Robert Goodin The Ethics of Smoking Usually, the

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Robert Goodin The Ethics of Smoking

• Usually, the presumption is against paternalism.
  
• The government cant tell us what to read, watch,
  listen to, think, what medical treatment to have,
  etc.
• Goodin obviously has an uphill battle.
• Consider the legal principle of volenti non fit
  injuria (no volunteer can be harmed) smokers
  voluntarily accept the risks so its up to them.
• Goodin argues that smokers dont genuinely accept
  the risks, hence this doesnt apply.
• Paternalism is permissible when we interfere for
  the sake of peoples genuine interests.

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Two Kinds of Rights

• It might help to distinguish choice rights from
  interest rights.
• If you only think about protecting choice
  rights youre liable to reject all paternalism.
• But if you also consider interest rights,
  interfering for the sake of the persons own
  self-proclaimed interests, then its not so
  off-putting.
• Goodin will argue for this sort of paternalism.

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Informed Consent and False Information

• Goodin appeals to the idea smokers only
  voluntarily accept the risks of smoking if they
  genuinely consent.
• Goodin has four arguments for paternalism.
• The first two are based on informed consent, the
  second two are based on the idea of autonomy.
• 1) Preferences arent relevant when theyre based
  on false information (i.e.smoking isnt
  harmful.)
• If people base their preferences on false
  information then their consent is not informed
  and hence legitimate.
• We might be justified in overriding them in the
  name of their own deeper preferences.

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Informed Consent and Transitory Preferences

• 2) Some preferences are merely transitory.
• In medicine serious life-altering decisions are
  only given credence if they are stable.
• Young smokers often say they dont mind living a
  shorter life if it is more glamorous, but later
  most of them change their minds.
• If we can reasonably expect a persons preferences
  to change, we may be justified in overriding
  them.
• How we weigh such conflicts is hard, but clearly
  we dont want to give priority to one preference
  just because it got their first.

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Autonomy, Addiction and Weakness of the Will

• 3) Some preferences have priority over others,
  but nonetheless people cant adhere to them.
• There are genuine cases of weakness of will,
  where people want to do X but they cant help
  themselves.
• The highly addictive properties of nicotine often
  makes quitting smoking one such case.
• In such cases autonomy has been compromised.
• Paternalistic laws that force us do realize our
  own desires may thus be justifiable.
• Even Mill says you cant sell yourself into
  slavery.
• Such laws must be restricted to big things,
  issues of life and death, prospect-shaping
  decisions, etc.
• The law might better respect your own preferences
  better than you would.

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Four Justifications for Paternalism Inauthentic
Preferences

• 4) Before we just respect peoples preferences we
  need to make sure that theyre genuine choices.
• Someone might be acting under undue influence
  (post-hypnotic suggestion, advertising,
  peer-pressure, etc.)
• Various cognitive defects (wishful thinking,
  anchoring fallacy, time-discounting, etc.) also
  raise problems.
• In such cases there is less reason to respect
  those preferences and paternalism may be
  permissible.
• Objection I dont care HOW I got the
  preferences, I have them now and theyre mine.
• Goodin admits there is force to this, but thinks
  we could still act to curb the engendering of
  such inauthentic preferences.

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Permissible Paternalism?

• This is all in the language of interest rights
  rather than choice rights.
• This clearly goes against the smokers manifest
  preferences.
• But they are still justified because they can be
  justified in terms of the smokers preferences
  themselves.
• They dont want to die a premature death.
• Most smokers themselves say they would be better
  off if they never started.

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Utilitarian Arguments and Public Health

• As well as rights-based arguments, Gooding offers
  utilitarian justifications for anti-smoking
  paternalism, based on public health
  considerations.
• In a sense, all public health laws are
  paternalistic.
• We think they are justified because of the
  greater-good that they foster.
• Why should smoking be any different?

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Negative Externalities

• In economics, an externality is an effect of a
  transaction between two parties on a third party
  who is not involved in the carrying out of that
  transaction.
• Even if we reject paternalistic arguments, the
  harms done to third parties might be
  justification.
• Some smoking externalities
• Half of all house fires.
• 40 of smoking-related health costs borne by the
  public.
• 52-65 billion a year in medical costs and lost
  productivity.
• Second-hand smoke.
• Loss of loved ones.

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Misleading Statistics!?!?!

• Some argue that even if we take these figures at
  face value theyre misleading.
• We could offset some of these externalities
  (i.e.require smokers to pay for their own health
  care.)
• More importantly we need to compare these numbers
  with the costs of the alternative.
• Everyone dies sooner or later smoking might not
  make that big of a difference.
• Taxes on cigarettes bring in big revenue to the
  government.
• Black markets cause considerable damage in terms
  of concomitant crime, unregulated/unsafe product,
  etc.
• The costs of enforcement (police, trials,
  incarceration, broken families) also have to be
  factored in

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Do Smokers Actually SAVE the Public Money?

• Smoking tends to cause few problems during a
  persons productive years and then to kill the
  individual before the need to provide years of
  social security and pension payments and
  comparatively more protracted and expensive end
  of life care.
• Goodin calls this a thinly veiled form of
  not-altogether-voluntary euthanasia.
• He claims this is a reductio, not of the
  utilitarian argument, but of the idea that we can
  measure utility by way of economics.
• Even if theyre unproductive and a drain on
  public resources, the elderly still live lives of
  positive utility this is not reflected in these
  economic assessments.

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What About The Positive Utility?

• Of course, we also have to consider the positive
  utility caused by smoking.
• The pleasure smokers get.
• The profits the cigarette companies make.
• The satisfaction of living in a free society.
• Goodin discounts these
• Many smokers dont enjoy it, theyre just hooked.
• Profits are comparatively small, and could be
  made elsewhere (in a more productive manner.)
• We can have the satisfaction of living in a safe
  society.

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Yet Another Slippery Slope

• Wouldnt this thinking license government
  intrusion in all sorts of private matters?
• Can the government force me to avoid fatty foods,
  require I work out, not live in polluted cities,
  etc?
• Smoking may be unusual in that all 4
  justifications for paternalism apply other
  activities may only fall under 2 or 3.
• Goodin just wants to open the possibility that in
  some such cases, paternalism may be permissible.