Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:18:28.610Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Paternalism and Justification*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

James Woodward*
Affiliation:
Memphis State University

Extract

Much recent discussion in moral philosophy has focused on the contrast between those moral theories which are consequentialist in structure and those moral theories which admit independent side constraints on the means which can be used to achieve various ends. In this essay I shall attempt to show that this contrast provides an illuminating framework against which to understand two conflicting strategies for justifying paternalistic interference. The first, consequentialist strategy takes paternalistic interference to be justified when it will protect or perhaps enhance some valued goal or end state, such as an agent's welfare or future ability to choose. Gerald Dworkin's essay “Paternalism” contains what is perhaps the most compelling recent development of this sort of rationale for paternalistic interference and accordingly much of my subsequent discussion will focus on this essay.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Phillip Devine, Norman Gillespie, Hardy Jones, Martin Perlmutter, and Ken Winkler for helpful comments on earlier versions of this essay.

References

Select Bibliography

Carter, Rosemary, ‘Justifying Paternalism,Canadian journal of Philosophy, 7 (1977) 133–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Gerald, ‘Paternalism,’ in Morality and the Law, ed. Wasserstrom, RichardBelmont, CA: Wadsworth 1971) 107–26Google Scholar
Feinberg, Joel, ‘Legal Paternalism,Canadian journal of Philosophy, 1 (1971-72) 105–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gert, Bernard and Culver, Charles, ‘The Justification of Paternalism,Ethics, 89 (1979) 199210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodson, John, ‘The Principle of Paternalism,American Philosophical Quarterly, 14 (1975) 6171.Google Scholar
Husak, Douglas, ‘Paternalism and Autonomy,Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10 (1980-81) 2746.Google Scholar
Ten, C.L., ‘Paternalism and Morality,Ratio, 13 (1971) 5566.Google Scholar
VanDeVeer, Donald, ‘Paternalism and Subsequent Consent,Canadian journal of Philosophy, 9 (1979) 631–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VanDeVeer, Donald, ‘Autonomy-Respecting Paternalism,Social Theory and Practice, 6 (1980) 187207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VanDeVeer, Donald, ‘The Contractual Argument for Withholding Medical Information,' Philosophy and Public Affairs, 9 (1979-80) 198205.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard, ‘A Critique of Utilitarianism,’ in Smart, J.J.C. and Williams, Bernard, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1973).Google Scholar