Liberty and Paternalism?

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

This is a Philosophy of Law topic so I'd like to keep it here if possible. I'm more interested in a general argument than anything with respect to communist theory. If someone thinks that is particularly relevant, feel free to bring it to the table, of course.

When are we justified in sacrificing liberty for the benefit of society or the the prevention of self-harm? With respect to the Harm Principle, as Mill would argue, or are there other criteria? In "Law and Limits on Individual Liberty," Gerald Dworkin provides the follow examples of justified paternalism:

1. Laws requiring motorcyclists to wear safety helmets when operating machines.
2. Laws forbidding persons from swimming at a public beach when lifeguards are not on duty.
3. Laws making suicide a criminal offense.
4. Laws making it illegal for women and children to work at certain types of jobs.
5. Laws regulating the use of certain drugs which may have harmful consequences to the user but do not lead to anti-social conduct.
7. Laws requiring a license to engage in certain professions with those not receiving a license subject to fine or jail sentence if they do engage in the practice.
8. Laws compelling people to spend a specified fraction of their income on the purchase of retirement annuities (Social Security)
9. Laws forbidding various forms of gambling (often justified on the grounds that the poor are more likely to throw away their money on such activities than the rich who can afford to).
10. Laws regulating the maximum rates of interest for loans.
11. Laws against dueling.

Here are some of my own questions about justification:

12. Laws against smoking.
13. Laws against pornography (depicting women as objects).
14. Laws against hate speech.
15. Laws regulating that children of religious parents must receive blood transfusions in life or death medical situations. (If this is the case, is it even an example of paternalism?)
16. Laws requiring children to take sex education classes.

Mill argues for liberty as an essential. At the point of adulthood, we consider individuals best at determining what is in their own interest. However, #15 seems troubling to me. Why are we better than a parent at deciding what is good for their child, but we are not better than a parent at deciding what is good for them?

I think we can defend Mill's view because any justification for intervention against personal liberty is not rationally provable, and we could make mistakes that make truth inaccessible or bury it beneath restrictions on free speech. I am not confident in this idea.

Many people still hold Mill's conception on liberty. It is vary popular amongst liberals, anarchists, libertarians, and individual thinkers. What justifies it against paternalism with respect to adults, and why does that not apply to children? Also, are there exceptions or is there a criteria with which to evaluate exceptions?

Sorry if the post is a little broad and inconclusive. Thanks for reading.

[WhitemageofDOOM]

When are we justified in sacrificing liberty for the benefit of society or the the prevention of self-harm? With respect to the Harm Principle, as Mill would argue, or are there other criteria?

Anytime it's of provable benefit to the person being protected? I'm a utilitarian, so to me everything is merely a means to the end of human happiness. This includes liberty.
I think purely viewing it as a question of liberty and not getting humans what they want has problems. The harm principle is just trying to work around the thorny issue of "The liberty to take away the liberty of others."


Why are we better than a parent at deciding what is good for their child, but we are not better than a parent at deciding what is good for them?

Why are parents better at deciding whats better for children than anyone else? I attack your premise here.


and why does that not apply to children?

And now you ask the essential question.
Because the view of humans as overly rational creatures and children as stupid instead of merely ignorant. Humans do dumb things, children and adult alike are equal stupid at times. We watch out for each other because were social animals, and that at least is the idea behind these types of laws. Not to wield social power like a club, but as a promise to each other "hey if you do something stupid, I'm here to help."

The idea, It most certainly is wielded like a club in the current system. But the current system corrupts a lot of good ideas.

[JimmyJazz]

I'm a utilitarian, so to me everything is merely a means to the end of human happiness. This includes liberty.
I think purely viewing it as a question of liberty and not getting humans what they want has problems.

Er...the principle of liberty springs from the idea that people know better how to make themselves happy than you do.

[Hit The North]

I'm more interested in a general argument than anything with respect to communist theory.
Maybe you should have posted this in OI, then.

[Hit The North]

A few remarks which, now I read them, seem to be saying the same thing in slightly different ways:

Firstly, I have problems engaging with these arguments because they're so abstracted from issues of power and inequality.

Who is the 'we' and who the 'they'?

Paternalism is only that when elites are making decisions for everyone else. If these rules regulating the relationship between liberty and social obligation were conducted in a situation of equality they would, as Whiteimageofdoom indicates, reflect the positive solidarity which exists between people as members of the community. As it is, in the present situation of capitalist wage-slavery, every step the state takes to control the realtion between the individual and society, is a step which further consolidates the power of capital over us.

The problem with Mills arguments, bearing the hallmark of the bourgeois world view, is that they artificially separate the individual from his social construction and fail to account for his social relations. The opposition between the individual and the community as divisible entities is not so clear cut as Mills assumes. Moreover, the individual liberty which Mills aspires to is, at best, the liberty of the individual bourgeois and an impossibility for everyone else under present conditions.

The sociologist Emile Durkheim, argued that the freedom and happiness of the individual depends upon his subjugation to society. Of course, the problem under capitalism is that our subjugation to a society founded on exploitation and domination only increases our alienation. Only a communist future will allow a free and equal relation between the individual and the community.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Maybe you should have posted this in OI, then.

The people in OI are mostly idiots. I just don't want people saying "Marx said this" so it must be true. A lot of people are very dogmatic with respect to communist ideas so I wanted to make a distinction. The truth of things does not somehow revolve around Marxist theory in every case.

[BobKKKindle$]

OP: It's clear from the way you (and Mill) discuss this issue that you have adopted a negative conception of liberty, which is concerned solely with individuals being able to act without interference from the state, such that, based on this conception, when men are free they are not being compelled to do or be certain things by the state or any other institution. You should be aware that this is by no means the only way in which liberty can be understood, and there are many theorists who would argue that this conception represents a simplistic and narrow understanding of what it means to be free. In particular, negative liberty neglects the role of internal obstacles and social forces in shaping the extent to which individuals can be seen as genuinely free, and the level of control they can exert over their lives. If someone is addicted to a drug such as heroin, then it is difficult to describe them as making free decisions, because their behavior is always going to be directed by whatever they need to do in order to satisfy their addiction, even if this undermines their personal relationships and places them in positions of dependence, and as such they have been deprived of the ability to make rational and informed decisions. If the state decided that anyone who has been addicted to heroin for a long period of time should be forced to undergo rehabilitation treatment, then this could be interpreted as a violation or restriction of negative freedom, because such a policy would involve the state interfering with the behavior of drug users, but it is entirely possible to advance such a policy on the grounds that it would enhance freedom, because it is only when we are not subject to the control of external forces such as addictions that we are capable of recognizing what is in our best interests and choosing the best means to pursue that objective. This alternative conception of liberty questions one of the main assumptions of the bourgeois interpretation - that we are always and everywhere the best judges of what is beneficial for us, as it draws our attention to the role of irrational passions in shaping decision-making, and gives the state a key role in regulating passions in order to provide a basis for the exercise of reason.