Rethinking Paternalism: Derek Parfit’s Moral Philosophy and Normative Behavioral Economics

Abstract

This article examines how Derek Parfit's moral philosophy can help to develop new insights to account for the justification of paternalistic policies in the context of normative behavioral economics. I discuss two themes that appear in Parfit's work which I argue could provide insights to the debate over soft forms of paternalism: the reductionist account of personal identity and the notion of rational consent. I argue that these two theses are directly relevant to tackle several issues that are central in the NBE defense of paternalistic policies. In particular, they help to reflect over the significance of distinctions between ends paternalism and means paternalism and indicate that the tacitly assumed existence of a trade-off between well-being and autonomy is either meaningless or illusory.