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Talk: Sarah Conly
November 13, 2017 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
JUSTIFYING PATERNALISM
There are many things we shouldn’t be allowed to do in the world as it is today: among them, to eat meat, have more than one child, or drive gas-fueled cars. Some people, however, think this claim is incorrect. They think that we have rights to do at least some of these things, even in the world as it is today, because no one is impermissibly harmed by any such individual action. Thus, they think regulations to prevent you from doing these things would violate rights to personal liberty. I will argue that on any major ethical theory, regulations preventing us from engaging in these and many other activities can be justified.
Professor Conly is the author of of Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism (Cambridge University Press 2013) and One Child: Do We Have a Right to More? (Oxford University Press, 2016), and a broad range of articles on related topics.
She is currently at work on liberty: when and why it matters (and when and why it does not).
