PATERNALISM: MORAL HARM VERSUS MORAL WELFARE

Abstract

The paternalist can either respect the target’s autonomy or exempt from protecting the target’s well-being or the paternalist can preserve the target’s well-being and not respect autonomy. For instance, either the doctor can respect the patient’s autonomy to choose death as the patient thinks will be better than the painful treatment or he may provide treatment aiming at his future good despite the patient’s will to discontinue the treatment. This paper aims at understanding how paternalism aims at preventing moral harm and improving moral welfare. It mainly attempts to understand the concepts like moral harm and moral welfare. For this, the paper is divided into three sections. The first will discuss, what paternalism is? The second section discusses questions such as, what is moral harm? And how is the moral harm different from physical harm. How does moral welfare if any justifies paternalism? Can there be imposition of justifiable moral improvement on the agent who does not consider the self-regarding action as morally harmful? This section argues that paternalistic reasons are not enough to improve a person morally until he or she finds it harmful. This includes examining the three most discussed areas, prostitution, homosexuality, and pornography. The third section shall conclude that paternalism is a morally problematic issue.