America’s Legalistic Culture Is About to Become a Problem

As vaccine production and distribution accelerate, a new set of challenges around what Americans can and should demand of one another is emerging. And we’re not ready for them. The public has been told for the past year that we need to mask up, physically distance, and lock down for the greater good. Now that vaccines are here, does that same greater good mean that society can discriminate against the unvaccinated? Do Americans have a right not to get vaccinated? If so, how far does that right go?

The American discourse about rights is not up to the challenge that these questions pose. We tend to take an excessively legalistic approach that flattens conflicts over rights into a false binary: A right gives license to rights-holders; lack of a right leaves people at the mercy of the state. But this binary does not help resolve the kind of dilemmas that will confront Americans more and more as the vaccination