“The Tudor landowning justice of the peace (J.P.) was the greatest of of paternalists, rivaled only by the Tudor judges and privy councilors who who controlled the J.P.s. … They wanted to regulate the prices of bread, beer, and wool, the games one played, the amount one drank, the nature of one’s apprenticeship, and the clothes one wore. They arrested drunkards, fined those who did not attend church, and penalized the adulterous. … a paternal state … only the 20th century has come to eclipse it” (
That is indeed a model that my counterargument doesn't quite work on. My assumptions were too simplistic.
I guess actually trying to construct a thorough argument for a position would involve far more modelling and stating and even being aware of all ones many assumptions.
This appears to explain paternalism in terms of there being lots of paternalistic (or "rulesy") people around. Which is fair enough - though it is, perhaps, on the obvious side.
No I don’t think so. The sheldons and dwights are pathologies not paternalism working as intended. Why paternalism works: schelling points + external costs. For example: if I’m a woman in a society that has a norm around drunkards being bad, and my husband drinks or my brother does, this makes my life harder, even if their drinking would be fine if not for the norm. So I will think anti drinking measures are good.
I think the answer is closer to something much more simple: people think it works despite evidence that heavy handed paternalism does not work, and so they enact it
I don't think it takes many scammy people to have a strong negative effect. Just a handful of dedicated scammers will use their profits to further grow and scam more, and then more potential scammers will turn to imitate those successful scammers, and society will suffer.
Robin, do you have any thoughts on how this fits in with the development of moralistic religions? From what I've read, religion started out in hunter gather tribes as ancestor worship and shaminism. However they didn't have many paternalistic rules. That held true for the early creator deity faiths as well. So I'm curious if that's evidence that paternalistic behaviour is relatively new.
Wouldn't you apply the same reasoning and conclude that there's a survival advantage when a small proportion of the population is highly curious/innovative/anti-rulesy? Abstractly, you generally want a few random walkers, while the rest obey strict rules (like ant colonies).
It might be hard to prevent information flows. Would people genuinely believe that *everything* is permitted in the “would have banned store”, even things with odorless, lethal, poison? At what stage would bad safety become negligient homicide?
As soon as people expect the government to protect them somewhat even in the “would have banned” store, we’re back in the complicated informational equilibrium.
Robin says: "hats" but I think he wants the audience to hear: "masks".
No one should be free, because we all care about each other?
And yet read on to hear the many who disagree with it.
That is indeed a model that my counterargument doesn't quite work on. My assumptions were too simplistic.
I guess actually trying to construct a thorough argument for a position would involve far more modelling and stating and even being aware of all ones many assumptions.
Thank you for pointing to a flaw in my reasoning.
This appears to explain paternalism in terms of there being lots of paternalistic (or "rulesy") people around. Which is fair enough - though it is, perhaps, on the obvious side.
No I don’t think so. The sheldons and dwights are pathologies not paternalism working as intended. Why paternalism works: schelling points + external costs. For example: if I’m a woman in a society that has a norm around drunkards being bad, and my husband drinks or my brother does, this makes my life harder, even if their drinking would be fine if not for the norm. So I will think anti drinking measures are good.
That's why we have import restrictions and customs inspections.
I think the answer is closer to something much more simple: people think it works despite evidence that heavy handed paternalism does not work, and so they enact it
I don't think it takes many scammy people to have a strong negative effect. Just a handful of dedicated scammers will use their profits to further grow and scam more, and then more potential scammers will turn to imitate those successful scammers, and society will suffer.
The key is that people would still oppose the would-have-banned stores EVEN IF they also had rules about what extreme bad things to exclude.
Early bands surely had a lot of paternalistic gossip and social pressure. So perhaps the key trend is a farmer era trend toward more formal rules.
Robin, do you have any thoughts on how this fits in with the development of moralistic religions? From what I've read, religion started out in hunter gather tribes as ancestor worship and shaminism. However they didn't have many paternalistic rules. That held true for the early creator deity faiths as well. So I'm curious if that's evidence that paternalistic behaviour is relatively new.
Wouldn't you apply the same reasoning and conclude that there's a survival advantage when a small proportion of the population is highly curious/innovative/anti-rulesy? Abstractly, you generally want a few random walkers, while the rest obey strict rules (like ant colonies).
Yes. All governments are paternalistic to some degree. 'Paternalistic' is not a good differentiator, I guess.
It might be hard to prevent information flows. Would people genuinely believe that *everything* is permitted in the “would have banned store”, even things with odorless, lethal, poison? At what stage would bad safety become negligient homicide?
As soon as people expect the government to protect them somewhat even in the “would have banned” store, we’re back in the complicated informational equilibrium.
Is there an extant political tradition that isn't, though?