Abstract
This paper scrutinizes the tension between individuals’ rights and
paternalism. I will argue that no normative account that includes rights
of individuals can justify hard paternalism since the infringement of a
right can only be justified with the right or interest of another person,
which is never the case in hard paternalism. Justifications of hard
paternalistic actions generally include a deviation from the very idea
of having rights. The paper first introduces Tom Beauchamp as the
most famous contemporary hard paternalist by outlining his moral
theory (principlism) and showing why it, as it stands, has to allow
for hard paternalism. Secondly, the paper focuses on the notion of
rights within principlism. I will employ traditional theories of rights
to make sense of rights in principlism. Unfortunately, this attempt
fails. In the third part, then, I claim that rights can only be limited
with reference to the rights or interests of others. This structure is
the very point of rights, it is their bite. I will argue for this claim
and show its implications. The most important implication is that not
only principlism, but every normative theory that includes rights of
individuals, has to abolish hard paternalism.