ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with formulating a tentative argument for the mechanistic view of health education, and by defending this argument against some of the criticisms that can be levelled at it. If health education is seen by public authorities as a mechanism by which people's health can be improved without their considered and explicit consent, the authorities can be led to act immorally, and in some cases also irrationally. The notion of autonomy has two main interpretations, which are related to what Isaiah Berlin called the positive and negative concepts of liberty. Those who uphold the positive concept of liberty believe that freedom means the presence of certain rationally, emotionally, politically or morally correct restrictions. Their idea of personal autonomy is that individuals can achieve genuine self-determination only by subjecting their lusts and desires to the universal human will to be moral, or to their own vital need to live in an organized society.
