Comments on Richard Arneson's "Joel Feinberg and the Justification of Hard Paternalism"

Publication Title

Legal Theory

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2005

Abstract

In Arneson's view Feinberg's arguments against Hard Paternalism fail. This Comment first distinguishes different formulations of Feinberg's antipaternalism in order to uncover his grounds for denying there is any reason to use criminal sanctions to inhibit self-harming. The Comment then examines Arneson's proposed "secular sanctity-of-life" justification for criminalizing certain categories of self-harming. Although Arenson's proposal is in accord with our intuitions about hypothetical cases, the Comment shows it to involve a costly "ideal-regarding" concept of individual interests. The cost may be worth paying, but (Feinberg believed) its magnitude constitutes a powerful case against Paternalism.

Comments

External Links
SSRN

Recommended Citation

William A. Edmundson, Comments on Richard Arneson's “Joel Feinberg and the Justification of Hard Paternalism”, 11 Legal Theory 285 (2005).

DOI

10.1017/S1352325205050159

Volume

11

Issue

3

First Page

285

Last Page

291

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