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Materials and Articles
The platform's longreads: essays, analyses, cases, and annotated primary sources — each with links to originals and data. 38 materials in total.
Materials shown: 38
Introduction
Section →- AnalysisWhat Paternalism Is: Definitions and BoundariesA basic map of the subject: what counts as paternalism, how it differs from simply harming others, and why the line runs along a person's will rather than the reasonableness of their choice.9 мин
- EssayChoice Architecture: How the Setting Decides for UsPeople almost never choose in a vacuum: the ordering of options, defaults, and wording create an environment that steers a decision before we are even aware of it.10 мин
- EssayLibertarian Paternalism: Freedom Plus NudgingAn idea that sounds like a contradiction in terms: influencing choice while preserving the right to opt out, and why critics see in it a hidden engineering of decisions.10 мин
Philosophy
Section →- EssayThe Bridge You Cannot Cross: Why Mill Forbade Saving People from ThemselvesAn analysis of the 'harm principle' from On Liberty (1859): power over a person is justified only to protect others, and how this principle cracks under the pressure of behavioral economics.14 мин
- EssayAn End, Not a Means: Why Kantian Dignity Is Incompatible with Care Imposed Over the WillThe formula of humanity and the concept of dignity explain why, for Kant, even benevolent 'paternal government' turns out to be the greatest despotism.13 мин
- AnalysisThe Anatomy of Guardianship: How Gerald Dworkin Broke Paternalism into TypesA classification of paternalism: hard and soft, broad and narrow, pure and impure, and the conditions under which intervention for another's good ceases to be coercion.12 мин
- EssayA Choice Free Enough: Joel Feinberg on Soft Paternalism and Self-SovereigntyWhy, for Feinberg, harm to self is never grounds for a ban — provided the choice was genuinely voluntary — and how the problem of the 'future self' fits in.13 мин
- AnalysisFrom Medical Guardianship to Informed ConsentThe history of medicine's shift from the paternalistic 'doctor knows best' model to patient autonomy and shared decision-making — from the Nuremberg Code to partnership.12 мин
Cases
Section →- PositivePension Auto-Enrolment in the UK: How the 'Default Option' Brought Back Millions of SaversSwitching the default from 'opt in' to 'opt out' raised private-sector employee participation from a third to nearly nine-tenths in a single decade.9 мин
- FailedBloomberg's 'Soda Ban': How the Court Struck Down the Limit on Large Sugary DrinksNew York City's attempt to cap sugary drink servings at 16 ounces was overturned by the state's highest court as an overreach of authority — an outright ban lost where choice architecture would have won.8 мин
- PositiveSeat Belts and Motorcycle Helmets: The Hard Paternalism Society AcceptedMandatory belts and helmets are a rare example of direct coercion for safety's sake that saved hundreds of thousands of lives and became a social norm.9 мин
- DisputedTaxes on Sugary Drinks: Mexico, the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy, and BerkeleyExcise taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages reduce their purchase and push producers to reformulate, but the effect on health is still contested.10 мин
- DisputedOrgan Donation: How 'Presumed Consent' and the Default Setting Change the StatisticsThe classic study by Johnson and Goldstein showed that countries with an 'opt-out' model have consent rates above 90%, whereas under 'opt-in' they are often below a quarter.9 мин
Critique
Section →- EssayThe Right to Err: The Autonomy Argument Against PaternalismWhy respect for the person requires recognizing an individual’s right to make risky, foolish, and plainly mistaken decisions concerning themselves.12 мин
- AnalysisDo Nudges Work? The Debate over Effectiveness and ReproducibilityA 2022 meta-analysis declared nudging effective, but a re-analysis and field RCTs show the effect shrinks sharply — down to zero after correcting for publication bias.14 мин
- EssayTrust and Manipulation: Where the Nudge Ends and Manipulation BeginsEven well-intentioned defaults can be perceived as manipulation — and the question of transparency turns out to be both ethical and empirical at once.11 мин
- EssayNudge Instead of Policy: How Behavioral Measures Substitute for Structural ReformThe 'i-frame' critique: cheap behavioral interventions individualize systemic problems and serve as a convenient pretext to postpone real reform.13 мин
Digital world
Section →- AnalysisDark Patterns and the EU Digital Services Act: The Anatomy of Manipulative InterfacesHow interface design pushes users toward decisions against their interests, and why Article 25 of the DSA became the first to explicitly ban these practices in the EU.12 мин
