To understand the libertarian
paternalist project, then, one must have some sense of what those purported frailties are.
Traditional
paternalists have no trouble simply inserting their own preferences into the regulations, though it's generally unclear why their preferences, applied across a general population, should be considered superior to people's individual choices.
The new
paternalists claim to have identified just such a set of
In this way, coercive
paternalists discount a person's ability to choose accurately and appropriately, restrictive choice architecture notwithstanding (p.
In the final chapter, White emphasizes that nudges can by varying degrees raise the cost of behaving in ways that libertarian
paternalists consider imprudent.
because long-term costs are not salient), means
paternalists might take
slaveowners as seigniorial
paternalists, arguing that Southern
One suspects that this is the case with regard to many morally-charged behaviors in which
paternalists take an interest.
Old-fashioned
paternalists have always been very well aware of this.
Mistaken "
paternalists" who act from a distance toward the subject--who incorrectly presume to understand the subject's good better than she does in a given instance--turn out to do more harm than good, all things considered.
What grounds have those New
Paternalists for thinking that the non-working poor really (in their hearts of hearts) want to work, but just cannot bring themselves to do so?
He portrays slaveholders as
paternalists, yet much of his evidence demonstrates their capitalistic inclinations, including their willingness to prod slave laborers with physical coercion.