Liberalism and (how to avoid) paternalism

Abstract

AbstractThis article first presents a rough sketch of the core dynamics of the anti-paternalist liberal tradition (from Kant to Dworkin) centered around the notion of normative individualism and protecting the conditions of autonomy as a set of individual rights expressive of one’s sovereignty over oneself. Historically, the liberal tradition starts with a strong anti-paternalist momentum (Part I). Part II demonstrates that, within the theory of paternalism, a distinction has to be drawn between “personal autonomy” designating a family of ideal, gradual, and hence at least moderately perfectionist conceptions about what an autonomous person is, on the one hand, and what Feinberg calls “autonomy as a right”, on the other. It is shown that the anti-paternalist liberal tradition focuses only on “autonomy as a right”. In Part III, the text analyzes the so-called “argument from justice”, which claims that paternalistic and anti-paternalistic policies do have distributive effects of their own and might be a matter of distributive fairness. It discusses several options for understanding this claim and its relevance and criticizes most autonomy-enhancing approaches for blending out the dialectics of protection and tutelage.