Dr. C’s arguments are based on the communitarian philosophy, which promotes the belief that an individual’s social identity and personality are molded and shaped by community relationships. Dr. C will state that banning the sale of most flavored tobacco products is for the common good of the local community as it will limit access to tobacco that affects communal health (Szablewska & Kubacki, 2019).
Laws should not give individuals the right to access products like tobacco that affect the community’s overall health. Rather, they should endeavor to protect and promote distinct ethos. Dr. C will assume that people rely on norms more than laws on model persuasion, informal social controls, and public education. A societal process can change preferences and invoke voluntary compliance, while coercion will leave opposing preferences intact, inviting attempts to break the existing laws.
Secondly, Dr. C will support establishing laws and policies for improving water quality and addressing drought conditions by capturing rainwater to increase safe drinking water supplies, reducing trash and toxins entering waterways and beaches through stricter government regulation, and increasing penalties for polluters. According to the communitarian philosophy, a safe and clean environment and universal health care are tenets of communal development (Häyry, 2018).
The assumptions are that if these policies are adopted, every child will have an opportunity to access quality education from primary to college level and obtain employment, which will benefit all members of the future generation (Wood & Logsdon, 2017). He will assume that every individual in the community will enjoy quality services, which will improve their quality of life. Moreover, taxes on firearm sales will reduce access to guns, thus reducing the number of arms in private passion and insecurity.
In all three propositions, Dr. C will use the responsive communitarianism point of view to draw the line between what is appropriately “private” and “public” using responsive communitarianism, which states that people have two sources of normativity- the common good and autonomy of rights (Clark, 2022). Dr. C will argue that none of these sources will override or take precedence over the other such that all the policies should not violate individual rights (Millon, 2019).
For example, promoting the community’s general health, access to safe water, access to quality education, and reducing the circulation of firearms will also improve every individual’s overall health, security, and well-being (Ruger, 2019). Moreover, Dr. C will argue that individual rights and community interests can be respected in addressing private actions’ positive and negative effects on the community.
On his part, Dr. L will use the libertarianism philosophy to educate the community about the three issues. Dr. L will argue for individual freedoms over the common good. He will base his arguments on the idea that people should not be coerced to do something to serve the overall good of the community or their own personal good. There should be strong rights for individuals’ liberty and private property (Stelzer, 2019).
Concerning banning the sale of most flavored tobacco products, Dr. L will argue that individuals have the right to buy or not buy the tobacco products of their choice without coercion. As such, such laws unnecessarily violate the rights of those who wish to purchase them at their own will. Dr. L’s assumption is that people should be provided with adequate information about the need to educate the public about the negative health effects of smoking, thus giving them the freedom to act on their own.
Regarding the use of strict government regulation and penalties for polluters, Dr. L will argue that while improving the quality of water is the right of each person, it is against their individual liberties to force them to pay for disposing of waste products. Rather, the government should be responsible for collecting and safely disposing of waste appropriately on behalf of the people (Zeidler & Łągiewska, 2021).
Forcing people to pay additional taxes to raise funds for public schools, community colleges, and government services amounts to coercing them to meet the community’s needs while compromising their own liberties. Consequently, Dr. L will state that people should be given the right to take their children to the schools of their choice and meet any extra fee. In addition, government services should be provided with the existing tax money, and any person who wishes to enjoy additional services should be allowed to do so on their own rights. In all three measures, however, Dr. L will state that a line should be drawn between what is appropriately private and public in any area of law. Individual liberties are the most important rights in this case, and the common good should not violate any personal right.
No person should be forced or coerced to pay additional tax or penalty for the common good. At the same time, people should be educated to dispose of waste in spaces that the government will then collect, pay only the relevant taxes based on their earnings, and meet their personal needs rather than relying on communal contributions.
References
Boersema, D. (2018). Philosophy of human rights: Theory and practice. Routledge.
Clark, J. P. (2022). The impossible community: Realizing communitarian anarchism. PM Press.
Häyry, M. (2018). Doctrines and dimensions of justice: Their historical backgrounds and ideological underpinnings. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 27(2), 188-216. Web.
Millon, D. (2019). Communitarianism in corporate law: Foundations and law reform strategies. In Progressive corporate law (pp. 1-33). Routledge.
Rauhut, D. (2019). A Rawls-Sen approach to spatial injustice. Social Science Spectrum, 4(3), 109-122. Web.
Ruger, J. P. (2019). Health and social justice. Cengage.
Stelzer, H. (2019). Popper and Communitarianism: Ethical and Political Dimensions of Democracy. In Karl Popper: A Centenary Assessment (pp. 231-240). Routledge.
Szablewska, N., & Kubacki, K. (2019). A human rights-based approach to the social good in social marketing. Journal of Business Ethics, 155(3), 871-888. Web.
Wood, D. J., & Logsdon, J. M. (2017). Theorising business citizenship. In Perspectives on corporate citizenship (pp. 83-103). Routledge.
Zeidler, K., & Łągiewska, M. (2021). Liberalism versus communitarianism in cultural heritage law. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law-Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 34(3), 657-668.