On the Anti-paternalist Project of Reconciliation

How should anti-paternalists deal with policies that seem to be simultaneously reasonable and paternalistic? In the literature, anti-paternalists have sought to show that many policies that prevent people from harming themselves can be justified without appeal to the good accruing to the people interfered with; that is, without appeal to paternalistic reasons. However, while perhaps identifying sufficient non-paternalistic reasons for supporting these policies under realistic circumstances, anti-paternalists often fail, I argue, to identify satisfactory reasons that adequately reflect our underlying concerns pertaining to such policies. Included in those concerns are arguably the interests and well-being of the people whose choices are restricted by the policy in question. In this way, this article reveals that the strategy of reconciling anti-paternalism with seemingly paternalistic policies is beset by serious problems.