March 04, 2016

#BattleFest: Reassessing paternalism: is autonomy a myth?

1 hour 16 minutes

A keynote from the Battle of Ideas 2016

‘If I have a book to serve as my

understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to

determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all.’ Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment? (1784)

When One Direction announced they were splitting up, child psychologists

offered parents of grieving tweenies advice on how to console their

offspring. In the same month, parents were also told by researchers how

long they should read to their children each day. Business Secretary

Sajid Javid has ordered university heads to establish a taskforce to

take on sexist ‘lad culture’ and guide students to conduct their

interpersonal relations in line with enlightened mores. Of course, not

everyone follows expert advice on any of the above. Policy advisers and

academic experts frequently complain about those who refuse to

acknowledge their wisdom and carry on smoking, drinking sugary pop,

being laddish. Cutting-edge techniques of behavioural psychology are

being marshalled to deal with this problem. The UK’s Behavioural

Insights Team, now a private company, has quadrupled in size since it

was spun out of government in 2014. It is now working for the World Bank

and the UN, while ‘nudge’ teams are being established in Australia,

Singapore, Germany and the US.

The ubiquity of nudge heralds a new renaissance for unapologetic

paternalism. But where does that leave the great Enlightenment

breakthrough, the idea that individuals should be self-determining and

capable of making their own choices? Kant’s description of ‘mankind’s

exit from his self-incurred immaturity’ seems strangely at odds with

today’s enthusiasm for paternalistic intervention. For Kant, the outcome

of any particular choice was less important than the cultivation of

moral autonomy. The Enlightenment idea was that we should stop

‘outsourcing’ decisions about how to live to external agencies, whether

the church, the monarchy, or some natural order. Today, though, new

forms of authority have taken their place, leaving us just as childlike

in relation to the new experts.

Sceptics about the idea of autonomy suggest breakthroughs in

neuroscience have revealed we are less rational than Enlightenment

thinkers suggested. They argue it is wrong for strong-willed individuals

to run rough-shod over vulnerable groups with less power. In a complex

world of multiple choices, what is wrong with people seeking help to

make informed decisions? Is autonomy really undermined if students themselves

demand university authorities provide safe spaces, issue trigger

warnings on course materials, make lessons in consent compulsory? If we

are nudged into the good life, what harm is done? Should we grow up and

accept new paternalism or does this mean sacrificing self-dominion and

consigning ourselves to a life of permanent dependence? Is individual

autonomy an outdated myth?

Speakers

Dr Tim Black

books and essays editor, spiked

Dr Katerina Deligiorgi

reader in philosophy, University of Sussex; author, The Scope of Autonomy

Dr Daniel Glaser

director, Science Gallery London, King's College London

Professor Mike Kelly

senior visiting fellow, Behaviour and Health Research Unit,

Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge; researcher in nudge

theory and choice architecture

Georgios Varouxakis

professor of the history of political thought, Queen Mary University of London; author, Mill on Nationality

Chair

Claire Fox

director, Institute of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze

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