John Stuart Mill Against Paternalism

John Stuart Mill and Gerald Dworkin both have different perspectives of paternalism. As I have mentioned earlier, Mill is against paternalism and Dworkin claims that paternalism is justifiable. There are a few points in which both Dworkin and Mill make and I agree with some of those points, but I cannot agree with Dworkin on paternalism. Now to answer the question that was proposed earlier, is paternalism morally justified? And should it be implemented or not? In this case I would have to argue against that paternalism is not morally justified and it should not be implemented. I will agree with Mill’s idea about what the harm principle is and it states that a person can do whatever he wants as long as his actions do not harm others. A person is free to do whatever …show more content…
The harm principle is used to justify the interference and limitation of liberty when it prevented harm to un-consenting others and that the use of coercion should be enforced to protect others. Mill mentions that individuals know their own interests better than those whom impose paternalism on them and human beings are in their nature and the rules that restrict their behavior are ineffective. Mill also mentions autonomy, meaning the freedom to decide what to do. Mill brings up a case about slavery. In which it says that a person is selling himself to be a slave, in which he abdicates his liberty, giving up everything that can make him act free. In this case, we can see that Mil makes an exception, and in this part he does not reject paternalism. For the reason that a person is giving up their freedom to be in a controlled environment and have no more liberty. An example brought up by David Brink, is a marriage contract, in which a woman consent to her marriage and gives up her rights (being controlled) over to the husband. Makes a similar connection to the slavery example of