> that preventing people from causing harm is a core function of the rules of socie
Many would disagree with such statement. The core function of society is IMHO preventing people from infriging on rights and freedoms of other people. That is much more complex and multivariadic issue than just 'preventing harm'.
People generally cause harm to others in many interactions that are acceptable and resticting it would be oppresive. Situations where person A causes harm to person B can be classified to four cases:
1) No one is within their rights
2) Person B is within their rights, while person A is not. Examples are classical right violations like assault or robbery.
3) Person A is within their rights, while person B is not. In this case person B has to tolerate the harm, as requiring person A to abstain from that action would be infriction of their rights.
4) Both sides are within their rights, in this case society has to find compromise solution and weight both rights against other.
This vaccination issue seems to me like the fourth case.
One one side, there is the right of bodily autonomy, which is important and fundamental human right.
On the other side, there is the right to protection of health. That is also important right but it is relative based on threat level.
Before the society concludes that the second right is more important than the first, and vaccinations of adults may be mandated, there are several questions that should be answered:
Did we used enough non-forcible approaches to improve vaccinations rates (say financial stimulus)?
What is the quantified marginal risk of a small part of population not being vaccinated to others and how does this compare to other health risks that we accept as inevitable part of living in society?