Governing [through] Autonomy. The Moral and Legal Limits of "Soft Paternalism"Open Access

Fateh-Moghadam Bijan, Gutmann Thomas

Research article (journal)

Abstract

Legal restrictions of the right to self-deter mination increasingly pretend to be compat- ible with the liberal concept of autonomy: they act upon a ‘ soft ’ or autonomy-orientated paternalistic rationale. Conventional liberal cr itique of paternalism turns out to be insensitive to the intricate normative problems following from ‘ soft ’ or ‘ libertarian ’ paternalism. In fact, these autonomy-oriented forms of paternalism cou ld actually be even more problematic and may infringe liberty rights even more intensely than ha rd paternalistic regulat ion. This paper contrib- utes to the systematic differentiation of soft and hard paternalism by discussing the (legal) concept of autonomy and elaborates the moral and legal limits of autonomy-orientated paternalism

Details about the publication

JournalEthical Theory and Moral Practice
Volume17
Issue3
Page range383-397
StatusPublished
Release year2014
Language in which the publication is writtenEnglish
DOI10.1007/s10677-013-9450-3

Authors from the University of Münster

Fateh-Moghadam, Bijan
Professor of Private Law, Philosophy of Law and Medical Law
Gutmann, Thomas
Professor of Private Law, Philosophy of Law and Medical Law