coons_c_weber_m_eds_paternalism_theory_and_practice

a powerful hold on public policy discussions and it is important to understand exactly where it goes wrong. So here our target is the sort of CBA that eschews all values except as they appear in preferences and takes preferences to be fully revealed by choices. Let us call this Minimalist CBA or MCBA. Here we are concerned with one problem that, as far as we can tell, has been overlooked by the critics of MCBA. It can override values and commitments that people hold dear, purportedly with the aim of furthering their interests or other goals – a patently paternalistic implication.

But before we justify this claim, we will take a brief foray into definitions of paternalism.

what is paternalism?

When faced with charges of paternalism, a common strategy is to adopt

of paternalism – broader even than the definitions used by critics of happi- ness-driven economics.10 Our conception of paternalism is a modified version of Seana Shi rin’s influential analysis.11 Intuitively, the paternalist asserts some degree of control over an agent’s own a airs. But she does so, not merely for her own purposes or out of sadism, which is why a bully or an oppressor need not be paternalistic. Rather, a paternalist is primarily concerned with managing your a airs with the aim of getting them right. And the wrong of paternalism, when wrong, is that it involves usurping an agent’s authority to manage her own a airs. Let’s make this more precise. According to Shi rin:

paternalism by A toward B may be characterized as behavior (whether through action or through omission)

(a)aimed to have (or to avoid) an e ect on B or her sphere of legitimate agency

(b)that involves the substitution of A’s judgment or agency for B’s

(c)directed at B’s own interests or matters that legitimately lie within B’s control

(d)undertaken on the grounds that compared to B’s judgment or agency with respect to those interests or other matters, A regards her judgment or agency to be (or as likely to be), in some respect, superior to B’s.12

This account of paternalism has some interesting features. First, it does not require restricting or otherwise actively interfering with B’s choices, still less coercion. For example, people sometimes prefer having fewer choices

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to more, so policies that disregard such preferences to foist more options on those individuals, for their own good, would be paternalistic. Second, paternalism need not be contrary to B’s judgment, as it may instead circumvent B’s agency in carrying out her judgment. You might want to quit smoking but lack the willpower; my hiding your cigarettes doesn’t override your judgment yet is paternalist, because I’m preventing you from managing your own a airs by circumventing your agency. Third, Shi rin’s account does not require paternalism to be aimed at the agent’s well-being. Indeed, it needn’t be concerned with anyone’s welfare: Forcing me to be more virtuous, talented, skilled, well-rounded, beautiful, or otherwise excellent can quite obviously be paternalistic, even if there’s no thought of me or anyone else benefiting.

We agree with Shi rin on these points, but propose three modifications to her account. First, it is not clearly necessary, pace (b), that A’s judgment or agency be substituted for B’s: Perhaps A designates a mechanical process, bureaucracy, or panel of experts to decide for B. She might even regard her own judgment as worse than B’s. We should, then, revise (b) to (b0 ): A acts paternalistically by substituting some other entity’s judgment or agency for B’s (including, perhaps, her own).

The second modification concerns condition (d), which seems too narrow: A need not regard her (or any other) judgment or agency as superior to B’s. Perhaps A holds a high opinion of B’s judgment, but doesn’t bother to find out what B really wants before acting on B’s behalf (indeed, perhaps she does so precisely because her high opinion of B causes her to presume agreement between them): She just assumes that B wants something, and secures it for her. A pushy caregiver for a wheelchair-bound sibling, say, might regularly if inadvertently override his sister’s preferences, for instance making travel plans for her without getting her opinion, which he simply assumes will mirror his (“Of course she wants to go to Orlando! Who wouldn’t?”). In such a case A acts paternalistically towards B, not out of any presumed superiority, but simply out of insensitivity or inattentiveness to B’s attitudes. Call this inattentive paternalism (or, alternatively, implicit, versus overt, paternalism).

What such cases have in common with Shi rin’s condition (d), we think, is a lack of deference to B’s judgment or agency. Meddling (say), out of either presumed superiority or insensitivity, is paternalistic because in both cases it reflects a failure or unwillingness to defer to B’s judgment or agency in matters over which B has legitimate authority. Accordingly, we propose to replace condition (d) with:

(d0 ) manifests a non-deferential attitude to B’s judgment or agency with respect to those interests or matters.

