Paternalism

For the process of promoting and supporting the development of a child, see Parenting.

Child on a leash

Paternalism is action that limits a person's or group's liberty or autonomy and is intended to promote their own good. Paternalism can also imply that the behavior is against or regardless of the will of a person, or also that the behavior expresses an attitude of superiority. Paternalism, paternalistic and paternalist have all been used as a pejorative for example in the context of societal and/or political realms and references.

Some such as John Stuart Mill think paternalism to be appropriate towards children, saying:

"It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood."

Paternalism towards adults is sometimes thought of as treating them as if they were children.

Etymology

The word paternalism derives from the adjective paternal, which entered the English language in the 15th century from Old French paternel (cf. Old Occitan paternal, as in Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese), itself from Medieval Latin paternalis. The classical Latin equivalent was paternus "fatherly", from pater "father".

Types

Soft and hard

Soft paternalism is the view that paternalism is justified only if an action to be committed is involuntary. John Stuart Mill gives the example of a person about to walk across a damaged bridge. One cannot tell the person the bridge is damaged as he does not speak our language. According to soft paternalism, one would be justified in forcing him to not cross the bridge so one could find out whether he knows about the damage. If he knows and wants to jump off the bridge and commit suicide then one should allow him to. Hard paternalists say that at least sometimes one is entitled to prevent him from crossing the bridge and committing suicide.

Pure and impure

Pure paternalism is paternalism where the person(s) having their liberty or autonomy taken away are those being protected. Impure paternalism occurs when the class of people whose liberty or autonomy is violated by some measure is wider than the group of persons thereby protected.

Moral and welfare

Moral paternalism is where paternalism is justified to promote the moral well-being of a person(s) even if their welfare would not improve. For example, it could be argued that someone should be prevented from prostitution even if they make a decent living off it and their health is protected. A moral paternalist would argue that it is ethical considering they believe prostitution to be morally corrupting.

Criteria for effective paternalism

Thomas Pogge argues that there are a number of criteria for paternalism.

• The concept should work within human flourishing. Generally accepted items such as nutrition, clothing, shelter, certain basic freedoms may be acceptable by a range of religious and social backgrounds.
• The criteria should be minimally intrusive.
• The requirements of the criteria should not be understood as exhaustive; leaving societies the ability to modify the criteria based on their own needs.
• The supplementary considerations introduced by such more ambitious criteria of justice must not be allowed to outweigh the modest considerations.

Opponents

See also: Social engineering (political science) and Nanny state

In his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke argues (against Robert Filmer) that political and paternal power are not the same.

John Stuart Mill opposes state paternalism on the grounds that individuals know their own good better than the state does, that the moral equality of persons demands respect for others' liberty, and that paternalism disrupts the development of an independent character. In On Liberty, he writes:

[T]he only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right.

Mill, however, disregards his own analysis when it comes to colonial subjects. He writes:

Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury. For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler full of the spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise unattainable. Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end.

Mill declares barbarians to be in need of paternalism. But he narrowly defines barbarism historically, geographically, and economically insofar as to declare it fit to describe the people he intends to describe as such. If colonial venture can be deemed barbarian in the sense of its violence, subjugation, and rape on a mass scale, then despotism is a legitimate form of dealing with Mill, proponents of colonialism, and colonial states and statesmen.

Contemporary opponents of paternalism often appeal to the ideal of personal autonomy.

In society

• In the Southern United States before the Civil War, paternalism was a concept used to justify the legitimacy of slavery. Women would present themselves as mothers for the slaves, or protectors that provided benefits the slaves would not get on their own. Plantation mistresses would attempt to civilize their workers by providing food, shelter, and affection. These women would justify that the conditions for freed blacks were poorer than those who were under the mistresses' protection. Paternalism was used as an argument against the emancipation of slavery due to these mistresses providing better living conditions than the enslaved's counterpart in the factory-based north. As a result of this conclusion, the whites would often manage basic rights of the enslaved such as child rearing and property.
• Paternalism was also used against women's suffrage, with opponents of women's suffrage saying that granting women the right to vote would make their lives harder and separate them from their families.

See also

• Adultism
• Authoritarianism
• Company town#Paternalism
• Nanny state
• Noble lie
• Obscurantism
• Rule according to higher law
• Social conservatism
• Paternalistic conservatism

External links

• Mill and Paternalism, by Gregory Claeys. Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• Paternalism, by Peter Suber. From Philosophy of Law: An Encyclopedia, edited by Christopher Berry Gray, Garland Pub. Co., 1999, vol. II, pp. 632–35.
• Paternalism, by Gerald Dworkin. From The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Counting the Dragon's Teeth and Claws: The Definition of Hard Paternalism by Thaddeus Mason Pope. From 20 Georgia State University Law Review 659–722 (2004)
• Monstrous Impersonation: A Critique of Consent-Based Justifications for Hard Paternalism by Thaddeus Mason Pope. From 73 UMKC Law Review 681–713 (2005)
• Is Public Health Paternalism Really Never Justified? A Response to Joel Feinberg by Thaddeus Mason Pope. From 30 Oklahoma City University Law Review 121–207 (2005)