John Stuart Mill didn’t take his life; but he could have done it. Had he done it when he was twenty, we would have never known what he thought about it. But he didn’t. And many years later he wrote about nature, God, religion and autonomy. My aim in this article is to show how his thoughts about nature and theism affect in fact his stance about autonomy to commit suicide.

This article proposes a theoretical re-conceptualization of power dynamics and their legitimation in contemporary business–society relations using the prism and metaphor of parentalism. The paper develops a typology of forms of parentalism along two structuring dimensions: care and control. Specifically, four ideal-types of parentalism are introduced with their associated practices and power-legitimation mechanisms. As we consider current private governance and authority through this analytical framework, we are able to provide a new perspective on the nature of the moral legitimation of (...) power dynamics in contemporary business–society relations. And we weave the threads between this conceptual frame and historical antecedents, suggesting that business ethicists need to revive old debates on paternalism in light of the current pervasive trend of modernized and subtler forms of parentalism. Implications for business ethics and political CSR are discussed. (shrink)

Making decisions is an important component of everyday living, and issues surrounding autonomy and self-determination are crucial for persons with intellectual disabilities. Article 12 (Equal Recognition before the Law) of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities addresses this issue of decision-making for persons with disabilities: the recognition of legal capacity. Legal capacity means recognizing the right to make decisions for oneself. Article 12 is also moving in the direction of supported decision-making, as an alternative to substituted (...) decision-making. The objective of this paper is to show conceptually the connection between supported decisionmaking and the preservation of personal autonomy for persons with intellectual disabilities. This paper discusses supported decision-making based on Bach and Kerzner's model: (a) legally independent status, (b) supported decision- making status, and (c) facilitated decision-making status. Arguments will be made based on John Stuart Mill's concept of autonomy and arguments against it using Sarah Conly's argument for paternalism. (shrink)

Making decisions is an important component of everyday living, and issues surrounding autonomy and self-determination are crucial for persons with intellectual disabilities. Adults with intellectual disabilities are characterized by the limitations in their intellectual functioning and in their adaptive behavior, which compromises three skill types, and this starts before the age of 18. Though persons with intellectual disabilities are characterized by having these limitations, they are thought to face significant decisionmaking challenges due to their disability. Moving away from this generalization, (...) Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities addresses this issue of decision-making for persons with disabilities, recognizing the right to legal capacity. (shrink)

In many or most instances of paternalism, more than one person acts paternalistically, or more than one person is treated paternalistically. This chapter discusses some complications that arise in such group cases, which are largely ignored in the conceptual debate. First, a group of people who together perform an action may do so for different reasons, which makes it more challenging to determine whether the action is paternalistic. This gives us some reason not to pin the property of being paternalistic (...) on actions, since we may alternatively pin it on reasons for actions and allow that these differ between members in the group. Second, the prevention of harmful consensual interactions is sometimes paternalism towards both or all involved, but only if all benefit from interference with themselves rather than with other members in the group, or if all want the harm or risk (more or less) for its own sake. Third, interrelations between three components of paternalism - interference, benevolence and consent - gives us reason to allow that an action can be paternalistic towards some but not others of those affected. This makes it even more difficult, and less relevant, to determine whether or not actions are paternalistic. (shrink)

This thesis focuses on the issue of whether or not the government is ever justified in prohibiting the actions of an individual who is harming herself but not others. I first analyze some of the key historical figures in the paternalism debate and argue that these accounts fail to adequately meet the needs of a modern, pluralistic society. Then, I analyze and critique the nuanced, soft-paternalist strategy put forth by Joel Feinberg. Finally, I defend a version of hard paternalism, arguing (...) that a balancing strategy that examines each action on a case-by-case basis shows all citizens equal, and adequate concern and respect. (shrink)

I first provide an analysis of Joel Feinberg’s anti-paternalism in terms of invalidation of reasons. Invalidation is the blocking of reasons from influencing the moral status of actions, in this case the blocking of personal good reasons from supporting liberty-limiting actions. Invalidation is shown to be distinct from moral side constraints and lexical ordering of values and reasons. I then go on to argue that anti-paternalism as invalidation is morally unreasonable on at least four grounds, none of which presuppose that (...) people can be mistaken about their own good: First, the doctrine entails that we should sometimes allow people to unintentionally severely harm or kill themselves though we could easily stop them. Second, it entails that we should sometimes allow perfectly informed and rational people to risk the lives of themselves and others, though they are in perfect agreement with us on what reasons we have to stop them for their own good. Third, the doctrine leaves unexplained why we may benevolently coerce less competent but substantially autonomous people, such as young teens, but not adults. Last, it entails that there are peculiar jumps in justifiability between very similar actions. I conclude that as liberals we should reject anti-paternalism and focus our efforts on explicating important liberal values, thereby showing why liberty reasons sometimes override strong personal good reasons, though never by making them invalid. (shrink)