A “non-deferential attitude” in turn involves an unwillingness to defer to B’s judgment or agency, or foregoing reasonable opportunities to defer to B’s judgment or agency. An “unwillingness to defer,” as we understand it, can include refusing to acknowledge B’s authority to make the ultimate decision, even while granting B’s wish.

Third, it is not clear that the present account, with (b0 ) and (d0 ), adequately distinguishes between paternalism and ordinary self-serving bullying or oppression. Condition (c) specifies that the behavior must be “directed” at B’s interests or a airs, but that is consistent with aiming to harm B. We can amend (c) to say that the behavior is done for the sake of B’s interests or other a airs: There is an intention to get them right. So we arrive at our final characterization of paternalism (with aforementioned changes to condition (b) as well):

Paternalism by A towards B is behavior (whether through action or through omission)

(a) aimed to have (or to avoid) an e ect on B or her sphere of legitimate agency (b0 ) that involves the substitution of some other entity’s judgment or agency

for B’s

(c0 ) done (or omitted) for the sake of B’s own interests or matters that legitimately lie within B’s control

(d0 ) manifesting a non-deferential attitude to B’s judgment or agency with respect to those interests or matters.

We think this account captures the intuitive notion of paternalism reasonably well, and highlights what is morally significant about paternalism. Further tweaking may be needed to handle other problem cases, so we consider this definition provisional. But we think it is close enough for the purposes of our argument.

is minimalism paternalistic?

We take no stand on agricultural policy. But farmers make a useful case for illustrating our points, both because they and other rural people are unusually at risk of su ering the deficiencies of minimalism that we note here, and because the problem has been eloquently voiced by farmers themselves, for instance Wendell Berry. Let’s start with an example. In Costa Rica some years ago, a hotel developer o ered Miguel Sanchez,

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a subsistence farmer, $600,000 for his land. Sanchez refused, later explaining, “I have lived in this forest since I was born. I have no desire to live anywhere else. Money can be evil. People will ask me for money, and then they might not wish to pay me back. Where I once had friends, I would have enemies.” And the forest, he added, matters more than the money.13 And thus a subsistence farmer declines the opportunity to become rich.

Consider a di erent sort of case. People in a community may want a convenient new shopping center nearby. But they may also be strongly committed to individual property rights; they would be appalled to see the government invoke eminent domain to forcibly remove people from their homes, thus clearing the way for a shopping center. They would be more horrified still to learn that this action was taken on their behalf, to satisfy their preferences. Their moral commitments not only cause them to oppose eminent domain for trivial purposes such as this, but to regard their convenience preferences as having no weight at all in deciding whether to seize their neighbors’ homes. From their perspective, their wish for a new Starbucks o ers not the slightest reason even to contemplate tossing people from their homes.

In cases like these, values, moral or prudential, silence other preferences, neutralizing them for deliberative purposes.14 Silencing can come in various forms and degrees, but for now it su ces to note that such values – call them value commitments – are not merely strong preferences; they are strong preferences that serve as constraints on the satisfaction of other preferences.

Note that whether people are reasonable in having such values is beside the point: What matters for our purposes is that people do, or could, have preferences like this. And that much should be plain enough. Indeed, the whole point of positing moral rights, as virtually everyone does, is to place constraints on the satisfaction of people’s preferences. Constraints are central to Kantian and other deontological theories, of which MacIntyre once wrote, “For many people who have never heard of philosophy, let alone Kant, morality is roughly what Kant said it was,” and there’s good empirical data to back this up.15 And while rights tend not to play

13From Carothers, “Letter from Costa Rica.”

14The notion of silencing derives from John McDowell’s writings, e.g., his “Virtue and Reason in The Concept of a Person in Ethical Theory.” We do not mean to endorse his views about silencing, and understand the notion loosely here. It may ultimately be more useful to frame the point in other terms, e.g., “exclusionary reasons” (Raz, Practical Reason and Norms). We use “prudential” to denote the sort of value involved in well-being.

15MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics, 190. For empirical discussion, see, e.g., Baron and Spranca, “Protected Values”; Tetlock, “Thinking the Unthinkable”; Cushman, Young, and Greene, “Our Multi-System Moral Psychology.”

