Paternalistic behaviour directed towards a person’s informed and competent decisions is often thought to be morally impermissible. This view is supported by what we can call the Anti-Paternalism Principle. While APP might seem plausible when employed to show the wrongness of paternalism by the state, there are some cases of paternalistic behaviour between private, informed, and competent individuals where APP seems mistaken. This raises a difficulty for supporters of APP. Either they need to reject APP to accommodate our intuitions in (...) these cases, or provide grounds for thinking that paternalistic behaviour between certain private individuals is different in a morally relevant sense. In this paper, I explore several possible morally relevant differences, and find all of them unsatisfactory as grounds for maintaining the plausibility of APP. (shrink)

The policy of earmarked paternity leave aims to promote mothers’ position in the labor market and fathers’ relationship with their child. Critics argue that the policy prevents parents from pursuing their own ideas about what is best for them. This provides reason to consider whether the policy is paternalistic or, in other ways, disrespectful of parental autonomy. I argue that the state implicates itself in the gender inequalities that result from parents’ unequal parental leave agreements when the state financially facilitates (...) such agreements. This argument for earmarked paternity leave is not disrespectful of parental autonomy. (shrink)

Paternalist policies in public health often aim to improve people’s well-being by reducing their options, regulating smoking offering a prime example. The well-being challenge is to show that people really are better off for having their options reduced. The distribution challenge is to show how the policies are justified since they produce losers as well as winners. If we start from these challenges, we can understand the importance of the empirical evidence that a very high proportion of smokers regret smoking. (...) In short, it is important that they regret it and important that the proportion is so high. This paper explains how, philosophically, regret can relate to well-being and it considers some of the strengths and weakness in the empirical research that the explanation brings out. The regret case for regulating smoking is indeed strong, although not as strong as the empirical researchers think. It is much weaker for paternalistic intervention in other public health problems, such as obesity and binge drinking. (shrink)

What justifies differences in the acceptance of paternalism towards competent minors and older people? I propose two arguments. The first argument draws on the widely accepted view that paternalism is easier to justify the more good it promotes for the paternalizee. It argues that paternalism targeting young people generally promotes more good for the people interfered with than similar paternalism targeting older people. While promoting people's interests or well-being is essential to the justification of paternalism, the first argument has certain (...) unfair implications in that it disfavours paternalism towards the worse off. The second argument caters to such fairness concerns. It argues that priority or inequality aversion supports age-differentiated paternalism because young people, who act imprudently and thereby risk their interests or well-being, are worse off than older people who act in similar ways. I suggest that both arguments are pertinent in evaluating specific paternalistic acts and policies. (shrink)

When libertarian political philosophy attracted wide public notice in the 1970s, a common view was that the distinctive individual rights advocated in libertarian theory required grounding in a theory of ethics. Recently, this view has come under challenge. It has been argued that resort to such grounding in ethical theory is unneeded. An appeal to common sense intuitions suffices to justify libertarianism. First, a brief account of libertarianism will be presented. Then, some examples of the older, pro-grounding position will be (...) discussed. Then, the principal defense of the newer view, Michael Huemer’s The Problem of Political Authority, will be examined. This discussion constitutes the substance of the present paper. The principal contention of the present article will be that the argument to libertarianism from intuitions does not succeed. In conclusion, it will be suggested that a return to the earlier, grounding view is indicated for philosophers who wish to defend libertarianism. (shrink)

This article argues that governments in countries that currently permit intensive animal agriculture - especially but not exclusively high-income countries - are, in principle, morally justified in taking steps to restrict or even eliminate intensive animal agriculture to protect public health from the risk of zoonotic pandemics. Unlike many extant arguments for restricting, curtailing, or even eliminating intensive animal agriculture which focus on environmental harms, animal welfare, or the link between animal source food (ASF) consumption and noncommunicable disease, the argument (...) in this article appeals to the value of protecting populations from future global health emergencies and their broad social, economic, and health impacts, taking the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a particularly salient example. The article begins by identifying how intensive animal agriculture contributes to the outbreak (and risk of future outbreaks) of zoonotic diseases. Next, we explore three specific policy options: 1. Incentivizing plant-based and cell-based ASF alternatives through government subsidies; 2. Disincentivizing intensive ASF production through the adoption of a “zoonotic tax”; and 3. Eliminating intensive ASF production through a total ban. We argue that all three of these measures are permissible, although we remain agnostic as to whether these measures are obligatory. We argue for this conclusion on the grounds that each measure is justified by the same sorts of considerations that justify other widely accepted public health interventions, and each is compatible with a variety of theories of justice. We then address potential objections. Finally, we discuss how our novel argument relates to extant ethical arguments in favor or curtailing ASF production and consumption. (shrink)