Abstract

In this dissertation, I define and defend the moral justifiability of hard paternalism. Over the past thirty years, disagreements about the appropriate definition of paternalism have often masked further disputes in law, bioethics, and political theory over what sorts of self-regarding liberty limitation are morally permissible. I first address the conceptual problems by rigorously defending a definition of hard paternalism containing logically individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. Then, after a comprehensive and thorough review of virtually all the literature on the subject, I outline the conditions under which hard paternalistic reasons for liberty restriction are valid. ;In Chapter One, I describe the dominant liberal landscape in the United States. Within this landscape, hard paternalism is typically viewed as an illegitimate liberty limiting principle. It is viewed as a reason for interference that cannot overcome the presumptive case for individual liberty. In Chapter Two, I identify and defend the logically necessary and sufficient conditions that define hard paternalism. In Chapter Three, I defend my definition against the preeminent writer on hard paternalism, Joel Feinberg. I argue that Feinberg has stretched the definition of soft paternalism to justify liberty limitation properly described as hard paternalism. I redraw the conceptual boundary between hard paternalism and soft paternalism. In Chapter Four, I address and then dismiss the widely-discussed consent-based or deontological arguments for the justifiability of hard paternalism. In Chapter Five , I provide my own beneficence-based or consequentialist normative defense of hard paternalism. Specifically, I contend that there are seven necessary and jointly sufficient conditions under which hard paternalism is justified