Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism

by Sarah Conly

Since Mill's seminal work On Liberty, philosophers and political theorists have accepted that we should respect the decisions of individual agents when those decisions affect no one other than themselves. Indeed, to respect autonomy is often understood to be the chief way to bear witness to the intrinsic value of persons. In this book, Sarah Conly rejects the idea of autonomy as inviolable. Drawing on sources from behavioural economics and social psychology, she argues that we are so often irrational in making our decisions that our autonomous choices often undercut the achievement of our own goals. Thus in many cases it would advance our goals more effectively if government were to prevent us from acting in accordance with our decisions. Her argument challenges widely held views of moral agency, democratic values and the public/private distinction, and will interest readers in ethics, political philosophy, political theory and philosophy of law.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics, Academic, Psychology

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 12, 2012

Reviews

[Kaleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Final book for my Paternalism class. Despite the provocative title, the book’s argument is fairly reasonable. As individuals, we regularly do things that are bad for us, not for good reasons, but due to cognitive biases. See: smoking cigarettes, eating trans fats, not saving for retirement. Sometimes we can solve these with soft paternalism, giving people nudges to disincentivize or discourage behaviors. Other times, it’s justified to ban things.

Not all the time, of course. Conly has a four-part test to determine whether hard paternalism is justified: the activity to be prevented on paternalistic grounds really must be opposed to our long-term ends; coercive measures must actually be effective; benefits must outweigh the costs; and the measure in question must be the most efficient way to prevent the activity. This is a case-by-case test, open to disagreement; banning cigarettes is likely justified, while banning alcohol likely isn’t.

End-based paternalism is not justified. The state cannot determine what the end of paternalistic behavior is just. So the government cannot determine what religion you should follow or whom you should marry; clearly a recipe for disaster. Instead, means-based paternalism is justified if people have widely shared goals (health is the best example), the government can institute paternalistic measures to aid in this. Seatbelt laws are a good example of a paternalistic policy that now has widespread support.

Seems like a solid argument all around. Unless you are a diehard Chicago School of Economics libertarian, hard paternalism is justified in at least some circumstances, given what we know about cognitive biases. And now, my paternalism book streak ends.

[⋊ · Rating 1 out of 5]

A passionate, zealously-argued work that suffers from extremely dangerous flaws.

This book completely lacks any reference to individual rights, refuses to recognize that not every action carried out by authority is coercive, and argues in favour of violating the agency of individuals based purely on the will of the majority even in the absence of harm. Conly's society of coercive paternalism has no respect for agency, and loses every perceived net-positive gain to a runaway train filled with drones incapable of critical introspection or building society further. Conly's argument is a bird bred to live in a cage - which believes flying is a disease and that flocks should hate themselves for laying eggs.

If Conly would even dare consider the corrupting effects of power on even the most cohesive utopian society, she would have argued against paternalism.

[Fatima · Rating 3 out of 5]

so this bitch really just said fuck consent?

I'm sorry, that's not the kind of vernacular that would sit nicely on a page of reviews for this piece of intellectual work. But I must say, while I'm not convinced with the concept of coercive paternalism (I'm more into John Stewart Mill's position), there were some arguments she made that had me pretty convinced. I admit, that scared me a little.

[Faaiz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll just start off by saying I love Conly's writing style - super clear, refreshingly to-the-point and direct, and thoroughly engaging. Conly's argues in favor of coercive paternalism - forcing people to do or not do something that is for/against their own goals and ends. A couple of running examples mentioned throughout the book include: banning cigarettes/smoking, banning trans-fats, preventing people from running up debts etc.

Conly is quick to point out that the use of coercive paternalism is neither unprecedented, nor morally unjustified citing already existing example such as seat belt laws, mandatory education, and banning of trans-fats in many jurisdictions in the US. Personally, I agree with Conly in that the use of coercive paternalism is necessary and often times justified and even the best way to deal with certain problems. The fact that cigarettes haven't been banned yet is a travesty for all those vehement proponents of human rationality.

Conly is also quick to dispel myths and arguments that the use of coercive paternalism is necessarily going to lead to authoritarianism and lead to over-infringement on other rights and avenues of human behavior. The reader will quickly discover that Conly limits the scope of paternalistic intervention significantly with all the conditions and stipulations she attaches to its use. For instance: 1) The activity to be prevented on paternalistic grounds should be one that is opposed to our long-term goals; 2) It should be based on our own values rather than what is deemed to be valuable for us by an exogenous entity; 3) The benefits of the paternalistic intervention must exceed the costs of the intervention; 4) The measure needs to be the most effective way to prevent the activity; 5) No use of paternalistic measures to achieve moralistic, perfectionist ends and goals (presumably even if those are values that people themselves share); 6) The actions must take place through legislation from a democratically-elected government.

With all these rules in place, the scope of activities that could come under coercive paternalism is severely limited, which is fine, but as Conly wants the reader to realize does not need panicked pearl-cluching.

The problems that I had with the book pertain to Conly completely ignoring the realm of political economy and the structural imperatives that affect human beings and their choices and actions. Conly places the onus of responsibility too much on individual actions and actions of individual corporations in how she frames certain problems. For example, to conceptualize the lack of savings that people have to their inactions or cognitive deficiencies instead of impositions of imperatives of an exploitative capitalistic system is intellectually lazy, in my opinion. You can't mandate that people save a certain percent of their income without taking into account why they do not do so now, i.e., due to low wages and highly capitalistic consumerist society and culture.