- AnalysisConsent Under the GDPR: When 'Accept All' Doesn't Mean ConsentRecital 32 requires consent to be freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous — and why most cookie banners fail to meet this standard.11 мин
- EssayNudge vs. Boost: The Ethical Difference Between Two Strategies of InfluenceNudges steer choice around reflection; boosts develop a person's own competence — and therein lies the key ethical difference between two approaches to 'improving decisions.'10 мин
- EssayAlgorithmic, Epistemic, and AI Paternalism: Who Decides What You Get to KnowRecommender systems shape access to knowledge by optimizing for engagement rather than well-being, and AI increasingly decides on its own when to nudge or restrict the user.13 мин
Mathematics
Section →- ModelOptimal Paternalism: Sin Taxes, Internalities, and the Principle of Minimal InterventionHow a utilitarian planner can correct the choices of boundedly rational people without taking freedom away from those who are rational.12 мин
- ModelThe Paternalist as Principal: Why Information Asymmetry Limits 'Care from Above'A guardian state never observes people’s true preferences and abilities directly — and is forced to design incentives compatible with self-revelation.11 мин
- ModelMechanism Design: How to Engineer Rules Under Which Self-Interest Leads to the Common GoodThe Nobel-winning program of Hurwicz, Maskin, and Myerson — reverse-engineering institutions: first the desired outcome, then the rules of the game that produce it.12 мин
- ModelBayesian Persuasion: Information as a Lever of Soft PaternalismThe sender neither lies nor pays — they merely choose the structure of the signal in advance, and that is enough to shift the receiver's rational decision.11 мин
The State
Section →- AnalysisThe Welfare State and Moral Hazard: Where Insurance Dulls IncentivesHow full social insurance weakens incentives and why Sweden's 1990s reforms became a laboratory for balancing protection and responsibility.12 мин
- AnalysisSin Taxes: Tobacco, Alcohol, and Sugar as the State's Soft PaternalismExcise taxes on harmful goods save lives and fill budgets, but are accused of nannying and regressivity — we examine the WHO and OECD evidence.10 мин
- AnalysisThe 'Nudge Unit': How Britain's Behavioural Insights Team Transformed Public PolicyThe story of the world's first government nudge unit, its EAST framework, the measurable results of randomized experiments, and a wave of criticism.11 мин
- AnalysisThe 'Nanny State': History of the Concept and the Libertarian CritiqueHow a twentieth-century polemical label became a central argument in the debate over the limits of state guardianship over citizens' way of life.11 мин
- AnalysisMandatory Vaccination: Harm to Self or Harm to Others?Why the requirement to be vaccinated is a borderline case between paternalism and the 'harm principle': herd immunity protects not so much the person themselves as those around them.12 мин
The Corporation
Section →- AnalysisThe Company Town: Welfare Capitalism and the Lesson of PullmanHow nineteenth-century industrialists' care for workers' housing, stores, and leisure turned into total control — and why the Pullman revolt closed the era of overt factory guardianship.11 мин
- AnalysisThe Triad of Paternalistic Leadership: Authoritarianism, Benevolence, MoralityFarh and Cheng's model broke 'fatherly' leadership into three dimensions — and meta-analyses showed that they produce opposite effects.12 мин
- EssayWellness Surveillance: Trackers, Insurance, and the Employee's BodyAn insurance discount for "steps" looks like care for health — but behind it lie data collection, surveillance, and soft coercion that normalizes the worker’s very bodily life.11 мин
- EssayThe Employer as Family: Corporate Paternalism and the Demand for AutonomyFor some, a paternalistic company is a source of stability; for others, a space of hidden infantilization — we examine where care for the employee becomes control.9 мин
The Family
Section →- EssayOverparenting, Locus of Control, and Self-Efficacy: The Cost of 'Helicopter' ParentingFrom Baumrind's typology to Rotter and Bandura — how excessive care undermines young adults' belief in control over their own lives.13 мин
- AnalysisDiana Baumrind's Parenting Styles: Authoritativeness as a Balance of Warmth and ControlHow Baumrind's typology and its extension by Maccoby and Martin explain why combining responsiveness with demandingness gives children the best developmental outcomes.12 мин
- EssaySeparation, Anxiety, and Frustration Tolerance: The Cost of OverparentingHow parental overprotection is linked to separation anxiety, poor emotional regulation, and difficulties entering adulthood — and how it is measured.11 мин
- AnalysisDigital Parenting: Managing Screen Time Between Protection and AutonomyWhat the AAP and WHO recommend on screen time, and why the debate is shifting from bans toward developing a child's self-regulation.13 мин