Defending the Defenseless

"I front an organization that kills 1,200 people a day."

A little bit ago, I finished watching Thank You For Smoking, a film about a lobbyist who defends cigarettes and tobacco for a company he works for. A huge part of the movie is Nick Naylor's fight against the Senator of Vermont who wishes to put a skull and crossbones sticker on every pack of cigarettes sold. At one point during the movie, he describes his job as "defending the defenseless" and tells his son that every person, even if they are guilty, have the right to a fair trial. It is his job, to speak on behalf of the tobacco companies whose product is directly related to the deaths of millions.

 

Towards the end of the movie, Nick Naylor openly admits that cigarettes are directly the cause of many illnesses, such as lung cancer, but also says it's not the government's job to protect people from things that everyone knows to be dangerous. This left me wondering; is it in our natures to protect everyone? We go extremely out of our ways to stop people from doing things we deem harmful or wrong. While it is great to educate people of the dangers of certain things, when one makes a decision to do something after knowing everything that can happen, should we try to deter them even more? I'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't know how dangerous smoking is. Should we continuously try to help someone who refuses to help themselves?

Question: Do you think humans have a moral obligation to "protect" people from themselves?