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and give up farming. Suppose there is some amount of money for which farmers in a region have been observed to be willing to sell o their land. It may seem we can infer that they value their property to that extent, but the appearance may be misleading. Perhaps – indeed, this may be the standard case – they accept the trade purely to protect other cherished values; for example, you sell your land during hard times to save your family from ruin. They may not generally be willing to make such trade- o s at all; a secure farmer, like Sanchez, might not accept any amount of money to sell his land, because mere commodities (mere wants) aren’t comparable at all to his core values, which serve to constrain the pursuit of commodities. And so, when a Sanchez does sell his land, it could be for a song – whatever it takes to protect his other cherished values. Similarly, that some impoverished Indian parents are willing to sell their children into slavery for $12 doesn’t mean they don’t view their o spring as priceless; perhaps the amount is just enough to keep their other children from starving. Market prices and Willingness to Pay/Willingness to Accept assessments in these sorts of “Sophie’s Choice” cases yield approximately zero information about people’s preferences.

This is probably not fantastical case-mongering: Governments have not infrequently undertaken policies that drive farmers from their land – fishermen from their boats, etc. – to join the wage economy. Mexico, for instance, allegedly set out to modernize its economy in recent decades, adopting policies (such as NAFTA) meant to move small farmers into manufacturing jobs. A great many have indeed left the farm as a result.17 The subsequent earnings of those who actually manage to get such jobs might often exceed the amounts for which they were – often under duress – willing to sell their property, creating the illusion of a benefit where, quite possibly, many see the move as a life-shattering disaster that no amount of money can compensate. In such cases, policies are imposed on people, for their sake, that they would have judged abhorrent had anyone bothered to ask. Even when o cials correctly discern that those individuals are losing out, the policy may still fail grossly to take seriously the depth of their opposition. “We regret your loss, but assure you that we gave your concerns full consideration” – when in fact the only concerns they

17See, e.g., Mohanty, “Small Farmers and Doha Round”; and a brief but illustrative discussion by development researcher Wise, “Small-Scale Farmers and Development.”

may be even worse fates than accepting such a bargain. To treat people in this manner is, we contend, paternalistic.

The same problem arises in a di erent way in the eminent domain case, where purely moral values are at stake. Here, MCBA gives the preferences for the shopping center full weight. Yet most of the policy’s supposed beneficiaries might vehemently object to having their convenience preferences counted as a reason for evicting their neighbors from their homes. As a result, it is entirely possible that most citizens, including those who supposedly benefit from the resulting policy, would reject the measure. This would not be a particularly democratic procedure. In any event, people’s preferences are being used, on their behalf, in ways they strenuously oppose. And so their judgments about how to promote their own interests end up being overridden by policy-makers. It is rather like a gangster who fulfills his wife’s wish for a diamond ring by killing a bystander, over her protests, and handing the victim’s ring to his disgusted companion, congratulating himself on his generosity. This sort of treatment is, we submit, paternalism.

It may be objected that these cases, however morally problematic, do not amount to paternalism, since policy-makers have no intention of overriding people’s preferences. They might firmly believe they’re carrying out people’s wishes. Given their notorious aversion to paternalism, it is safe to say that minimalist economists would generally fit this description. Consumer sovereignty is the name of the game, and calling such economists paternalists can seem like calling the Pope an atheist. We agree that minimalists’ explicit intentions are non-paternalistic. The problem is what they leave out: Having accepted an oversimplified model of human preference, minimalists fail seriously to consider how people actually think about their lives. Put more concretely, a policy-maker who settles on policies with deeply disruptive consequences for people’s lives, or which conflict with people’s deeply held values, and does so while seeking no more information about people’s attitudes than MCBA can provide, is almost certainly foregoing reasonable opportunities to see what the interested parties think about the matter. This is what we called inattentive paternalism: paternalism through being insu ciently attentive to people’s attitudes concerning their own a airs. And the structure of the mistake is like the well-meaning but insensitive sibling: “Of course they’re better o ! They’re making more money than ever before.”

