue that they are objectionably regressive and paternalistic. As such, it is essential to evaluate this move from an ethical perspective. For instance, what does Mill’s harm principle say? This paper purposes of elaborating on Mill’s harm principle and how the soda taxes relate to this principle. Also, this paper examines other ethically, defensible alternative policies. In this regard, this document discusses the SNAP recipient benefits.
The harm principle
Mill’s principle argues that individuals have the freedom to do everything as long as their actions do not harm other members the society. If such actions harm others, then society should prevent such kind of activities[1]. Notably, this principle bases on three concepts. Firstly, the law emerges from the famous principle of utility. The utility principle argues that persons should only do things that induce happiness the most and to the majority in society. Secondly, society should prevent harm and not offenses or feelings. The third concept is that no individual lives in isolation, and hence hardly can an action affect only the doer of a given work.
Effect of soda taxes on the harm principle
There is a great association between this principle and soda taxes. While some people claim that soda taxes violate this principle, others defend soda taxes saying that it is in line with the harm principle. However, this research establishes that, indeed, soda taxes do not contradict the Harm principle.
Although individuals consume sodas for personal gains or refreshments, the effects of their consumption go beyond harming their bodies. According to the Centers for Diseases Control (CDC), the use of sweet and sugary products increases the chances of becoming obese, developing type 2 diabetes, and various cardiovascular or heart diseases. Sodas contain significant amounts of sugar and thus fall under sugary products. In this regard, consumers of drinks are at high risk of developing the mentioned health challenges. Applying the harm principle, soda users harm themselves at this point, and no government or society can prohibit them from continuing using these products.
As mentioned earlier, the harm from the consumption of sodas is far way beyond the consumers. Governments are responsible for ensuring that their citizens have access to healthcare services at all times[2]. Therefore, most of the governments set aside some budget to cater to various illnesses among the people, including the purchase of drugs, maintenance of healthcare facilities, and payment of healthcare professionals. When the number of people with health concerns goes up, the government must act proportionately by increasing the service providers and the facilities as well as the drugs[3]. For example, recent research shows that the federal government of the United States spends about $200 billion on diabetes’ healthcare costs alone[4].
Besides, the government spends other costs on other diabetic-related concerns. As noted earlier, the consumption of sugary products causes diabetes and other diseases, as highlighted above. Therefore, the United States spends more than $500 billion every year on healthcare costs related to the consumption of sugary products[5]. Another research found that sodas are one of the highly consumed sugary or sweet products across the United States.
The federal government, local government, and the states mainly get their revenue from taxes. Therefore, when a government some income to cater to these diseases linked to the consumption of sodas, it indirectly spends someone else’s burden, which is not a consumer of drinks. Besides, if there was limited or no consumption of sodas, the studies show that the government can cut these costs by less than half and spend these funds for the development or maintenance of security to all.
In light of this, there is a need to devise strategies that can limit the consumption of sodas to avoid harming other people. Soda taxes is one of the most effective approaches on this war as it restricts many people from consuming these products and hence reduced illnesses related to consumption of sodas. As such, soda taxes do not contradict the harm principle but rather reinforcing this principle. Notably, adversaries of the soda taxes observe the consumption of sodas only from the consumer’s perspective while ignoring the harm that this consumption has to the public, as demonstrated above.
Soda taxes complement all the three foundations of the harm principle. For instance, this policy realizes that no individual lives in isolation or whose action does not affect other people entirely. Also, this policy acknowledges that people must act in a way that benefits the majority as proposed by the utility principle. Further, soda taxes do not treat the consumption of sodas as an offense but rather an action that harms other people.
As demonstrated above, soda taxes are just a strategy for restricting soda drinking among the affected populations. Notably, some critics may argue that the governments that have passed this policy are using it as a strategy for raising more revenue. However, raising considerable revenues requires the consumption of the product by a significant population. Nonetheless, soda taxes limit people from drinking sodas. As such, soda taxes cannot be as a strategy for anything else other than taming people from consuming these sugary products that have a significant contribution towards the development of long-term illnesses and conditions including obesity, heart and lung problems, as well as diabetes type two[6].
While considering that the benefits that the implementation soda taxes policy brings to the people, the adversaries of this policy can join the policy’s proponents. It is arguable that many people the taxes are relatively high such that a two-liter bottle would have a charge of approximately $1[7]. In this regard, most of the consumers of the sweetened drinks are likely to change from dinking sodas to other non-sweetened beverages like low-fat milk. Also, these consumers may improve their nutrition by diverting these high budgets of soda taxes to other national products. The latter will not only make the soda consumers make savings but will considerably enhance their health while cutting significant hospital bills.