Ordinary Language Philosophy has largely fallen out of favour, and with it the belief in the primary importance of analyses of ordinary language for philosophical purposes. Still, in their various endeavours, philosophers not only from analytic but also from other backgrounds refer to the use and meaning of terms of interest in ordinary parlance. In doing so, they most commonly appeal to their own linguistic intuitions. Often, the appeal to individual intuitions is supplemented by reference to dictionaries. In recent times, (...) Internet search engine queries for expressions of interest have become quite popular. Apparently, philosophers attempt to surpass the limits of their own linguistic intuitions by appealing to experts or to factual uses of language. I argue that this attempt is commendable but that its execution is wanting. Instead of appealing to dictionaries or Internet queries, philosophers should employ computer-based linguistic corpora in order to confirm or falsify hypotheses about the factual use of language. This approach also has some advantages over methods employed by experimental philosophers. If the importance of ordinary language is stressed, the use of linguistic corpora is hardly avoidable. (shrink)

This thesis concerns the measurement of freedom, and its value. Specifically, I am concerned with three overarching questions. First, can we measure the extent of an individual’s freedom? It had better be that we can, otherwise much ordinary and intuitive talk that we would like to vindicate – say, about free persons being freer than slaves – will turn out to be false or meaningless. Second, in what ways is freedom valuable, and how is this value measured? It matters, for (...) example, whether freedom is valuable only insofar as it enables us to pursue specific ends we happen to value for independent reasons, or whether it is also valuable in itself. In the latter case, but not the former, more freedom will always be better. Likewise, it’s important to get clarity on what ends, exactly, freedom is especially instrumentally valuable in promoting, since this goes to how much we should care about it. And finally, the liberal political tradition asserts that there is a special sphere of personal choices within which individuals should be free to do as they please, for reasons over and above the value of freedom itself. Now, can we measure the extent to which states and individuals respect individual liberties, and can we weigh the importance of respecting liberty against competing values like social welfare? To answer these questions, I follow the axiomatic tradition of social choice theory, and I develop several novel measures of freedom – including the first measure of freedom ever proposed that is sensitive to how modally robustly our options are available – a novel approach to measuring the diversity of an opportunity set, and I develop an account of the value of freedom according to which an important part of why freedom matters is that it enables us to improve our preferences through learning, and I construct ways of measuring the value of freedom along this dimension of value. Finally, in later chapters, I provide a representation result for a measure of illiberalism, i.e. of the degree to which states fail to respect the rights of their citizens, and I extend this result to provide a characterization of moral theories that express concern for respecting the rights of others. The final chapter closes by discussing how this concern may be weighed against concerns for social welfare. (shrink)

Several authors have recently advocated a so-called new case for paternalism, according to which empirical findings from distinct decision sciences provide compelling reasons in favour of paternalistic interference. In their view, the available behavioural and neuro-psychological findings enable paternalists to address traditional anti-paternalistic objections and reliably enhance the well-being of their target agents. In this paper, I combine insights from decision-making research, moral philosophy and evidence-based policy evaluation to assess the merits of this case. In particular, I articulate and defend (...) three complementary arguments that, I claim, challenge even the best available calls for such case. In doing so, I identify the main justificatory challenges faced by the new paternalists and explicate the implications of these challenges for the ongoing philosophical debate about the justifiability of paternalistic interference. (shrink)

According to the doctrine of informed consent medical procedures are morally permissible when a patient has consented to the treatment. Problematically it is possible for a patient to consent to or refuse treatment which consequently leads to a decline in her best interests. Standardly, such conflicts are resolved by prioritising the doctrine of informed consent above the requirement that the medical practitioner acts in accordance with the duty of care. This means that patient free choice is respected regardless as to (...) whether her choice leads to a decline in her best interests, since to disrespect patient choice would be an instance of ‘unwarranted’ paternalism. This thesis defends the claim that in cases where patient consent comes into conflict with her best interests, paternalistic interference is in fact justified. The ambition of the thesis is thus twofold: in the first place I argue that the doctrine of informed consent cannot be used as an ethical guarantor for medical decision making. Secondly I will conclude that hard paternalism is justified in medical practice, thereby calling for a reversal of the prioritisation of informed consent procedures over the medical practitioner’s duty of care. (shrink)

In liberal moral theory, interfering with someone’s deliberate engagement in a self-harming practice in order to promote their own good is often considered wrongfully paternalistic. But what if self-harming decisions are the product of an oppressive social context that imposes harmful norms on certain individuals, such as, arguably, in the case of cosmetic breast surgery? Clare Chambers suggests that such scenarios can mandate state interference in the form of prohibition. I argue that, unlike conventional measures, Chambers’ proposal recognises that harmful, (...) discriminatory norms entail a twofold collective moral obligation: to eliminate the harmful norm in the long run, but also to address unjust harm that is inflicted in the meantime. I show that these two obligations tend to pull in opposite directions, thus generating a serious tension in Chambers’ proposal which eventually leads to an undue compromising of the second obligation in favour of the first. Based on this discussion, I develop an alternative proposal which, instead of prohibiting breast implant surgery, offers compensation for the disadvantages suffered by individuals who decide not to have surgery. (shrink)