In fact our cases involve paternalism in multiple forms: Take the farmer case again, but imagine as well that the policy is meant to benefit, not just the farmers, but also consumers who will enjoy lower prices. In this

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situation we may have threefold paternalism: First, the committed farmers forced o their land, whose prudential values are discounted; second, the farmers who gladly quit their land, but who benefit only coincidentally from the policy – their values are still ignored or discounted; third, the consumers whose moral values would decisively rule out treating farmers that way – they would much rather deal with higher prices than have farmers forced o their ancestral lands. In each case, the policy aims to account for people’s interests without taking their view of the matter seriously. Conceivably, policy-makers relying solely on choice information might settle on a policy that every last one of the stakeholders vigorously opposes: Neither the “winners” nor the losers want it. Presumably, at least some of that information is available to them, if only they are willing to look beyond choice data. When a tin-eared government imposes uniformly despised policies on their citizens, for their own good, because they refuse seriously to consider what the concerned parties actually want, that sounds like paternalism to us. Note, pace the second case, that even giving people what they want can be paternalistic, if it is done without serious regard to what they think. A popular and benevolent monarch, who takes himself not to be bound by the people’s will, treats his subjects paternalistically even if they get everything they want.

MCBA-based policy threatens paternalism not just for farmers and fishermen, but – at least – for those subject to any policy with highly disruptive e ects on people’s lives: unemployment policy, climate-change policy, major public works like dams, etc. Climate-change policy poses exceptionally grave risks of paternalism, since the value commitments of essentially all human beings, for centuries to come, may be at stake. Simply to weigh GDP impacts of policy options likely means ignoring most of the costs that people really care about. Intelligent minimalists, of course, will want to count non-monetary costs too; but their instruments aren’t remotely up to the job. Mere observation of choice behavior in past circumstances, particularly the circumstances of a tragic commons, is unlikely to tell us very much about how people’s values bear on the prospect of an unprecedented, centuries-long global catastrophe. The average person has probably done very little to help preserve coral reefs, but from that fact we can hardly infer that they won’t much mind leaving a reef-free planet for their children.

It is di cult to imagine a more urgent demand on policy-makers deciding on public works than that the magnitude of such costs to the a ected individuals be responsibly accounted for. Because such policies have such profound impacts on people’s lives, they will invariably infringe on individuals’ value commitments. Even where the policies

would gain people’s assent, MCBA’s deafness to their views means that MCBA-driven policies of this sort are always, as a matter of fact, paternalistic. We have here not the mere possibility of paternalism, but, plausibly, a pervasive actuality.

Moreover, the paternalism involved is hard paternalism: Though no overt coercion or even limitation of freedom need be involved, this sort of paternalism does not, like soft paternalism, help people achieve what they value.18 Rather, it substitutes di erent ends for them altogether. While the permissibility of soft paternalism is a matter of dispute, hard paternalism is deeply unpopular among liberals, and most certainly economists. In fact the rejection of hard paternalism may be a defining feature of liberalism. And hard paternalism in the service of values that no one cares very much about must have a very small constituency indeed.

That the unwitting endorsement of hard paternalism, possibly on a massive scale, should be a prominent feature of mainstream economic thought is no small irony. After all, a commitment to promoting freedom, including sharp restraints on paternalism, arguably forms the moral core of mainstream economics. A large swath of contemporary economics thus is profoundly morally incoherent.

on the distinction between values and preferences

We are by no means the first to observe that the di erence between values and mere preferences makes trouble for economics. A number of philosophers have drawn a distinction between values and preferences.19 This distinction has been used to criticize CBA for its inability to recognize and respect two very di erent forms of valuation. It is this inability that motivates Anderson’s claim that the “norms of consumers’ sovereignty amount to a tyranny over citizens when applied to the domain of public policy.”20 Though Anderson does not frame her objection in terms of paternalism, the worry resembles those raised here.

Some have attacked the distinction between values and preferences as insu ciently sharp and unmotivated.21 Our argument need not assume a hard or deep distinction. We might, for instance, simply distinguish

18Save per accidens, as for the farmers who happen to get what they want, even though their values were not taken seriously.

19E.g., Sago , “Values and Preferences”; Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics; Sen, “Rational Fools.”

20Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, 210.

21See Orr, “Values, Preferences, and the Citizen–Consumer Distinction in Cost–Benefit Analysis.”