An Argument for Paternalism
This is courtesy of Robert Wiblin at Overcoming Bias:
All it requires is that,
- There are things you could do now that would benefit your future self, at the expense of your present self, and;
- The paternalists’ “altruistic” discount rate for the target’s welfare is lower than the discount rate the target has for their own welfare.
The first is certainly true, while the latter is often true in my experience.
Actually it requires something more: the belief that the present self has no right to pursue his own happiness.
According to the article “The paternalist could be fine with their policy being bad for ‘present-you’ if it benefits ‘future-you’ even more…”
How exactly does this make any sense? How do these parternalists know that their policy will benefit “future-you” if it hasn’t even benefited “present-you”? Are they guessing? Are they hoping for the best?
You usually believe something works because you actually see it work…if we can’t see a policy bring any good results NOW…how is anybody on their right mind supposed to believe that that same policy will work down the road?
It’s unbelievable these so-called paternalists actually find ways to justify this.
This message brough to you by the Department of Condescending Paternalism.
It actually requires that the present self has a limited right to pursue happiness. Considering that we limit people in many ways this doesn’t seem too difficult to accept.
“We don’t give people an unrestricted freedom to harm their children, or strangers, just because they don’t care much about them. Why then should we give a young woman unrestricted freedom to hurt her far-off 60 year old self, just because they happen to pass through the same body at different points in time? I care about the 60 year old too, perhaps even more than that young woman does, relative to herself.”
I strive to achieve happiness in my current and future selves.
And here I thought liberty was intrinsic in pursuing happiness. Silly me.
Actually, I do agree with Wiblin.
Censorship: Stop his soapbox narcissism now, in order to prevent him from making a fool of himself later.
I agree John.