Paternalism: A Flawed Basis for Liberty-limiting Policies?

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-313
Author(s):  
Peter Wedekind
Keyword(s):  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Extensive Form ◽  
Joel Feinberg ◽  
Soft Paternalism ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Self ◽  
Gerald Dworkin ◽  
Internal Coherence ◽  
Significant Attention

This article discusses coercive paternalism, a concept of liberty-limitations that has gained significant attention in recent decades. In opposition to the libertarian type of paternalism proposed by the well-known ‘Nudgers’ Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (2008), Sarah Conly (2013) advocates coercive interventions in Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism. Her influential work serves as a basis for scrutinizing the validity of coercive paternalism’s presuppositions as well as the internal coherence of the concept. Following the fundamental groundwork of especially Joel Feinberg and Gerald Dworkin, arguments against coercive paternalism are evaluated. They include the reciprocal (rather than unilateral) relationship between the ‘present self’ and the ‘future self’ in the paternalist’s account, the questionable legitimacy of punishment for self-harming behaviour and of coercion in general, the challenges of so-called ‘perfectionism’ and slippery-slopes, as well as a misconception about the alleged lack of rationality that serves as a justification for coercive paternalism. The article concludes by suggesting that – given the flaws of the concept – it may be reasonable to favour soft paternalism à la John Stuart Mill based on the harm principle over Conly’s proposal for a more extensive form of coercive paternalism.

The Role of Tradeoff Salience and Connectedness to the Future Self

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bartels ◽  
Oleg Urminsky ◽  
Shane Frederick
Keyword(s):  
The Future ◽  
Future Self

Pathways to Success Through Identity-Based Motivation

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daphna Oyserman
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Core ◽  
Very Young Children ◽  
The Future ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Future Self ◽  
Fidelity Measures ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Taking Action ◽  
Minimal Effort

Everyone can imagine their future self, even very young children, and this future self is usually positive and education-linked. To make progress toward an aspired future or away from a feared future requires people to plan and take action. Unfortunately, most people often start too late and commit minimal effort to ineffective strategies that lead their attention elsewhere. As a result, their high hopes and earnest resolutions often fall short. In Pathways to Success Through Identity-Based Motivation Daphna Oyserman focuses on situational constraints and affordances that trigger or impede taking action. Focusing on when the future-self matters and how to reduce the shortfall between the self that one aspires to become and the outcomes that one actually attains, Oyserman introduces the reader to the core theoretical framework of identity-based motivation (IBM) theory. IBM theory is the prediction that people prefer to act in identity-congruent ways but that the identity-to-behavior link is opaque for a number of reasons (the future feels far away, difficulty of working on goals is misinterpreted, and strategies for attaining goals do not feel identity-congruent). Oyserman's book goes on to also include the stakes and how the importance of education comes into play as it improves the lives of the individual, their family, and their society. The framework of IBM theory and how to achieve it is broken down into three parts: how to translate identity-based motivation into a practical intervention, an outline of the intervention, and empirical evidence that it works. In addition, the book also includes an implementation manual and fidelity measures for educators utilizing this book to intervene for the improvement of academic outcomes.

PLASTIC TREES AND GLADIATORS: LIBERALISM AND AESTHETIC REGULATION

Legal Theory ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Harm Principle ◽  
Legal Moralism ◽  
Joel Feinberg ◽  
The Harm Principle

The hallmark of modern liberalism is its embrace of the Millian harm principle and its antipathy to legal moralism. In this article I consider whether aesthetic regulations can be justified under the harm principle as that principle has been elaborated by Joel Feinberg. I conclude that aesthetic and other regulations that most liberals regard as unproblematic are actually instances of legal moralism.

