Speaker: Mario De Caro (Roma3 University & Tufts University). As part of the Polpost Meetings
Abstract: It is a commonly held view nowadays that the government should interfere as little as possible with individual choices. This view presupposes the thesis (most energetically advocated by libertarians but, to a lesser degree, also by most other political philosophers) that individual autonomy is a fundamental value and, consequently, paternalistic policies are morally unacceptable. Growing evidence coming from cognitive sciences, however, suggests that many, perhaps even most, individual choices–besides being not fully rational if not irrational altogether–are made for motives of which the agents who make them are substantially unaware. The question arises, then, of how much political value should be attributed to such “choices” and whether the whole issue of paternalism should be reconceptualized.