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Justifying Paternalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1976

Rosemary Carter
Rosemary Carter*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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Extract

1. Introduction

A paternalistic act is one in which the protection or promotion of a subject's welfare is the primary reason for attempted or successful coercive interference with an action or state of that person. My aim in this paper is to determine the conditions under which such acts are Justified. The route I take is through the concept of consent, with actual consent providing the foundation for a rather complex condition which I claim is necessary and sufficient for the Justification of paternalism.

Because a paternalistic act apparently violates a subject's right to non-interference, it constitutes a problem in the general area of rights. Ideally, then, one should have a developed and convincing theory of rights — that is, a theory which contains an analysis of the concept of a right, and offers solutions to the central problems, e.g. who has rights and why, what considerations override prima facie rights, and how the relative importance of prima facie rights is determined — from which the solutions to various problems about paternalism can be derived.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 133 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1977

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References

1 This definition does, I think, capture the central cases of paternalism, but there are other possible, broader definitions, such as that offered by David Donaldson in an unpublished paper entitled “Fathers and Sons“: paternalistic acts are not only those in which one is forced to do something he doesn't want to do, but also those in which there is an alternative act which affects the donor equally and which the beneficiary prefers; for example, giving people food vouchers instead of money when the latter would be preferred. I will not be considering the problems which are raised by this definition in this paper.

2 Dworkin, Gerald in “Paternalism”, The Monist, Vol. 56 (1972), pp. 64–84,CrossRefGoogle Scholar appeals to the notion of consent with respect to the justification of paternalism towards children. But he does not follow up this lead.

3 This is an adaptation of a case envisaged by Rawls, John in A Theory of justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971) where he considers the problem of paternalism pp. 249–250.Google Scholar

4 Mill, John Stuart “On liberty”, Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government,Everyman's library (New York: Dutton, 1910)Google Scholar, ch. iv.

5 Mill. p. 152.

6 Rawls, p. 250, suggests as a necessary condition for justifiable paternalism that the act be in accordance with the subject's permanent aims and preferences or, if these are unknown, in accordance with the primary goods.

7 Subsumed under my condition of temporary incompetence are the following two conditions offered by Dworkin (op. cit.) as justifying reasons for paternalistic action: where someone is suffering from a temporary state, such as great fear or depression which in inimical to the making of well-informed and rational decisions; and where decisions are made under extreme psychological pressure.

8 Brown, D. G. in “The Rights of Children”, journal of Educationof the Faculty of Education of the University of British Columbia, No. 17 (April 1971), pp. 8–20,Google Scholar suggests that it is a special kind of incompetence arising out of children's immaturity which makes paternalism towards them acceptable. I do not find his thesis acceptable because (1) I find implausible Brown's speculation that there is a relevant kind of immaturity which people grow out of naturally; and (2) it provides a rationale for interfering with a child's action only if it is due to his immaturity, but not if it is the result, say, of lack of information or an inferior set of values. However, I owe to Brown the important insight that incompetence has a central part to play in a theory of paternalism.

9 The consequences of an action being irreversible has been suggested by Dworkin (op. cit.) as a justifying reason for paternalism.

10 G. C. Archibald and David Donaldson in an unpublished paper “Paternalism and Prices” suggest the existence of certain conventions as a condition under which paternalism would be morally permissable. The example I use above is essentially the same as one used by them in that paper.

11 For persuasive arguments to this effect see Tooley's, Michael analysis of rights in the Correspondence, Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 2, Summer 1973, pp. 425– 432.Google Scholar

12 For helpful advice and criticism on earlier drafts of this paper I would like to thank Michael Beebe, Jonathan Bennett, D. G. Brown, J. C. Dybikowski, and Dick Sikora.