Viki Lyngby Hvid

The policy of earmarked paternity leave aims to promote mothers’ position in the labor market and fathers’ relationship with their child. Critics argue that the policy prevents parents from pursuing their own ideas about what is best for them. This provides reason to consider whether the policy is paternalistic or, in other ways, disrespectful of parental autonomy. I argue that the state implicates itself in the gender inequalities that result from parents’ unequal parental leave agreements when the state financially facilitates such agreements. This argument for earmarked paternity leave is not disrespectful of parental autonomy.

Why is discrimination morally wrong, and how does political partisanship shape moral judgments of discrimination? Several theories locate the distinctive moral wrongness of discrimination in its disrespectfulness. However, such theories disagree on whether disrespect derives from the deliberation of the discriminating agent, or from the expressive content of the discriminatory act. In a pre-registered vignette-based experiment (N = 1019), we tested the extent to which people are sensitive to deliberation and expressive content in their moral judgments of gender-based workplace discrimination, and whether this sensitivity is moderated by political partisanship. Results suggest that while all participants are sensitive to expressive disrespect, only Independents and Republicans are sensitive to the difference between high and low deliberation-based disrespect.

One important objection to vaccination policies involving nudging or coercive measures such as restrictions on unvaccinated people’s access to public spaces is that they are paternalistic. This objection is weaker than is often assumed. We defend this claim by (1) introducing a novel distinction between individual and collective paternalism; (2) showing that, across a range of circumstances, vaccination programs involve collective, not individual, paternalism; and (3) arguing that collective paternalism is not wrong for the reasons that, arguably, individual paternalism is.

Sometimes, adults with educational roles, for example, teachers or parents, in particular paternalise children from certain groups with the motive of protecting them from unjustified social sanctions. This paper analyses a case where a teacher seeks to prevent girls, not boys, from sharing intimate pictures of themselves. We argue that the case represents an example of the broader phenomenon of paternalistic discrimination. Based on an analysis of the case, we identify three ways in which paternalistic discrimination protecting people (including children) against negative and unjustified social sanctions can be wrong. Specifically, we argue that the teacher's action involves (i) disrespectful assignment of burden of responsibility, (ii) differential paternalistic disrespect and (iii) disrespectful generalisations. While paternalism towards children is often considered to be uncontroversial, paternalistic discrimination protecting children against unjustified social sanctions is not. At least, we submit that the three wrong‐making features should be included in the evaluation of specific acts of this kind.

People often discriminate based on negative or positive stereotypes about others. Important examples of this are highlighted by the theory of ambivalent sexism. This theory distinguishes sexist stereotypes that are negative (hostile sexism) from those that are positive (benevolent sexism). While both forms of sexism are considered wrong toward women, hostile sexism seems intuitively worse than benevolent sexism. In this article, we ask whether the difference between discriminating based on positive vs. negative stereotypes in itself makes a morally relevant difference. We suggest that it does not. By examining a number of prominent accounts of what makes discrimination wrong, we defend the Moral Irrelevance View according to which stereotype valence is irrelevant to the moral evaluation of discrimination, all else equal.

All over the world, women live longer lives than men. Accordingly, women make up the majority of the oldest age cohorts. This means that if health services for young people are prioritized over health services for older people, women will be deprioritized to a greater extent than men. In this article, I discuss whether disfavoring older people in the distribution of health care resources indirectly discriminates against women. Indirect discrimination requires disproportionate disadvantage. I argue that age-based prioritization disadvantages women relative to men. However, this argument is based on certain assumptions about the actual effects of the policy. Subsequently, I discuss whether the disadvantages for living women are disproportionate by focusing on the strength of women’s moral claim to health resources (assuming that the moral claim is stronger the worse off they are). On the one hand, women are only disadvantaged by age-based prioritization because they already have an advantage in terms of life expectancy. On the other hand, partly because of their longevity, older women are in many respects a vulnerable group, which supports the view that it is disproportionate to burden them further. I conclude that age-based prioritization risks discriminating against women in ways that should be avoided. The benefits of age-based prioritization should not only justify disadvantageous treatment of older people relative to younger people; they should also justify disparate effects on women and men. In addition to shedding new light on age-based prioritization, the article illustrates the nuance required for determining whether a policy indirectly discriminates.

