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The Problematic Welfare Standards Of Behavioral Paternalism, Douglas Glen Whitman, Mario J. Rizzo
The Problematic Welfare Standards Of Behavioral Paternalism, Douglas Glen Whitman, Mario J. Rizzo
Mario Rizzo
Behavioral paternalism raises deep concerns that do not arise in traditional welfare economics. These concerns stem from behavioral paternalism’s acceptance of the defining axioms of neoclassical rationality for normative purposes, despite having rejected them as positive descriptions of reality. We argue (1) that behavioral paternalists have indeed accepted neoclassical rationality axioms as a welfare standard; (2) that economists historically adopted these axioms not for their normative plausibility, but for their usefulness in formal and theoretical modeling; (3) that broadly rational individuals might fail to satisfy the axioms for various reasons, making them unpersuasive as normative criteria; and (4) that even …