Voluntariness and Assumptions of Risk

Abstract Feinberg deals with the problem of reconciling our repugnance for legal paternalism with the seeming reasonableness of some apparently paternalistic regulations. One way of accounting for the reasonableness of apparently paternalistic restrictions is to apply a “soft paternalistic strategy” to show that there is a rationale for protective interference that gives decisive significance to respecting autonomy. The reasonableness of the restriction consists in the protection it provides the actor from dangerous choices that are not truly his own.