ABSTRACT
Before we can determine under what circumstances, if any, paternalism is morally justified, we need to have some sense of what it is. The standard definition (of which there are many variants) takes it to consist in “interference” with the options or decision-making of another person, motivated and/or justified by that person’s “own good.” The present essay seeks to unpack and improve upon that definition. Normative and non-normative concepts of paternalism are distinguished, and paternalism is distinguished from moralism and “prevention of harm to others.” However, the focus of the essay is on different senses of “one’s good” – one’s prudential good, conception of the good, epistemic good, and moral good – and on the different means available to the paternalist to influence her target’s choices. On the question of means, the essay defends a broad definition that allows even the selective expansion of another’s options (which would not seem to constitute “interference” with choice) to count as paternalistic. “Rational persuasion,” however, is excluded from those means.
