Autonomy-Enhancing Paternalism

Martin Binder and Leonhard Lades

Kyklos, 2015, vol. 68, issue 1, 3-27

Abstract: type="main">

We present a form of soft paternalism called “autonomy-enhancing paternalism” that seeks to increase individual well-being by facilitating the individual ability to make critically reflected, autonomous decisions. The focus of autonomy-enhancing paternalism is on helping individuals to become better decision-makers, rather than on helping them by making better decisions for them. Autonomy-enhancing paternalism acknowledges that behavioral interventions can change the strength of decision-making anomalies over time, and favors those interventions that improve, rather than reduce, individuals' ability to make good and unbiased decisions. By this it prevents manipulation of the individual by the soft paternalist, accounts for the heterogeneity of individuals, and counteracts slippery slope arguments by decreasing the probability of future paternalistic interventions. Moreover, autonomy-enhancing paternalism can be defended based on both liberal values and welfare considerations.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/kykl.12071 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Autonomy-enhancing paternalism (2014)
Working Paper: Autonomy-enhancing Paternalism (2014)
Working Paper: Autonomy-enhancing paternalism (2014)
Working Paper: Autonomy-enhancing paternalism (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:kyklos:v:68:y:2015:i:1:p:3-27

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0023-5962

Access Statistics for this article

Kyklos is currently edited by Rene L. Frey

More articles in Kyklos from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().