Comments on richard arneson's “joel feinberg and the justification of hard paternalism”

Legal Theory

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 285-291

  Edmundson, William A ^a  

^a GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 79959759911     PISSN: 13523252     EISSN: 14698048     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1352325205050159     Document Type: Article

References (19)

1. See Richard J. Arneson, Mill versus Paternalism, 90 ETHICS 470-489 (1980).
2. JOEL FEINBERG, THEMORAL LIMITS OF THE CRIMINAL LAW, vol. 1 HARM TO OTHERS 36 (1984).
3. JOEL FEINBERG, THE MORAL LIMITS OF THE CRIMINAL LAW, vol. 2 OFFENSE TO OTHERS 4 (1985).
4. JOEL FEINBERG, The Expressive Function of Punishment, in DOING AND DESERVING: ESSAYS IN THE THEORY OF RESPONSIBILITY, 95-118 (1970). See also FEINBERG, THE MORAL LIMITS OF THE CRIMINAL LAW note 1, at 24.
5. FEINBERG, The Expressive Function of Punishment note 1, at 4.
6. “Wrongful” takes a special quasi-moral gloss in the context of prohibitions of “accumulative harms,” such as pollution; see FEINBERG, FEINBERG note 1, at 230.
7. JOEL FEINBERG, THE MORAL LIMITS OF THE CRIMINAL LAW, vol. 3 HARM TO SELF 25 (1986).
8. FEINBERG, THE MORAL LIMITS OF THE CRIMINAL LAW note 1, at 116.
9. FEINBERG, FEINBERG note 7, at 10-11.
10. Feinberg variously expresses this idea. Paternalistic reasons are said to be “weightless,” “trumped,” “illegitimate,” “not good” or “invalid”; cf. JOEL FEINBERG, THE MORAL LIMITS OF THE CRIMINAL LAW, vol. 4 HARMLESS WRONGDOING, 320-323 (1988). Feinberg never availed himself-so far as I know-of the Razian idiom of the “excluded” reason.
11. FEINBERG, Feinberg variously expresses this idea. note 1, at 115-116.
12. True, at one point Feinberg says that “There is no doubt that a person can be harmed… by fully voluntary, self-regarding actions of his own” (id. at 115); and in the same passage he goes on to say that, given volenti, such harm is never a wrong (id. at 116). But in further discussion Feinberg reiterates that an agent can change what is a harm to him by changing his interests (see, e.g., FEINBERG, FEINBERG note 10, at 22-23); and his discussion of personal sovereignty (FEINBERG, FEINBERG note 7, at 60-62, 94) makes clear that what is in one's interests is ultimately one's own call-once all relevant facts have been disclosed, all risks discounted, and all pertinent adjustments of one's personal “network of interests” have been made (cf. FEINBERG, FEINBERG note 1, at 41-42, 55-61).
13. Richard J. Arneson, Joel Feinberg and the Justification of Hard Paternalism, 11 LEGAL THEORY, 259-284 at 268.
14. FEINBERG, Joel Feinberg and the Justification of Hard Paternalism note 7, at 143 ff.
15. Arneson, FEINBERG note 19, at 264.
16. Cf. FEINBERG, FEINBERG note 19 note 7, at 94.
17. Arneson, FEINBERG note 19, at 276.
18. Arneson, Subject to soft antipaternalism's “substantial voluntariness” proviso. note 19, at 283.
19. FEINBERG, Subject to soft antipaternalism's “substantial voluntariness” proviso. note 19 note 10, at 17, 22.