Ethically defensible policy alternatives to soda taxes
Although the soda tax policy is excellent and ethically arguable, reducing the consumption of sodas can also be achieved through other systems that are equally morally arguable. One of the most applicable policies for restricting drinking of soda is by putting restrictions on the use of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits. SNAP is the most extensive federal government’s program for feeding the poor[8]. This program gives some benefits only to the eligible populations from both low and middle-income earners. The program operates under the department of social services. Notably, drinking sodas is not and can never be a priority among people with limited food. Therefore, the respective governments can easily remove drinks from the list of products that the members can purchase using the card.
From a utilitarianism approach, an action is only right if the outcomes are useful to society. Based on this approach, it is wrong to continue including sodas as an item that the SNAP program can pay as a benefit to the member. Notably, SNAP benefit is a federal program whose budget is drawn from government revenues. Typically, the primary source of government revenues is the payment of taxes by the citizens. Therefore, these funds should go only to feed eligible populations, and it is permissible to restrict the purchase of sodas using the fund. Purchasing sodas using this fund increases the burden of the taxpayers in two ways. First, the fund should cater to their foods and second provide for their health costs for illnesses caused by the consumption of sodas. As such, the consequences of soda consumption using the SNAP fund is severe.
Often, people concentrate on purchasing items that might not be priority using the SNAP program benefits while they forget on the long-term implications of these purchases. The latter shows that by eliminating sweetened products like sodas from the SNAP program benefits many people can easily change their lifestyle or drinking habits and hence improving their health or chances of developing earlier mentioned health concerns[9].
Conclusion
This analysis concludes that the soda tax policy is useful for restricting the consumption of sodas. Besides, this paper establishes that drinking sweetened or sugary products increases the chances of developing various health concerns, including heart problems, lung diseases, diabetes, and obesity. These health challenges increase the federal budget on health. As such, the consumption of sodas does not only harms the person drinking but also harms the public by reducing the budget for other development programs. In light of this, the soda tax policy does not contradict the Mill’s harm principle. Apart from the soda taxes, other strategies that can reduce the drinking of sodas. For example, by limiting people from using the SNAP program for the purchase of drinks, a significant population can change their lifestyle against drinking sodas and other sweetened products. Further, soda consumers may improve their nutrition by diverting these high budgets of soda taxes to other national products. The latter will not only make the soda consumers make savings but will considerably enhance their health while cutting significant hospital bills.
Bibliography
Greenacre, Matthew. “Defending public health policies from objections of paternalism.” University of Western Ontario Medical Journal 85, no. 2 (2016): 50-52.
Le Bodo, Yann, Marie-Claude Paquette, and Philippe De Wals. “Feasibility of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation in Canada.” In Taxing Soda for Public Health, pp. 163-192. Springer, Cham, 2016.
Maa, John. “Taxing soda: strategies for dealing with the obesity and diabetes epidemic.” Perspectives in biology and medicine 59, no. 4 (2016): 448-464.
Paquette, Erin Talati, and Lainie Friedman Ross. “Pediatric decision making requires both guidance and intervention principles.” The American Journal of Bioethics 18, no. 8 (2018): 44-46.
[1] Paquette, Erin Talati, and Lainie Friedman Ross. “Pediatric decision making requires both guidance and intervention principles.”
[2] Paquette, Erin Talati, and Lainie Friedman Ross. “Pediatric decision making requires both guidance and intervention principles.”
[3] Le Bodo, Yann, Marie-Claude Paquette, and Philippe De Wals. “Feasibility of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation in Canada.”
[4], Maa, John. “Taxing soda: strategies for dealing with the obesity and diabetes epidemic.”
[5]. Greenacre, Matthew. “Defending public health policies from objections of paternalism.”
[6] Maa, John. “Taxing soda: strategies for dealing with the obesity and diabetes epidemic.”
[7] Le Bodo, Yann, Marie-Claude Paquette, and Philippe De Wals. “Feasibility of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation in Canada.”
[8] Greenacre, Matthew. “Defending public health policies from objections of paternalism.”
[9] Maa, John. “Taxing soda: strategies for dealing with the obesity and diabetes epidemic.”