Moral Paternalism

Abstract

I present a brief overview of the paternalistic policies that are currently promoted, and then suggest that one broad area has been overlooked: individuals’ interest in behaving in a way that reflects their moral values. Paternalists want to promote individual welfare, generally construed subjectively: welfare is a function of that person’s own goals. Most paternalists have focused on relatively material goals, including good health and financial success. If we examine the idea of subjective welfare more closely we will see that we have other goals as well: most people have moral values, and moral values that are not purely egoistic. People make mistakes in the pursuit of their moral goals that are in some cases very similar to the mistakes they make in the pursuit of material welfare, and similar interventions are permissible.