Paternalism

Policies, practices, or acts which, interfere with, infringe upon, or otherwise limit the autonomy of a person in the name of that person’s ‘best interests’ are paternalistic in nature.

A distinction can be made between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ paternalism.  Soft paternalism claims that paternalistic action is justified when the individual whose autonomy is infringed upon is not fully competent, or lacks important knowledge pertaining to the situation.

To illustrate the claim of soft paternalism, consider the following case.  James picks up a bottle of what he believes is water, but Elizabeth knows it to in fact be poison.  The James prepares to take a drink from the bottle, but before he takes a drink Elizabeth take the bottle from him, warning that the bottle contains poison.  In this instance, Elizabeth has committed a paternalistic action, justifying it on the grounds that James lacked important knowledge pertaining to the actual contents of the bottle.

Hard paternalism claims that paternalistic action is justified regardless of the competency of the individual in question.  In other words, hard paternalism claims that paternalism is justified even when the person is fully competent and fully informed.  Again consider James, Elizabeth, and the bottle of poison.  The hard paternalist would claim that Elizabeth is justified in interfering with James’ desire to drink from the bottle, even if James was fully competent and aware of the fact that the bottle contained poison.

Paternalistic action occurs without the consent of the party whose autonomy is limited, and often occurs in direct contradiction to the stated wishes of that party.  To put it another way, paternalism ‘protects people from themselves.’

Justifications for paternalism are typically grounded in the claim that the benefits to the individual considerably outweigh the cost (or harm) of the violation of autonomy or liberty which paternalistic action entails.  A law which requires motorcyclists to wear helmets, for example, is justified on the grounds that the benefit (protection from possibly fatal injury) far outweighs the violation of the motorcyclist’s autonomy (the freedom to ride a motorcycle without a helmet or the freedom to make one’s own decision about wearing a helmet).

Opponents of paternalism hold that the violation of liberty and autonomy is not warranted, in spite of the benefits that may result from paternalistic action.