Talk of paternalism sends chills up my spine. Until recently I couldn't explain why. Paternalism is just what it sounds like, except it is the state telling you what is good for you, not just your mom and pop who make you eat your veggies. The driving force behind paternalistic policies is that people are not smart enough to know what's good for them; even in light of sufficient information paternalists argue that individuals just aren't capable of deciding what's best for them. New York's trans-fat ban is a good example, even if you people knew all the risks of trans-fat, the city of New York argued that people wouldn't make the "right" choice, so it banned trans-fat, effectively making the decision for them. I've never liked paternalism, mostly because I think people are better off when they can make their own choices, since individuals tend to have a better idea about they really value than government bureaucrats. However, I've always felt that there was something else wrong with paternalism, which operated at a deeper, more fundamental level.
For the sake of argument assume that it is possible for a government to engineer ideal living conditions through paternalism. Additionally, let's assume that the government is so good at doing this that you aren't even aware of the paternalistic polices in action (akin to the soft paternalism championed by Sunstien and Thaler). Would such a paternalistic world actually be a desirable one? I think not, because paternalism undercuts that which makes life worth living.
Philosopher Robert Nozick in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia has an interesting thought experiment which helps to illustrate this point. Imagine you are offered a chance to plug into a "dream machine." The machine will allow you to dream that you are in an ideal life. You will be able to do anything you want, pitch the World Series, cure cancer, win a Pulitzer. The dream machine is so realistic that once plugged in you will not be able to distinguish the dream world form the real world. Everything that happens in the dream machine you will believe is actually happening in your actual life. Here's the catch, once you plug into the machine, you can't unplug. The second you unplug from the machine you will die. After describing the machine Nozick poses an interesting question to his readers, "Would you plug in? Would a life in the dream machine be worth living?"
Think about it.
If your intuitions are anything like mine, you probably said no. But ask yourself, why not? After all you could have any life you wanted in the machine, all your preferences could be satisfied, you would experience a perfect life in the machine. In his book, Nozick argues the reason you wouldn't plug in to the machine is because it isn't a real life it's a manufactured one, which isn't really much of a life at all. The intrinsic features that make life so valuable disappear when we enter a world engineered to be "perfect." I think this is the case with paternalism. Paternalism debases our lives by trapping us in a cocoon of good intentions. The outcomes may be optimal, but the paternalistic process negates the value of these outcomes. As Tennyson put it in his poem "Ulysses," "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield," is what give our lives meaning, the outcomes are only of secondary importance. Being allowed to choose poorly, to fail, and to hurt make life tough, but they are also the things that make success so sweet. There really is something valuable about facing the prospect of failure and succeeding in the face of it. When we are coddled by a nanny state this value is wiped out of our lives. As a result, government polices can't force people into living good, valuable lives. If people are to live lives worth living they need to exercise ownership over their actions, and face the consequences; they need the freedom to make their own choices.
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