Are you in your right mind?

We continually do stupid things, go off the rails and inflict harm to ourselves. The question is: when should we use paternalistic coercion to protect each other from mistakes?

Molly had inherited a nice fortune. One evening she goes to a casino, where she loses everything. In fact, she continues to gamble, but now with borrowed money. At the end of the evening, she is left with an enormous debt to a criminal, who charges her extortionate interest. Because she cannot afford it, he locks her up and she has to repay her debt through prostitution.

That wasn't smart of Molly. In one evening she lost her fortune and her freedom. That evening her friend had tried to talk her out of it. And there were warning signs in the casino about the dangers of gambling. Even the casino staff had warned her at one point that she had better stop. But Molly wouldn't listen. Should she have been forced against her will?

Scene from movie Molly’s Game (2017) by Aaron Sorkin, starring Jessica Chastain. Molly in the film is by no means a bad gambler.

In the previous episode we wondered whether we may force people against their will to behave with dignity, for their own good. I rejected that motive for paternalism. Now we come to the second motive for paternalism: to protect people from their own mistakes. We will not consider harm to others for the moment, that will come next time. We are talking about harm to yourself, and about interventions to prevent it.

Mill's harm principle

In the previous episode, we have already talked about Mill's harm principle. We may only use force to prevent harm to others. Coercion should not be applied because it would be better for someone, because it would make him happier, or because others think it would be wise, or even right.

All people are different from each other, wrote Mill. It is therefore pointless and harmful to demand that everyone behave the same way. A good life is only possible if we choose our own path. Others cannot determine for you where your preferences lie. That's what you're best at. If you evidently screw things up, others can warn you. It's even okay to insist, to try to persuade. Everyone can benefit from this. We also learn from our mistakes. But coercion crosses the line, Mill thought.

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). Replica of a portrait commissioned to George Frederic Watts (1873), National Portrait Gallery, London

But Mill did make three reservations. I will mention them briefly now, they will be discussed in more detail later.

Mill's harm principle has become established. There are few thinkers who still fundamentally reject the principle. But all three reservations he made are often interpreted broadly. While Mill provided exceptions for exceptional circumstances, others saw room for more paternalism than Mill had in mind. 

An important discussion concerns harm to others. Almost all behaviour has side effects that also affect others. When you smoke, the people around you become passive smokers. Are we allowed to use coercion in those cases? We will not discuss that question now, that will come next time.

Mill’s reservations:

1. Who does not understand the consequences of their behaviour, like children, sometimes have to be protected from themselves by force.

Mill only applied his harm principle to adults, not to children. And not to primitive peoples either, but that's besides the point. As civilised adults, we should be expected to foresee the consequences of our own actions. 

2. For people with whom it is impossible to communicate, for example because there is not enough time, force is sometimes the only solution.

Under normal circumstances we should talk. Anyone who thinks that watching porn is bad for you, can try to convince you of this without forcing you. But under certain circumstances, coercion is the only option. For example, if people don't understand each other. If we do not speak each other's language and there is an acute danger, we sometimes have to act physically. Also if time is lacking, coercion is sometimes necessary. If you are sitting next to a driver who is not paying attention, jerking the steering wheel is sometimes the only solution to prevent from crashing into a truck.

In On liberty, Mill gave the example of a bridge about to collapse and a man about to step on it.

If either a public officer or any one else saw a person attempting to cross a bridge which had been ascertained to be unsafe, and there were no time to warn him of his danger, they might seize him and turn him back, without any real infringement of his liberty; for liberty consists in doing what one desires, and he does not desire to fall into the river. Nevertheless, when there is not a certainty, but only a danger of mischief, no one but the person himself can judge of the sufficiency of the motive which may prompt him to incur the risk: in this case, therefore, (unless he is a child, or delirious, or in some state of excitement or absorption incompatible with the full use of the reflecting faculty) he ought, I conceive, to be only warned of the danger; not forcibly prevented from exposing himself to it. 

— John Stuart Mill, On liberty (1859)

Mill considered it justified, even morally necessary, that the traveller, if necessary, be physically prevented from entering that bridge. Also here, therefore, a person's options must be limited if they are not aware of the risks of their behaviour to their own safety, or if they are unable to foresee the consequences of their behaviour. Those criteria are important.

People are allowed to take risks. In fact, we owe a lot to people who did that. Scientific discoveries, for example, or heroic acts of war and resistance, or great sporting achievements. But we can demand that people are aware of the risks and take them with their right minds. We will come back to that later.

3. People should not allow themselves to be enslaved.

Whoever decides to be a slave, forever gives up the right to decide for himself. You cannot voluntarily agree that from now on coercion against yourself is irrevocably permitted. So:

Are you free to be unfree?

Should we intervene if someone does something that reduces their own freedom or autonomy? Mill asked himself the hypothetical question of whether someone could allow himself to be enslaved. Can we force that would-be slave not to do that? It was a difficult dilemma for Mill. Because if we have the freedom to harm ourselves, do we also have the freedom to give up our freedom? No, said Mill. That's where the limit lies.

The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom, to be allowed to alienate his freedom. 

— John Stuart Mill, On liberty (1859)

The passage had far-reaching consequences. If we are not allowed to allow ourselves to be enslaved, then we can conclude that we are not allowed to use our freedom to surrender your freedom. Then coercion may be used if our behaviour results in less freedom. Then Molly should have been forced to stop gambling, or at least stopped from borrowing money from the loan shark. Or that crook should not have negotiated usury.

Then it is just one step further to determine a maximum interest that people can charge each other. All to protect people who cannot control themselves, who get into trouble because of their behaviour and who give up part of their freedom. Reasoning along that line, we can think of all kinds of things where people eventually lose their freedom due to their irresponsible behaviour. By incurring debt, for example, or by voting for a party that advocates less freedom. Or by being a user of a social media account of a company that willingly cooperates with government censorship.

This brings us to thinkers such as the Israeli philosopher Joseph Raz (1939-2022), who can be described as a perfectionist liberal. Simply put, he believed that sometimes we have to force people to be free. Or, more precisely: autonomous, in other words: able to lead a self-directed life. People should be able to make meaningful choices about their own lives and pursue personal goals based on their own values, Raz said. To achieve this, people must have access to a wide range of meaningful options. Human autonomy is so important that people must, if necessary, be forcibly adjusted if their behaviour undermines their autonomy.