12/11/2015

Is liberal perectionism problematically paternalistic?

In this essay I will show that the accusations of paternalism posed by Quong against liberal
perfectionism are not fully fundamented. In the first part I will argue that not all perfectionist
policies are paternalistic, and I will give some examples of concrete perfectionist public policies
that can avoid the label of paternalism. In the second part I will argue that Quong's claim of
paternalism is rooted in narrow notion of citizenship and does not take into account that the citizens
of modern liberal states are allowed to participate in the public sphere to further valuable goals and
projects.
In Liberalism without perfection, Quong gives the following account of paternalism:
1. Agent A attempts to improve the welfare, good, happiness, needs, interests, or values of agent B
with regard to a particular decision or situation that B faces.
2. A's act is motivated by a negative judgement about B's ability (assuming B has the relevant
information) to make the right decision or manage the particular situation in a way that will
effectively advance B's welfare, good, happiness, needs, interests, or values."
(Quong, 2011)
Supposing that this is a correct definition of paternalism, and if we are to examine whether a
perfectionist policy is indeed paternalistic, it is my opinion that we should disregard 1 completely. It
is obvious that any policy promoted by a legitimate state has the objective of promoting its citizen's
well being. The challenge, then, is to demonstrate that such policies are not based on a negative
judgement of its citizens as stated in 2. I will now offer examples of perfectionist policies (some of
them commented by Quong himself) and offer a justification of them that does not incurr in
paternalism.
First, let's consider that a government decides to establish a nationwide literary prize. This is clearly
a perfectionist measure, as it is rooted into the idea that a certain kind of activity is valuable, and as
such, ought to be encouraged. In this case, the state considers that literature is a worthy pursuit, and
therefore decides to reward literary excellence. The same could be said about awards, medals or
state honors given to individuals that excel in science, sport, or any other kind of art. Is the state in
rewarding excellence making a negative judgement about its citizens? Perhaps the State is
manipulating its citizens, assuming that without a monetary compensation they would lack the
willpower for pursuing excellence? This objection seems far-fetched to me. First, I don't think that
the state is capable of creating artistic or scientific genius out of rewards. Second, I highly doubt
that someone that spent his life researching a cure for a rare illness, or trying to craft a perfect
novel, manages to do so motivated by a hypotetical future prize.
Another example of perfectionist policy could be the opening of a cultural space, in which citizens
can make use of a public library, a workspace for artists, a cinema, a rehearsal space for musicians,
and also attend a variety of courses. Is the opening of such a place motivated by a negative
judgement of citizen's abilities? I would not think so. The state is, in this case, offering its citizens a
wide variety of valuable choices, and therefore giving them a higher level of autonomy. Whether
this kind of space (or spaces) would be free of charge and whether they already exist throught the
free market seems irrelevant to the question. The state is promoting valuable activities by the
opening of this center, and is allowing citizens to pursue valuable projects both individually and in
common (think for instance of the possibility to form a band and practise in the rehearsal spaces, or
the projects that can be crafted in such a workspace). This, I would argue, is not fundamented in a

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negative view of citizen's abilities. If anything, it holds a positive view of them, thinking that they
will use those spaces to develop valuable activities, and thus live more valuable and flourishing
lives.
The case of the library is quite paradigmatic, since it directly contributes to citizens not only by
allowing them to a higher range of valuable choices (such as access to poetry books, or the
possibility to learn another language) but also develops their capacities to reason, which is a
fundamental condition to a person's autonomy. In this case, the only possible negative assumption
about citizen's abilities to further their interests would be that citizens can not come up by
themselves with such a service. This is to me not as much a negative opinion but a logistic problem.
A public service of such cost, magnitude and complexity requires a very solid organization of
individuals that are dedicated to the project. The state, as a representative of the citizens and their
interests, and is better suited to develop those kinds of tasks. In doing so, the state is not
presupossing a fault in the citizen's judgement, but simply acting as a tool to their demands of a
resource to achieve higher autonomy. While it is certainly possible that the internet age will make
possible a system such as those of public libraries to be conducted and coordinated by citizens
without the need of state intervention. Even then, I doubt that that would bring the extinction of
libraries, as a space to conduct valuable activities such as working, studying, reflecting and
interacting with our equals.
Quong also points out that state subsidies for certain cultural or valuable activities such as opera are
tainted with paternalism. I will argue that the accounts of possible perfectionist justifications for
state subsidies that Quong poses are not conistent with actual perfectionist reasons. Quong argues
that the state acts paternallistically because it presuposes that citizens, left to their own devices, will
not choose to engage in a valuable activity such as opera, and will instead prefer low-brow
activities such as mud-wrestling. Therefore, state subsidies would be required to make opera more
attractive to the mud-wrestling aficionados. This is, to me, a very disconcerting view of state
subsidies. First, I fail to see how lowering the price of opera will attract people with no interest
whatsoever in it. I have found it nearly impossible to persuade some of my friends to go to a play or
a concert even when those were free of charge. Thus, luring more people into valuable activities
through lower prices seems not to be the reason of those state subsidies.
The true reason to subsidize opera could be ensuring that it does not disappear. The obvious
objection is that this is a paternalistic action. Surely if citizens consider opera a valuable activity,
they will support it enough to make sure it does not disappear? This is a valid concern, and I would
like to introduce an example posed by Michael J. Sandel in Justice: what's the right thing to do.
Sandel exposes in his book the case of abusive prices for first-necessity goods that followed after
the hurricane Charley disaster. Many free-market advocates insited that those prices could not be
considered inmoral, since they were a result of the free relation of offer and demand. The public
outrage was caused by a sense of injustice, of rewarding or leaving impune a morally repugnant
action (that is, profiting from the pain and necessity of others). Sandel's conception of Justice is far
(some would say even opposite) from liberal, although I would argue that from a liberal
perfectionist perspective we could justify such an action as inmoral through the Harm Principle. But
the point to be made is that state action is sometimes justified to correct inbalances or downright
injustices caused by the free market.
Coming back to opera, it may happen that costs may turn out to be higher than the benefits, and as
such can't survive in a profit-focused market. It may happen so due to the very high maintenaince
costs, lack of demand or, more plausibly, both. I will argue that the lack of demand is a natural
consequence of value pluralism. Consider a jazz fan that has no interest in opera, but can understand

