Kyle van Oosterum

This paper proposes a novel reinterpretation of the familiar, if inchoate, thought that paternalism offends against an ideal of personal sovereignty. The central idea is that (competent) persons have a particular kind of normative power. Just as each of us has the right to control whether others are permitted to use our bodies or property, we each have a structurally similar right to control whether others are permitted to use our good. When others seek to benefit us without adequately consulting our will, they trespass into a domain that is ours to control, treating us as lacking rights that we in fact have. The paper argues that this theory of anti-paternalism is superior to existing accounts, is independently attractive, and rests on deeper foundations.

Epistemic democracy is standardly characterized in terms of “aiming at truth”. This presupposes a veritistic conception of epistemic value, according to which truth is the fundamental epistemic goal. I will raise an objection to the standard (veritistic) account of epistemic democracy, focusing specifically on deliberative democracy. I then propose a version of deliberative democracy that is grounded in non-veritistic epistemic goals. In particular, I argue that deliberation is valuable because it facilitates empathetic understanding. I claim that empathetic understanding is an epistemic good that doesn’t have truth as its primary goal.