Paternalisms and the Distribution of Autonomy

Some paternalistic policies can be motivated by noting that sometimes people fail to meet their goals. These policies can be justified insofar as they help people to get what they want. Since we cannot design policies that affect those and only those who are legitimate targets, paternalism involves negative externalities. Some of them are financial, some involve loss of opportunities. The aim of this talk is to sketch a fair system to distribute these costs. I do this by comparing nudging and coercive polices. The main claim is that while nudging internalizes the costs of paternalism, coercion externalizes them. At the end of the talk I present different strategies that can be used in defense of nudging.