“We’re doing it for your own good”: paternalism in public policy

Lecture to the Westminster Ethical Policy Forum by Perri 6

I

“Not what they want, but what is good for them”.  The statue of the man whose words those are, stands just in the next street from here – in front of the Palace of Westminster.  Somehow, one has no difficulty in imagining Oliver Cromwell thumping the table and insisting on the right of the government to do good to the unwilling and undeserving.

Read More