Some policies are paternalistic and discriminatory at the same time (e.g., certain benevolent sexist policies). Such policies constitute an interesting, yet somewhat overlooked, category. We scrutinize what paternalistic discrimination is and account for its wrongness. First, we argue that paternalistic discrimination is _pro tanto_ wrong because it is disrespectful. The disrespect consists in the selective negligence or denial of some people’s moral power over their own good. This applies even if the policies and actions in question benefit those interfered with. Second, we show that paternalistic discrimination gives rise to a dilemma in situations where different social groups face different risks. In such situations, a choice must be made between (i) protecting people equally and (ii) respecting people's moral power over their own good equally. Finally, we show that paternalistic discrimination in certain cases shows a lack of respect for the moral worth of the persons who are _not_ the target of the policies.

Victims of oppressive (e.g., sexist, racist or ableist) structures sometimes internalize the unjust norms that prevail in society. This can cause these victims to develop preferences or make decisions that seem bad for them. Focusing on such cases, we ask: is self-discrimination disrespectful? We show that some of the most sophisticated respect theories fail to provide any clear guidance. Specifically, we show that the widely recognized view that respect has two dimensions—an interest dimension and an autonomy dimension—delivers completely opposite verdicts depending on how these two dimensions (and the relation between them) are specified. A main takeaway point is that we need to distinguish between at least four different respect-based views. Whether self-discrimination caused by internalized oppression is disrespectful depends on which view one supports.

Is it fair for employers to select candidates partly based on how the employers think customers react to the candidates' appearances, that is, based on candidates' reaction qualifications? Both philosophically (in the literature on wrongful discrimination) and empirically, this question has recently been getting attention. Here, we focus on a theory of unfair disadvantages emphasizing (i) whether the possession of the appearance feature in question reflects choices on the part of the candidate and (ii) whether the appearance feature in question reflects values or convictions of importance to the candidate. We scrutinize the theory by evaluating how well these factors map on to folk intuitions about wrongful discrimination using an experimental-philosophical approach and data from the United States. We do so on the presumption that coherence with folk intuitions is one desideratum for a philosophical theory and that attention should be given to potential discrepancies between philosophical theories and folk intuitions. Our central finding is that there is only general support for factor (i), not (ii), in the American population. Our study also adds to the extant empirical literature on reaction qualifications that tend to focus on the employer's side of the matter, not the candidate's as we do.

While standard forms of discrimination are widely considered morally wrong, philosophers disagree about what makes them so. Two accounts have risen to prominence in this debate: One stressing how wrongful discrimination disrespects the discriminatee, the other how the harms involved make discrimination wrong. While these accounts are based on carefully constructed thought experiments, proponents of both sides see their positions as in line with and, in part, supported by the folk theory of the moral wrongness of discrimination. This article presents a vignette-based experiment to test empirically what, in the eyes of “folks”, makes discrimination wrong. Interestingly, we find that, according to folks, both disrespect and harm make discrimination wrong. Our findings offer some support for a pluralistic account of the wrongness of discrimination over both monist respect-based and monist harm-based accounts.

People often discriminate based on negative or positive stereotypes about others. Important examples of this are highlighted by the theory of ambivalent sexism. This theory distinguishes sexist stereotypes that are negative (hostile sexism) from those that are positive (benevolent sexism). While both forms of sexism are considered wrong toward women, hostile sexism seems intuitively worse than benevolent sexism. In this article, we ask whether the difference between discriminating based on positive vs. negative stereotypes in itself makes a morally relevant difference. We suggest that it does not. By examining a number of prominent accounts of what makes discrimination wrong, we defend the Moral Irrelevance View according to which stereotype valence is irrelevant to the moral evaluation of discrimination, all else equal.

An increasing vaccine hesitancy among parents, which has resulted in insufficient rates of immunization, provides reason to reconsider childhood vaccination practices. Studies suggest that parents' decision‐making process concerning whether to vaccinate their child is highly influenced by cognitive biases. These biases can be utilized to increase vaccination uptake via changes in the choice context. This article considers childhood vaccination programmes, which involve children being vaccinated in school or daycare unless their parents actively ‘opt out’. We suggest that such programmes reconcile parents' decisional authority and vaccination duties. First, opt‐out childhood vaccination based in schools or daycare centres are not disrespectful of parental authority. Second, the programme aligns the default setting with a moral obligation to vaccinate one's child that most parents have.

