ABSTRACT
Paternalistic actions are performed for the target’s own benefit, i.e., for the purpose of improving or increasing her personal well-being or welfare. Some accounts of well-being imply that an agent’s attitude (or lack thereof) towards an action (or its likely outcome) has a direct bearing on its welfare-value for her. Since paternalistic actions interfere with autonomy or rational self-governance, these accounts may imply that paternalistic actions cannot be overall beneficial, or else that they are always simultaneously harmful to a significant degree. Some even imply that paternalistic actions can never occur, because the autonomous choice of an end is a condition of its status as a welfare-good. This chapter evaluates several proposals of this kind, e.g., that rational self-direction, autonomous living, and the endorsement of ends are either conditions on personal benefit, or else non-instrumental welfare-goods, or else key instrumental goods. However, it is argued that there is no plausible account of personal well-being or any of the goods just mentioned that supports the claim that paternalistic action cannot succeed.
