The Reasonable Limits Of Legal Paternalism

Paternalism is the interference of a state or an individual with another person,against their will,and defended or motivated by a claim that the person interfered with will be better off or protected from harm.According to the different understanding,legal paternalism can be classified into different categories: according to the different ways in which legal paternalism interferes with freedom,legal paternalism can be divided into positive paternalism and negative paternalism;According to whether the law infringes on autonomy,legal paternalism can be divided into: hard paternalism(paternalism that infringes on autonomy);Soft paternalism(paternalism that does not infringe on autonomy);According to different understandings of goods,legal paternalism is divided into welfare paternalism which protects welfare and moral paternalism which protects moral interests.Legal paternalism is controversial.At present,the focus of the debate between liberalists and paternalists is the different understanding of the conflict between autonomy and personal benefits.This paper focuses on Feinberg's most powerful proposition: the principle of autonomy is absolute or inviolable,so when the two values conflict,autonomy will overwhelm the benefits.This paper will focus on the claim—pressed most vigorously by Joel Feinberg—that the principle of autonomy is absolute or inviolable,and thus,trumps goods whenever the two values clash.If it is correct,then hard paternalism,whether practiced by the state or an individual,is always wrong.This paper argues that it is not correct.Autonomy,like other goods,is the content of objective list.In some cases,other goods are above autonomy,while in others,autonomy is above other goods,and there is no priority between the two.In addition,it is also to balance autonomy and other interests.This paper argues that other interests should also include moral interests.Even if there is rationality in legal paternalism,legal paternalism will admit that even in order to protect the goods,there will be cases of non intervention.In fact,we should make laws carefully to protect ourselves.We may be in favor of or against certain proposed paternalistic laws based on what forms of protection fully rational individuals will accept.Now,it is clear that since the original agreement was not about specific measures,we were dealing with a more or less blank check,so the reasonable limits of legal paternalism must be carefully defined.When one person's self injuring behavior is irrational,the intervention by the state is really not to impose a good thing on another person through assumption.However,to what extent does the state allow a person to unreasonably attach weight to conflicting values when there is a wrong evaluation,even if his wrong evaluation and wrong choice cause harm or danger to the individual? This paper argues that if the change of personal choice is not irreversible,the state must give the actors the opportunity to exercise their decision-making ability after considering the impact of restrictions on the activity.In addition,when making laws,we should also measure the applicable social effects and prevent the abuse of state power.