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Paternalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Extract

What I wish to do in this paper is to look at a part of John Stuart Mill's ‘one very simple principle’ for determining the limits of state intervention. This principle is, you will remember, that ‘the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.’

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1983

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References

1 Mill, John Stuart, ‘Essay on Liberty’, Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government (London: Everyman, 1910), 73.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., 73–74.

3 Ibid., 151–152.

4 Ibid., 157–158.

5 Hart, H. L. A., Law, Liberty and Morality (Oxford University Press, 1963), 3133.Google Scholar

6 Bayles, Michael D., ‘Criminal Paternalism’, The Limits of Law, Nomos XV, Pennock, J. Rowland and Chapman, John W. (eds) (New York: Lieber-Atherton, 1974), 174Google Scholar. Cf. also Feinberg, Joel, ‘Legal Paternalism’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 1, No. 1 (09 1971), 105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Carter, Rosemary, ‘Justifying Paternalism’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, VII, No. 1 (03 1977), 134.Google Scholar

8 A similar case is put forward by Hodson, John D., ‘The Principles of Paternalism’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 14, No. 1 (01 1977), 6568.Google Scholar

9 Carter does in fact recognize this difficulty; cf. ‘Justifying Paternalism’, 139.Google Scholar

10 Hart, H. L. A., op. cit., 34.Google Scholar

11 Dworkin, Gerald, ‘Paternalism’, in Philosophy, Politics and Society, Fifth Series, Laslett, Peter and Fishkin, James (eds) (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969), 7896.Google Scholar

12 Cf. Rees, J. C., Mill and his Early Critics (Leicester: University College, 1956), 1720.Google Scholar

13 Mill, John Stuart, op. cit., 137138.Google Scholar

14 Dworkin, , op. cit., 82.Google Scholar

15 Regan, Donald H., ‘Justifications for Paternalism’, The Limits of Law, Nomos XV, Pennock, J. Rowland and Chapman, John W. (eds) (New York: Lieber-Atherton, 1974), 201206.Google Scholar

16 Sartorius, Rolf E., Individual Conduct and Social Norms (Belmont: Dickenson, 1975), Ch. 8, Sect. 3.Google Scholar

17 Mill, John Stuart, op. cit, 133.Google Scholar

18 Barry, B. M., Political Argument (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), 176186.Google Scholar