In Defense of Paternalism

When I was a child and I would ask my father how he knew something was best for me, he would say: “Because dads know everything”. At the time, that was enough for me. After all, he was my father and if I didn’t listen to him, I’d see the dangerous end of his belt. 20 years later and very little has changed, except my father has been supplanted by state government and his belt, by the local police department. Both have always thought they knew what was best for me. According to John Stuart Mill, they were both wrong.

The idea that one person or entity knows what is best for another is called Paternalism. The alcohol prohibition of the 1920s is a perfect example. John Stuart Mill claims that no one person should dictate to another how to live their life because that person has the closest relationship to personal well-being. However, Mill’s argument for personal autonomy over external social interference is flawed because he refuses to address addictive activities and substances and their ability to cloud objective decision-making.

In his paper, Mill puts forth a very simple argument: that one person should not be allowed to dictate the lifestyle and choices of another person. It’s a concept that has an almost universal appeal. Mill’s premise for the argument is that Bill is in the best possible position to know what will best serve Bill’s needs. “He is the person most interested in his own well-being,” Mill states early on. This does not mean that we have free range to do whatever suits our individual personalities, however. Mill includes caveats that not only support free choice without external influence, but also protect other individual personalities from colliding.

One such provision allows for rules to be created in order to prevent the expression of a person’s individuality from interfering with another’s. He states:

“In the conduct of human beings towards one another it is necessary that general rules should for the most part be observed, in order that people may know what they have to expect; but in each person’s own concerns his individual spontaneity is entitled to free exercise.”

Mill illustrates this with an example about intoxication. He states that someone who has harmed another while in a state of intoxication should be penalized if he were to continue that lifestyle. He says: “The making himself drunk, in a person whom drunkenness excites to do harm to others, is a crime against others.” In other words, if someone refuses to show personal restraint in their vices, another (presumably the State) may then step in to prevent that person from harming those around him. Mill adds that while idleness itself should not be regulated, it can cause harm to others (i.e. a neglected child), and therefore, the actor can be forced to fulfill his obligations. This shows that Mill believes the state can regulate behavior in a case where it is necessary for a person to live up to responsibilities.

Another addition to Mill’s original premise calls into question the morality of an agent promoting an action that an individual is allowed to do to himself. An action that would normally be harmful or evil if acted on another person is perfectly allowable if self-inflicted. With this in mind, Mill contends that two men should be allowed to exchange advice or instigate these actions. The question of legality is whether or not the promoter derives a personal gain from the advice. The legal line is crossed when someone creates an occupation out of preying on these vices. In essence, these people pursuing this occupation, according to Mill, are gaining money doing a job that is against the agreed societal standard.

He gives two sides to this debate but chooses neither. On one side, society cannot outlaw an action that would otherwise be permissible, to only those who choose to use it for pecuniary gain. It must be either completely permitted or completely prohibited. The other side contends that, although the state cannot decide that X action, affecting only the individual, is good or bad, it is justifiable to assume it is at least a disputable question. According to Mill, there is surely no good lost by allowing individuals to make their own decisions without solicitor influence.

Mill’s main premise for his argument against paternalistic laws is basic: no one knows what’s best for a person besides that person. While seemingly easy to accept, the premise leaves out a glaring caveat: a person does not know what is best for him when under the influence of an addictive substance or activity. Mill hints at the presence of this exception, but ultimately fails to directly address the presence of these external manipulations on internal thought processes.

The essence of vice and the definition of addiction is the forfeiture of decision-making in lieu of mental or physical stimulation. Any decisions made with vice on the brain are tainted by the person’s predilection towards the activity and skewed in the direction of continuing it. While Mill’s awareness of this gaping hole in his theory is evident in his addendums, by skating around it he causes his premise to become false and his conclusion to fall flat.

Mill’s drunkenness supplement is a primary example. He tries to cover one of his bases by stating that knowingly participating in behavior that, in the past, has proven abhorrent to others is itself a crime against others. If someone is known to get excitable and belligerent while drunk, the act of getting drunk with this knowledge is itself a crime. The implication is that the person has knowingly chosen to engage in this action of his own free will (which is applauded), but with the result of being hazardous to others (which is rebuked). The mistake Mill makes here is the assumption that the intoxicated party participates willingly. In order for his argument to work properly, the action would have to occur in a sort of motivational vacuum. To participate willingly of his own accord, the drunk would have to be under the influence of absolutely no external influences, which is not only epistemologically impossible, but inconceivable. Instead, the actor is coerced by his own internal need to experience that pleasurable sensation alcohol brings him once again.

Mill’s other allowance is much more closely related to what he refuses to directly acknowledge than the previous example. He puts forth that an external motivation from a second party undermines that person’s ability to make an objective decision about their own personal needs. However, Mill misses the point again by taking it one step further and saying it’s only reprehensible when that second party gains some sort of benefit from the transaction. Mill should have stopped at the external inducement by the additional party. This itself undermines the original person’s autonomy by influencing behavior. Once again, this idea goes against his original premise that an individual is the person most interested in his own well-being. Here we trade the motivating factors of addictive substances and activities for the opinions of a second party, potentially with their own personal motivations.

The last sentence in Mill’s argument reads as such: “… [the] promoting of intemperance is a real evil, and justifies the state in imposing restrictions and requiring guarantees which, but for the justification, would be infringements of legitimate liberty.” Here he all but outright states that a person’s will can be forfeit and thus exploited by interested parties or by parties who stand to benefit. This is the core tenet of the flaw in Mill’s premise. All humans of a ‘ripe’ age can have their autonomy undermined by addictive substance, activity, or interested second party.

Mill’s theory on independent decision-making is based on a simple premise of responsibility relating to the closest possible knowledge of what constitutes personal well-being. Unfortunately, his refusal to acknowledge the seductive nature of addiction and external influence undermine his own argument completely. Until this is addressed, a person will never reach true autonomy.

Imagine a puddle...

... imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise.

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