Brown Bag Seminar: Guilhem Lecouteux

Behavioural Paternalism, or the Sovereignty of the Neoclassical Consumer

Guilhem Lecouteux (Université of Nice - Sophia Antipolis)

Behavioural paternalism is based on the assumption that individuals have stable and context-independent 'true preferences', which reveal the subjective conception of the individual's well-being. The satisfaction of one's true preferences is taken as the normative criterion, justifying paternalism when the individuals reveal incoherent preferences. I argue that behavioural paternalism implicitly defends a normative criterion of 'neoclassical consumer sovereignty' but cannot justify why only the choices of the individuals whose behaviour reveal coherent preferences should be respected. I then suggest a normative criterion of individual autonomy understood as the ability to form one's own preferences as an alternative to the satisfaction of one’s true preferences.

Registration

Please fill the doodle by Monday May 15 if you plan to attend and mention whether you would like a sandwich:

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