Old Wine In New Casks : ‘ Soft ’ Paternalism Still Violates Liberal

Soft Paternalism purports to be a distinct kind of paternalism. Standard ‘hard’ paternalism is the interference of a state or an individual with another person, against their will, and justified by a claim that the person interfered with will be better off or protected from harm (Dworkin 2005). Because this interference limits a person’s freedom without her consent, standard paternalism is opposed to liberalism. Soft Paternalism, in contrast, purports to be compatible with it. It claims that it ‘steers’ people in welfarepromoting directions, but that it leaves people the choice whether to opt out of this influence. Thus, the claim goes, Soft Paternalism ‘nudges’ people towards their own good without coercing them. It therefore provides the benefits of benevolent care minus the drawbacks of heavy-handed interference. In this claim, Soft Paternalism (a term most often used in the media, compare e.g. Economist April 6 2006), is similar to Asymmetrical Paternalism (Camerer et al. 2003), Light Paternalism (Loewenstein and Haisley forthcoming) and Libertarian Paternalism (Sunstein and Thaler 2003). In the following, I will refer to all of these accounts by the abbreviation ‘SP’ and differentiate further were necessary.