Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism
Cambridge University Press, 11/8/2012
EAN 9781107024847, ISBN10: 1107024846
Hardcover, 216 pages, 23.2 x 15.6 x 2 cm
Language: English
Since Mill's seminal work On Liberty, philosophers and political theorists have accepted that we should respect the decisions of individual agents when those decisions affect no one other than themselves. Indeed, to respect autonomy is often understood to be the chief way to bear witness to the intrinsic value of persons. In this book, Sarah Conly rejects the idea of autonomy as inviolable. Drawing on sources from behavioural economics and social psychology, she argues that we are so often irrational in making our decisions that our autonomous choices often undercut the achievement of our own goals. Thus in many cases it would advance our goals more effectively if government were to prevent us from acting in accordance with our decisions. Her argument challenges widely held views of moral agency, democratic values and the public/private distinction, and will interest readers in ethics, political philosophy, political theory and philosophy of law.
Introduction
1. Why value autonomy?
2. Individuality
3. Alienation, authenticity, and affect
4. Misuse and abuse
perfectionism and preferences
5. Misuse and abuse
punishment and privacy
6. Applications
7. Final justifications.
Advance praise: 'Sarah Conly's Against Autonomy is a bold and rigorous work, which seeks to demolish liberal defenses of rights and the value often believed to underlie them. I expect it to become a canonical consequentialist defense of paternalism. It is also a book with which all political and moral philosophers will have to contend, especially those who seek to resist its central thesis.' Corey Brettschneider, Brown University