 This point about governments being especially well-suited to changing the incentive structure of individuals is significant for public health ethics insofar as many public health measures are coercive or are otherwise backed by the force of law. In this, as in all other areas of official state action, those concerned with the ethics of public health have to address tensions among justice, security, and the scope of legal restrictions and regulations. These tensions add to the peculiarity of the justificatory questions surrounding public health: the exercise of public authority and the imposition of public sanctions and penalties in an area as deeply personal as an individual’s health choices require strong justification. The same questions about trade-offs between personal freedom and collective benefits that arise in the political arena generally thus also arise for public health. It is in this context that concerns about the legitimacy of public health interventions and paternalism typically emerge – concerns we return to in Section 3.