Some policies are paternalistic and discriminatory at the same time (e.g., certain benevolent sexist policies). Such policies constitute an interesting, yet somewhat overlooked, category. We scrutinize what paternalistic discrimination is and account for its wrongness. First, we argue that paternalistic discrimination is pro tanto wrong because it is disrespectful. The disrespect consists in the selective negligence or denial of some people’s moral power over their own good. This applies even if the policies and actions in question benefit those interfered with. Second, we show that paternalistic discrimination gives rise to a dilemma in situations where different social groups face different risks. In such situations, a choice must be made between (i) protecting people equally and (ii) respecting people's moral power over their own good equally. Finally, we show that paternalistic discrimination in certain cases shows a lack of respect for the moral worth of the persons who are not the target of the policies.

The policy of earmarked paternity leave aims to promote mothers’ position in the labor market and fathers’ relationship with their child. Critics argue that the policy prevents parents from pursuing their own ideas about what is best for them. This provides reason to consider whether the policy is paternalistic or, in other ways, disrespectful of parental autonomy. I argue that the state implicates itself in the gender inequalities that result from parents’ unequal parental leave agreements when the state financially facilitates such agreements. This argument for earmarked paternity leave is not disrespectful of parental autonomy.

What justifies differences in the acceptance of paternalism towards competent minors and older people? I propose two arguments. The first argument draws on the widely accepted view that paternalism is easier to justify the more good it promotes for the paternalizee. It argues that paternalism targeting young people generally promotes more good for the people interfered with than similar paternalism targeting older people. While promoting people's interests or well-being is essential to the justification of paternalism, the first argument has certain unfair implications in that it disfavours paternalism towards the worse off. The second argument caters to such fairness concerns. It argues that priority or inequality aversion supports age-differentiated paternalism because young people, who act imprudently and thereby risk their interests or well-being, are worse off than older people who act in similar ways. I suggest that both arguments are pertinent in evaluating specific paternalistic acts and policies.

Across Europe, countries are reducing CO2 emissions and energy demand by lowering the temperature in public office buildings. These measures affect men and women unequally because the latter prefer and, indeed, perform better under higher temperatures than the standard temperature. Lowering the temperature thus further increases an already existing inequality. We show that the philosophical literature on discrimination provides an interesting theoretical approach to understanding such measures. On prominent understandings of what discrimination is, the policy would be considered direct discrimination against women if it could be shown to reflect a broader inattentiveness to the needs of women in society. Alternatively, and more straightforwardly, the policies can be considered indirect discrimination because of their disparate effects on men and women. The final part of the paper shows that the policies are also wrong for the reasons it is often argued that discrimination is wrong—to wit, that it harms or disrespects those who are discriminated against. The final section suggests a range of measures to offset the discriminatory aspects of the policy.

This dissertation examines how we should respond to situations in which a person acts profoundly imprudently. We can, e.g., imagine the motorcyclist who prefers to drive without insurance and without a helmet. How should we, or the policy-makers, counter such imprudent activities performed by others? One option is that we do nothing, meaning that we do not interfere with other people’s imprudent behaviour, at the same time refraining from providing assistance in cases where the risk of the activities materialises. A second option is to provide unconditional assistance to the person in need by taxing everyone. A third option is that we regulate the risky activity prior to the accident (e.g. by forcing the person to take out insurance, imposing security measures, or perhaps banning the activity in question). No matter what we choose, our choice seems to compromise at least one of the following moral considerations: i) satisfying sufficiency, ii) avoiding paternalism, or iii) internalising the costs associated with the risky activities (so that the persons performing the activities carry the relevant costs). For the same reason, it has been pointed out that together the three considerations constitute a trilemma, the so-called ‘imprudence trilemma.’ The dissertation argues that we should accept paternalism when people act so imprudently that they risk suffering serious, absolute deprivation as a result (i.e. in cases of relevance to the trilemma). That is not to say that we should always interfere when a person acts profoundly imprudently. The paternalistic view defended is that it is a good and relevant (but not necessarily decisive) reason in favour of interfering with a person’s voluntary choices that such interference will promote the person’s interests or well-being. Pace the anti-paternalistic view, I argue that such reasons should be included in the assessment of policies and actions that interfere with people’ liberty or autonomy.