Kymlicka’s Alignment of Mill and Engels: Nationality, Civilization, and Coercive Assimilation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Tim Beaumont
Keyword(s):  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Will Kymlicka ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
Friedrich Engels ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract John Stuart Mill claims that free institutions are next to impossible in a multinational state. According to Will Kymlicka, this leads him to embrace policies kindred to those of Friedrich Engels, aimed at promoting mononational states in Europe through coercive assimilation. Given Mill’s harm principle, such coercive assimilation would have to be justified either paternalistically, in terms of its civilizing effects upon the would-be assimilated, or non-paternalistically, with reference to the danger that their non-assimilation would pose to others. However, neither possible interpretation is plausible; Mill takes Europe’s civilized status to shield Europeans from paternalistic coercion, and he opposes coercive assimilation where it could conceivably be justified in the name of defense. Although this much suggests that Kymlicka misinterprets Mill by ignoring his definition of nationality, it leaves scope for Kymlicka to argue that Mill favors policies that promote mononationality through neglecting the languages and cultures of national minorities.

A Fourteenth-Century Scholastic Dispute on Astrological Interrogations

Vivarium ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-285
Author(s):  
C. Philipp E. Nothaft
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
The Future ◽  
University Of Paris ◽  
Internal Coherence ◽  
The University

Abstract This article examines and edits an anonymous text from the late 1330s (Quesitum fuit utrum per interrogationes …), which was written to refute the arguments presented in a lost quaestio disputata by an unknown Parisian philosopher. At the heart of this scholastic dispute was the question whether the astrological branch known as interrogations was an effective and legitimate means of predicting the future. The philosopher’s negative answers to this question as well as the rebuttals preserved in our anonymous text offer valuable new insights into the debate over astrology that raged at the University of Paris during the fourteenth century. Besides arguing at length for the internal coherence and philosophical soundness of interrogations, the text contains a bold defence against the Augustinian view that astrologers consort with demons. This defence was later rebutted as part of an anti-astrological polemic by the astronomer Heinrich Selder, who is known to have studied in Paris during the 1370s.

A Discriminative Ontology for Future Selves

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-381
Author(s):  
Juraj Odorčák ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Second Order ◽  
Practical Advantage ◽  
Future Selves ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Self ◽  
The Right ◽  
Practical Feasibility

The article presents a critique of the commonly held assumption about the practical advantage of endurantism over perdurantism regarding the problem of future-directed self-concern of a person. The future-directed self-concern of a person crucially depends on the possibility of the right differentiation of diverging futures of distinct persons, therefore any theory of persistence that does not entail a special nonbranching relation of a person to only their future self seems to be counterintuitive or unrealistic for practical purposes of personal persistence. I argue that this pragmatic rationale about future-directed self-concern is equally challenging for both theories of persistence. Moreover, I indicate, that both of these theories fall and stand on the practical feasibility of hidden ontological presuppositions about specific second-order notions of concerns of persons for their future.

Letters to our Future Selves? High-Powered Replication Attempts Question Effects on Future Orientation, Delinquent Decisions, and Risky Investments

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 521-554
Author(s):  
Laura Quinten ◽  
Anja Murmann ◽  
Hanna A. Genau ◽  
Rafaela Warkentin ◽  
Rainer Banse
Keyword(s):  
Problem Behavior ◽  
Related Problem ◽  
Future Orientation ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Sample Sizes ◽  
Replication Studies ◽  
Future Selves ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Self ◽  
Letter Task

Enhancing people's future orientation, in particular continuity with their future selves, has been proposed as promising to mitigate self-control–related problem behavior. In two pre-registered, direct replication studies, we tested a subtle manipulation, that is, writing a letter to one's future self, in order to reduce delinquent decisions (van Gelder et al., 2013, Study 1) and risky investments (Monroe et al., 2017, Study 1). With samples of n = 314 and n = 463, which is 2.5 times the original studies' sample sizes, the results suggested that the expected effects are either non-existent or smaller than originally reported, and/or dependent on factors not examined. Vividness of the future self was successfully manipulated in Study 2, but manipulation checks overall indicated that the letter task is not reliable to alter future orientation. We discuss ideas to integrate self-affirmation approaches and to test less subtle manipulations in samples with substantial, myopia-related self-control deficits.

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