Article
Can a contractarian be a paternalist? The logic of James M. Buchanan's system
Public Choice
(2020)
Abstract
At various points in his work, James Buchanan mentions favorably the idea of private con- stitutional choice, that is, it can be rational for a present-biased individual to constrain her future behavior by self-imposed rules of personal conduct. Given that in a classical lib- eral world such self-constitutions would face no political or legal obstacle, we ask whether reasonable people would call on the state to assist them in the enforcement of their per- sonal constitutions. In this paper, we provide several arguments for the incompatibility of Buchanan’s contractarianism with various forms of state paternalism.
Keywords
- Contractarianism,
- James Buchanan,
- Paternalism,
- Rules,
- Self-constitutions
Disciplines
Publication Date
April 9, 2020
DOI
10.1007/s11127-020-00804-7
Citation Information
Mario J Rizzo and Malte F Dold. "Can a contractarian be a paternalist? The logic of James M. Buchanan's system" Public Choice Vol. 183 Iss. 3 (2020) p. 495 - 507 ISSN: 0048-5829 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/mario_rizzo/46/