Wk 6: Paternalism

• An action is paternalistic when person A interferes with person B’s freedom and “forces” person B to do something that Person B does not want to do but is in reality in person B’s best interests.
• Eg. Forcing a child to take unpleasant tasting medicine that will make the child well again
• Forcing a child to attend school when the child would rather stay at home

• Violate some individual liberty
• They work against personal autonomy
• eg. restrictions on sale of alcohol in indigenous communities

• In his essay On Liberty, purpose was to asset one principle:
• The principle that the only justification for interfering with the liberty of another individual is the prevention of harm to others.
• Mill does not use word paternalism.
• Argues against paternalistic interference with liberty of another individual.
• Argues that the other person's good does not justify our interference.

• Mill's discussion focused upon sane, adult individuals of normal intelligence
• He believes that paternalism is frequently appropriate in the case of children, insane, intellectually impaired

• Mill argues we are only justified if that individual's actions will cause harm to others.
• Not justified in interfering with a sane adult when doing so is in their best interest. 
• The most Mill will allow us to do is explain why they should act in this way.

• 2 reasons
• 1. liberty (or freedom) is such an important good that we can only curtail it when we have a very good reason.
• Harm to others constitutes such a reason.
• So the state is entitled to interfere with my liberty to kill others or cause them serious injury.

• 2. Argues against paternalism on the ground that each (normal adult) individual is best able to judge for himself what is in his own best interests. 
• maybe Adam Smith's Invisible Hand argument?

• The ethical justification for shareholder view is provided by Smith's Invisible Hand argument
• The argument that society will be better off if individuals are left to pursue their own self interest.
• This argument is overtly anti-paternalistic

• Stakeholder view of corporate social responsibility argues corporations should be managed in the interests of all stakeholder groups. 
• The wide view does not seem to justify paternalistic interference since interests of the stakeholder groups would be stated interests of those groups.
• It is possible however if those interests are objectively real, rather than the stated ones, the wide view would sanction paternalistic interference.

• Are anti-paternalism and consumer protection incompatible?
• Can we have a system that does not allow for paternalistic interference but that still provides protection for consumers and workers?

• Strong: maintains that we are justified in interfering to prevent a person from harming himself even when his decision is fully voluntary or totally unimpaired.
• Weak: is the doctrine that we are justified in interfering to prevent a person from harming himself only when there is a defect in his decision to engage in the self-harming activity.

• Opposed on strong
• Mill is not opposed to weak paternalism
• Mill's example of the man crossing the bridge.
• If crossing bridge and someone knew it was unsafe, no time to warn, then the person may stop him and turn him back.
• This would not infringe liberty bc liberty is doing something one desires. Falling into a river is not his desire.  

• One assumes that if he knew the bridge was unsafe he would no longer choose to cross.
• But once he has been informed, no justification for continuing to constrain him if he still wishes to cross. 
• Unless something was wrong with him.

• Weak paternalism: involves protecting individuals from harming themselves in all situations where their decisions are impaired. 
• Economists differentiate between impaired decisions due to:
• lack of knowledge: an instance of info asymmetry and so interference in order to provide the necessary info is justified and so not an instance of paternalism of any kind. (Thomas and Buckmaster)
• Incapacity

• Ebejer and Morden
• Argue that within the marketplace the only kind of paternalism that is justified is one where the consumer is protected from an uninformed decision that may be detrimental to him
• Technical expertise impose a duty on the seller.
• Limited paternalism is a form of weak paternalism. 
• Once the individual has been informed of the relevant facts he is free to act as he wishes.

A woman takes her car to the garage and tells the mechanic that she need a new muffler and exhaust pipe because it is making too much noise.The mechanic examines that car and concludes that the noise is occurring because there is a hole in the tail pipe.

• The mechanic has three options:
• 1. He can replace the exhaust pipes and the muffler as requested by the owner (cost $90) This is quite legal since this is what the owner has requested
• 2. He can refuse to do as she has requested since all that is needed is a new tailpipe (cost $20).
• If he tells her this and she still want new tail pipes and muffler and the mechanic now refuses to do as she requests this would be a case of strong paternalism.
• 3. He can talk to the owner, explain the situation, and let her decide what to do.
• In this case the mechanic’s action would be weakly paternalistic, or one of limited paternalism.
• According to Ebejer and Morden this the third option is what the mechanic should do.

• Government go further than simply providing info and allowing individuals to make their own decisions.
• eg. compulsory seat belt, compulsory superannuation contributions, high tax on cigarettes and alcohol. 
• In modern welfare state where health care and social welfare generally are heavily subsidised through taxation it is always possible to recast the fact that the taxpayer foots the bill in terms of the reckless individual causing 'harm to others'.
• liberals not happy to use this argument since it could lead to nanny state where there is virtually no individual freedom.
• eg. no riding skateboards as medicare (ie taxpayer) has to foot the bill if you fall off.

• Some kinds of paternalistic interference seems 'impossible to avoid in practice' (thomas and buckmaster)
• Seatbelt legislation- great gain with little pain
• Compulsory super annuation
• High taxes on cigarettes.

• The future self argument: a young person who chooses to smoke may claim they are happy to wear the associated health risks.
• However their older mature self is almost certain to regret the choice to take up smoking.
• The fixed preference argument: a person may want to stop smoking and stay alive longer but suffer from weakness of the will when offered a cigarette.
• The fixed preference (staying alive) trumps the momentary craving of nicotine.

• Pure paternalism: where only those benefitted are interfered with.
• Impure paternalism: where those not benefitted are also interfered with.
• Taxing all alcopop sales: aim is to 'protect' adolescents but anyone wanting to buy the alcopop is affected as are those selling alcopops. 
• Totally impractical to simply tax sales to adolescents so tax has to be general.
• Compulsory superannuation: may benefit many who would not otherwise save for retirement but the canny investor who would save anyway and potentially make more if left to invest for themselves. 
• Again, only practical to have compulsory super for everyone.

• Paternalistic regulation may be impossible to avoid in practice but should have clear limits and be considered:
• Only when the problem is serious/high stakes
• The decision is irreversible
• It is possible to identify failures in human reasoning
• More practically: 
• Interference should be evidence based
• Clear connection of interference and benefit
• Minimal interference required to achieve objective
• Monitoring effectiveness of interference.