Soft paternalism, merit goods, and normative individualism

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Paternalism is an attempt to influence individuals' decisions for their own benefit, even if there are no third parties involved. This seems to contradict normative individualism, which provides the general orientation to our modern democracies. Soft or libertarian paternalism accepts the necessity of paternalism due to the existence of behavioural anomalies, but intends to apply only such measures that do not restrict the decision leeway of individuals. Nevertheless, the same objections that can be raised against its strong version can also be raised against soft paternalism. On the other hand, as soon as we accept that human beings are able to reflect not only about their actions but also about the preferences guiding their actions, there is no longer a necessary contradiction between paternalism and normative individualism. As far as we know today, the possibilities to successfully apply soft paternalistic measures are rather limited. On the other hand, while some criticisms of it are justified, others largely overshoot the mark and seem to be at least partly ideologically motivated. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Code: H420, D630, D720.

Exploring the (behavioural) political economy of nudging

“…The authors interpret this finding as indicating that 'it is not the case that paternalism is demanded by people who need it as a commitment device' (ibid. : S149), thereby qualifying a potential argument in favour of a 'constitutional' case for LP that would see it as a form of collective self-commitment device (e.g., Frank, 2008;Kirchgässner, 2015). 20 It rather seems to be the case that intuitive paternalists vote for paternalism in order to satisfy, through voting, their own other-regarding paternalistic preferences.…”

“… 4 See, e.g., Bovens (2009), Fumagalli (2016), Hausman and Welch (2010), Kirchgässner (2015), Schubert (2014), and Selinger and Whyte (2011). …”

A Constitutional Economics Perspective on Soft Paternalism

“…5 On the contrary, it can be argued that giving the individual tools which help her to enforce her reflective preferences (if she indeed wants to privilege her reflective over her short-term preferences) even increases her ability to make sovereign decisions. And if there is widespread consent that a certain set of paternalistic policies can serve as a tool to improve consumer and reflective sovereignty, then paternalism can also be compatible with citizen sovereignty (Kirchgässner 2015). Normative individualism in a contractarian approach is then compatible with a constitutional-level agreement on allowing paternalist policy-making.…”

“…However, it is not always clear whether this view is rooted in a positive analysis of the actual way reflective preferences are formed, or in a normative claim that these reflective preferences should be formed in a certain way. For example, Kirchgässner (2015) refers to a tradition in philosophical thought which argues that human beings have moral obligations not only towards others, but also towards themselves. Among such moral obligations, which could in principle serve as justifications for paternalist policies, are, for example, the duty to avoid doing harm to others, and to oneself, as well as the duty to refrain from actions that are associated with a high probability of permanently deteriorating one's own capacity for autonomous decision-making.…”

“…We have also seen that other nudges have a negative effect either on consumer sovereignty, or on reflective sovereignty, or on both. On the other hand, there is an argument by Kirchgässner (2015): If democratic polities choose to elect governments that introduce (soft as well as hard) paternalist policies, then we impose them on ourselves, and should accept them as legitimate policies. This line of argument has two major problems.…”