This chapter examines age discrimination from the perspective of age-differentiated paternalism. Many people share the intuition that paternalism is less problematic when applied to children than to the elderly. The chapter examines this intuition by considering not only the dimensions of competence and voluntariness but also the magnitude of the good promoted by paternalistic interventions. While this dual account does not generally challenge common-sense intuitions about paternalism, it introduces additional complexity when evaluating paternalistic interventions in a wide range of cases where age plays a part. The chapter considers many examples, from age-differentiated rules for access to sterilization, through age-differentiated fines for not using a helmet, to age-differentiated prices for cigarettes.

In defense of nudging policies, proponents have pointed out that choice architecture is inevitable. However, critics have objected that shaping people’s choices in an intentional way is not inevitable and involves an objectionable substitution of judgment, with the choice architect imposing his will on others. Accordingly, the inevitability of choice architecture in general does not provide reason to accept intentional nudges. In contrast to this view, the paper argues that precisely because the choice architects will unavoidably contribute to people’s choices, it is permissible for them to consider the content of the choices that their choice architecture promotes. Specifically, I argue that it is often within choice architects’, including states’, own legitimate sphere of control whether they want to contribute to other people’s behaviors through their organization of the choice architecture. It is argued that such intentional choice architecture does not involve objectionable substitution of judgment.

This article investigates the hitherto under-examined relations between affirmative action, paternalism and respect. We provide three main arguments. First, we argue that affirmative action initiatives are typically paternalistic and thus disrespectful towards those intended beneficiaries who oppose the initiatives in question. Second, we argue that not introducing affirmative action can also be disrespectful towards these potential beneficiaries because such inaction involves a failure to adequately recognize their moral worth. Third, we argue that the paternalistic disrespect involved in affirmative action is alleviated when the potential beneficiaries’ preferences against such initiatives are adaptive. We conclude that although there is a relevant sense in which paternalistic affirmative action is disrespectful, it may well be more disrespectful not to pursue such policies.

The discussion on mandatory turnout, which controversially introduces coercion at the heart of the electoral process, illustrates a dilemma between increasing voter turnout on the one hand and avoiding coercion on the other. If successful, a recent proposal by Elliott solves this dilemma as it removes the compulsory element of mandatory turnout. Specifically, Elliot reinterprets the policy’s purpose as (a) a pre-commitment device for those who believe that they have a duty to vote and (b) a nudge to the surveillance of politics for those who do not believe this. We critically evaluate Elliott’s novel intervention in the debate and argue that it is ultimately unsuccessful. Mandatory turnout can be interpreted as neither a pre-commitment device nor a nudge. Moreover, we present a more promising and novel solution to the dilemma: a genuine state-administered pre-commitment device with respect to voting that also nudges citizens to vote and seems _prima facie_ attractive.

A common objection to paternalism concerns its expressive content. Many reject paternalistic policies and actions on the ground that they arguably involve insulting expressions of disrespect toward those subjected to them. The paper challenges this view. It argues that refraining from acting paternalistically can be disrespectful. Specifically, the paper argues that there is a relevant way in which A disregards the moral worth of B if A stands idly by when B is about to act very imprudently. If true, treating others with equal respect and concern, as relational egalitarians and others rightly ask us to do, will somewhat surprisingly sometimes involve treating them paternalistically.

Opponents of paternalism have sought to formulate non-paternalistic arguments for some seemingly reasonable but apparently paternalistic policies. This article addresses two such non-paternalistic arguments—the public charge argument and the psychic harm argument. The gist of both arguments is that a person’s imprudent or risky behavior often affects the interests of others adversely, and that this justifies restricting his or her behavior in various ways. The article shows that both arguments face important problems. It thus throws serious doubt on the prospect of holding on to apparently sound and well-founded policies whilst at the same time avoiding paternalism.