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that opera a is a valuable activity for many. But it seems far-fetched that opera should be subsidized
by jazz fans in this case. The state, in seeing opera in danger to disappear could then, through taxes,
raise enough money to ensure that a valuable option does not disappear for all citizens. In doing so
it does not presuppose a bad judgement from citizens, it is merely correcting a free market
imbalance for a valuable but not cost-efficient activity.
The next example I will pose is related to the prohibitive cost argument. Quong argues that this
perectionist argument relies in the premise that the current distribution of wealth in society is unjust.
The rational thing to do then would be to redistribute wealth instead of subsidize valuable activities
for the least advantaged memebers. To me, this argument appears as fundamentally flawed as it not
only seem to appeal to an ideal distribution of wealth but also to a post-scarcity world, in which the
least advantadged have enough purchasing power to go to the cinema, to the teather, learn Spanish
and still have enough money to fund a public park in their neighbourghood. Since this is not the
case in our world, the Harm Principle allows us to subsidize public parks in the more deprived
communities. We could argue that, even if there are no sufficient resources, we are acting
paternalistically by redistributing resources in form of service instead of cash. But Quong seems to
answer himself when he asserts that in that case the state is merely assuming citizens will behave
rationally by refusing to contribute to the provision of a public good when they lack assurance that
others will contribute.
Finally, I would like to offer an example that I consider poses a different kind of problem for
Quong's view. The Cervantes Institute is a public organism created by the Spanish government to
promote, divulge, conserve and celebrate the Spanish language and culture. The creation of such
organism is clearly a perfectionist measure. It presupposes that Spanish language and culture are
valuable assets and that in promoting them we are giving citizens more valuable choices (for
instance, Spanish courses for foreigners). This not only escapes paternalistic objections, but poses a
deeper problem for Quong's theory. Quong seems to consider the state as a completely alien body in
regards to its citizens. But the citizens of a modern liberal state are politically active ones. I would
like to sketch Hannah Arendt's notion of citizenship here. For her, citizens create the polis every
moment, they mold it, compose it or destroy it. The conception of citizenship of Arendt is based on
the idea that men, as free and equal, can act on a common world and construct it or change it
(Arendt, 2006).
This gives a very accurate description of the inception of the Cervantes Institute and of similar
institutions. The citizens of the Spanish nation1 consider that conserving and divulging Spanish
language and culture are valuable goals. Then, the citizens manifest those preferences through
public action, and their representatives choose to create an organism whose raison d'tre is pursuing
those valuable goals. When operating in such a way the state defies any accusation of paternalism,
for the public has given his full consent to have his interests and goals furthered.
To summarize, I have shown that Quong's justifications of perfectionist policies are not the only
possible ones. I've also tried to demonstrate how both the newly proposed justifications and some of
the ones posed by Quong himself could be defended from a liberal perfectionist point of view to not
fail into paternalist accusations. Finally I have proposed that some perfectionist policies can stem
from the idea of a politically active citizenship, and why this is incompatible with paternalism.

1 I use nation here in a cultural sense, denoting that memebers of such nation have a language, history, culture... in
common

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Raz, Joseph. The morality of freedom. Oxford New York: Clarendon Press Oxford Univ. Press,
1986. Print.
Quong, Jonathan. Liberalism without perfection. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Print
Arendt, Hannah, and Guillermo Solana. Los origenes del totalitarismo. Madrid: Alianza, 2006. Print
Sandel, Michael J. Justice : what's the right thing to do. London: Penguin Books, 2010. Print.
Dworkin, G. (2002, November 6). Paternalism. Retrieved November 12, 2015, from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paternalism/