By placing herself in the limits of the current neoliberal paradigm, Conly's advocated coercive paternalistic measures fail to be as effective as possible. For instance, the practice of predatory lending, not just from banks, but also those payday loan institutes, is a feature of capitalism that simply banning those actions will not stop their effects from manifesting in some other form, not unless capitalism is dismantled.

Other things missing or lacking in this book include: a) the absence of a discussion on how the certain costs and benefits, in the cost-benefit analysis proposed by Conly to judge the merits of a paternalistic measure, are to be quantified and operationalized; b) Cross-cultural research showing that some of the identified cognitive biases and traits are actually universal and not merely artifacts of the WEIRD samples; c) a discussion on the robustness of some of the psychological and behavioral science studies cited in light of the replication crisis unfolded in the field; d) a discussion on the moral licensing literature as an externality imposed on people due to regulation of their behaviors.

I think this book will be useful for those who still want to achieve some positive ends while completely keeping themselves tied to the current neoliberal capitalistic paradigm, but of those that lean left, the limits of the political imagination in this book are likely to disappoint.

[Dave Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars because it is interesting and well-written. I don't agree with her much. Her main approach is to point out that we accept some sorts of coercive paternalism as part of tHe status quo (seat belt laws), but it is difficult to distinguish between those and other sorts of paternalism. They differ by degree, not by kind. And so she concludes that every case must be judged on its own merits, in a cost/benefit, consequentialist style.

Her case rests on assumptions about the role of the state, the trade-off between cost/benefit calculations and heuristics, etc. that she does not really address. We can view her argument as a reductio ad absurdum refuting her assumptions and undermining the uncontroversial instances of paternalism she mentions. Perhaps that is a different discussion.

[Jolynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can’t say I’m convinced and think there are substantial dangers to expanding the footprint of coercive paternalism. Also disagree with quite a bit of the privacy analysis - mainly because it seems to assume a regulatory environment that does not currently exist and is highly unlikely in the near future and also underestimates the value of private corporations’ collections of data to government entities. However, the deep dive into the underlying assumptions around autonomy was great and the thesis was original and interesting. Glad I read it.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-argued, if not entirely convincing.

[Aubrey Lennon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely made me think

[Wilte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conly argues for not the most popular notion: Coercive Paternalism. Rules that forbid stuff that is bad for you in the long run. Brave, because the Libertarian Paternalism of Sunsteins and Thaler is often attacked (Conly describes differences and similarities with that position). Coercive Paternalism is even more hard paternalism.

p.173 "the moral nexus: whether we are allowed to override personal choice in order to benefit the chooser." summs it up pretty well. The core of her argument is in the introduction, which can be read here:
http://www.cambridge.org/servlet/file...

Many counterarguments that can be made are not specific to paternalism; "All government is dangerous. To have a government at all is to have given others power over us. There is no need to think , though, that paternalistic measures make a government any more dangerous than one that is not paternalstic." (p.148). Mill, defending Utilitarianism is quoted (p.73): "there is no difficulty in proving any ethical standard whatever to work ill, if we suppose universal idiocy to be conjoined with it (Ch 2, p.275)".

Some chapters dive too deep into philosophy and close-reading of Mill (On LIberty) et al. I skimmed those passages.

Chapter 6 on Applications contained 4 sensible criteria to use in decidinf if coercive paternalism is the appropriate strategy (can be applied to any strategy basically):
1. The activity to be prevented on pateralistic grounds really is one that is opposed to our long-term ends (we don't want to allow 'paternalistic' intervention just because an action is vulgar or aesthetically unpleasing or immoral.
2. Coercive measures actually have to be effective
3. The benefits have to be greater than the costs (material and psychological)
4. The measure in question needs to be the most efficient way to prevent the activity. (p.150-151).

This pragmatic approach makes sense to me; coercive paternalism is one of the tools in the tool box to be effective. Personally, I guess I would use it less often than Conly, but she makes a good case why it should be considered in the first place.

[Kåre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meget interessant og yderst relevant.

Hun konfronterer de liberalistiske teser - via Mills - stenhårdt, men også med sympati. Der er ikke tale om nogen skapegoat her.

Tværtimod argumenterer hun for, at Mills er stærk, men desværre outdateret. Den politiske og filosofiske udvikling har gjort hans skepsis overfor paternalismen overflødig. Hævdes det.

Udgangspunktet for hende er utilitarisme, altså at det drejer sig om nytteværdien, som den opleves eller bør opleves af mennesker, der tænker sig om. Det gør mange ofte ikke, og derfor har vi behov for institutioner, der kan gennemtænke forhold for os og sætte regler.

Jeg er måske ikke helt overbevist, men næsten. I alle fald passer bogen præcis med tidsånden, som jeg forstår den. Vi er således et sted, hvor individets dømmekraft opleves som tvivlsom, og hvor stater, institutioner og virksomheder de facto er dem, der sætter moralsk standard. En hvilken som helst effektiv moral, kan i dag ikke blot bygge på individers oplevelser, vurderinger, mener jeg. Man er nød til at tænke på, hvordan institutioner kan styrke det moralske. Selvfølgelig må man herunder også se på, hvordan institutioner kan gøres moralske. Conly er lige på i den forbindelse.

Hendes argument mod svag form for paternalisme - fx at man skal uddanne folk til at blive bedre beslutningstagere - er interessant. Argumenter er i kort form, at det ikke nytter - folk kan ikke, eller kun nogle kan - og at det er ineffektivt - folk ryger fx alligevel.

Bogens argument lægger sig fint i forlængelse af Kahnemann og er dermed også i forlængelse at mig om spil.

[Matt Klepfer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting read. I wouldn't say I'm 100% convinced by her philisophy yet, however, reading this certainly brought a new light onto how I look at coercive paternalism.