Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler contend that the government is justified in shaping certain choices of individuals to advance their well-being. In this paper, I argue that those who are committed to a robust notion of autonomy, which I call autonomy as authority, have good reason to reject the Sunstein-Thaler argument for libertarian paternalism. I draw from Joseph Raz’s idea of exclusionary reasons and Daniel Groll’s conception of autonomy to argue that the S/T argument for libertarian paternalism fails to respect (...) autonomy. I consider if soft paternalism could be called upon as a foundation for libertarian paternalism, but argue against this possibility. I conclude that an adequate defense of libertarian paternalism would need to directly attack the notion of autonomy as authority, but such an attack has yet to be mounted by the defenders of libertarian paternalism. (shrink)

Most anti-paternalists claim that informed and competent self-regarding choices are protected by autonomy, while ill-informed or impaired self-regarding choices are not. Joel Feinberg, among many others, argues that we can in this way distinguish impermissible “hard” paternalism from permissible “soft” paternalism. I argue that this view confronts two related problems in its treatment of ill-informed decision-makers. First, it faces a dilemma when applied to decision-makers who are responsible for their ignorance: it either permits too much, or else too little, intervention (...) to satisfy its proponents. Second, the most promising rationales in favor of the view ignore the distinction between an agent’s voluntarily bringing about some state of affairs, on the one hand, and an agent’s voluntarily assuming a risk, on the other. I conclude that a decision-maker’s ignorance is irrelevant to the permissibility of intervention on her behalf. If it is permissible to intervene in a given ill-informed choice, it would be permissible to intervene in an otherwise similar but informed choice, at least provided that intervention would produce similar benefits in both cases. This shows that we should sometimes accept straightforwardly paternalistic rationales. (shrink)

It has been common for researchers and commentators within the discipline of Social and Public Policy to evoke Rawlsian theories of justice. Yet some now argue that the contractualist tradition cannot adequately incorporate, or account for, relations of care, respect and interdependency. Though contractualism has its flaws this article proposes that we should not reject it. Through a critique of one of its most esteemed critics, Martha Nussbaum, it proposes that contractualism can be defended against the capabilities approach she prefers. (...) The article concludes by suggesting how and why the moral philosophy of Thomas Scanlon offers a basis for reconciling the strengths of a contractualist, egalitarian liberalism with those of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach. (shrink)