Aspiring philosopher-queen Sarah O. Conly is an assistant professor of philosophy at Bowdoin College.
A description of her Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism, published by Cambridge University Press in 2012: “Against Autonomy is a defense of paternalistic laws; that is, laws that make you do things, or prevent you from doing things, for your own good. 
I argue that autonomy, or the freedom to act in accordance with your own decisions, is overrated—that the common high evaluation of the importance of autonomy is based on a belief that we are much more rational than we actually are. We now have lots of evidence from psychology and behavioral economics that we are often very bad at choosing effective means to our ends. In such cases, we need the help of others—and in particular, of government regulation—to keep us from going wrong.”
Rumor has it that contrarian paternalists disagree violently, arguing that Conly should have been prevented by force from writing the book.
Conly’s faculty page indicates that her next book will be about the goodness of using force to prevent people from having the wrong number of children.
Related: Autonomy as a human need.
(Thanks to R.H., who knows what’s best for me, for sending the Conly link.)
“If one knows that the good is objective—i.e., determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man’s mind—one knows that an attempt to achieve the good by physical force is a monstrous contradiction which negates morality at its root by destroying man’s capacity to recognize the good, i.e., his capacity to value. Force invalidates and paralyzes a man’s judgment, demanding that he act against it, thus rendering him morally impotent. A value which one is forced to accept at the price of surrendering one’s mind, is not a value to anyone; the forcibly mindless can neither judge nor choose nor value. An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes. Values cannot exist (cannot be valued) outside the full context of a man’s life, needs, goals, and knowledge.” “What Is Capitalism?”, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 23
I know that most posts on this site are erudite, but all I can say to this lady is f@@ k you.
So, the fact that people have been proven scientifically to make irrational choices on a regular basis. So Ms. Conly concludes that the right sort of people should make their irrational choices mandatory, while the wrong sort of people must be prohibited from making their irrational choices.
Yes, it’s been irrefutably proven that politicians and bureaucrats are divinely gifted with a superior and disinterested insight into what’s best for society denied the rest of it. Better that society be forced to make their well-intentioned errors – if, God forbid, they should occur – than their own. A free creative citizenry has ever been a source of irreligious and anti-authoritarian tendencies.
Coercive paternalism and vice crime infantilizes us, and renders us fundamentally incapable of intellectual and moral decisions. We become stupid and evil — and thus far less healthy and happy.
When Big Brother lives a large part of our lives for us — and makes the majority of our important choices — it converts us from responsible, respectable adults into untrustworthy, incompetent children. The loving, caring, helpful, fascist state changes us from the joyfully alive, to the listlessly existing — from the vibrant, excited, and pulsating, to the dull, depressed, and despairing.
When do-gooder Big Government is our coercive paternalistic friend, and creates victimless crimes, and then forbids us to be free, and doesn’t let us live our lives as we wish and choose — when the vampire Nanny State legally prohibits prostitution, narcotics, gambling, and even trans-fat and sugary soda — it converts us from the living to the dead.
I can not possibly reject this drivel more eloquently then the commenters above. So let me second Steve: f@@k you Conly
You will be forgotten by history Sarah Conly. Piss off.
…but surely she’s proved her own thesis by making a bad decision, so she of all people should not be allowed to make choices for others, therefore her thesis is incorrect, except in respect of herself in which case it must be correct…or something…
Governments are just collectives of individuals with a monopoly of force. That these individuals have formed a collective or possess a monopoly of force cannot change the fact that we are irrational as O Conly argues. In fact, surely the only logical position to take is that if humans are so irrational that they typically make poor choices for themselves, then government should be stripped of all power to coerce – the irrational decisions of those in government harm far more people than the irrational decisions of those who only govern themselves.
Perhaps the lack of this basic observation is O Conly trying to demonstrate quite how irrational she is.
unfortunately, at $95/copy, this book will be talked about, rather than read (and criticized). I suppose that’s by design? Still loving that intellectual chain of command…
I love the reception this column and book have received by the previous posters. I couldn’t add any more to their comments. I’m happy to see there are still many people left who value their own lives and decisions (right or wrong ones) enough to give Conly and Hicks a verbal middle-finger salute.
Irony on my part, Edward Cline, irony.
People are often very bad at choosing effective means to their ends, therefore we need a group of people called the government (who, being human, are presumably also “very bad at choosing effective means to their ends”) to regulate us.
The agenda is all too transparent.
Mr. Hicks: My apologies for the “finger.” I read so many things that often my eyes glaze over. So, my “finger” is reserve for the Conly entity. Hope you’ll forgive me.
Not a problem, Edward.
Ms. Conly is a perfect example of the banality of evil. She’s not even original since Thaler and Sunstein have been pushing that nonsense for years. (Not that the idea itself is original with them; Plato pushed in 2500 years ago.)
I think these thoughts are relevant…
“Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“The fading of the critical sense [that bureaucracy leads to because government choice replaces individual discrimination] is a serious menace to the preservation of our civilization. It makes it easy for quacks to fool the people. It is remarkable that the educated strata are more gullible than the less educated. The most enthusiastic supporters of Marxism, Nazism, and Fascism were the intellectuals, not the boors …. [Statists] never take into account the possibility that the almighty government of their utopia could aim at ends of which they themselves entirely disapprove. They always tacitly assume that the dictator will do exactly what they themselves want him to do.”
– Ludwig von Mises
Revisiting your blog, Dr. Hicks, I noticed that I failed to attribute the quote I posted in the first comment properly. It is from Ayn Rand and can be found in her essay “What Is Capitalism?” which is in the anthology: Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
Thanks, John.
Oh to have a word from Joshua Chamberlain, a man of noble deeds, upon the ruin to which his dear Bowdoin College and the students entrusted to it, have been visited by the insidious, insipid, anti intellects of the PM left.