I came across a good article on Soft Paternalism on NPR, Using Psychology to Save You from Yourself.

The basic concept of Soft Paternalism, or so its supports claim, is derived from Behavioral Economics, which is,

a school of economic thought greatly influenced by psychological research — which argues that the human animal is hard-wired to make errors when it comes to decision-making, and therefore people need a little “nudge” to make decisions that are in their own best interests. And that is exactly what Obama administration officials plan to do: By taking account of human psychology, they hope to save you from yourself.

The argument against Soft Paternalism is often along the lines of government also being made up of error prone individuals, so that the government should remain out of the business of making decisions for individuals.

“Just understanding that human beings don’t make perfect decisions does not make the case for government by any stretch of the imagination,” Glaeser says. “After all, governments are made up of people, too. They are subject to the same foibles and weakness as the rest of us.”

The retort provided by one of the article’s subjects brings up an example of Soft Paternalism in Britain.

Any American who goes to London realizes that they are endangering their lives every time they try to cross the street, because the traffic comes from the wrong direction. Our instinct is to look left, but if you look left, you’ll get run over by a double-decker bus. To help us, Thaler says, someone in the British government decided to write on the sidewalks of busy intersections filled with American tourists the words “look right.”

The problem I have with this is not that government officials are error prone, although I realize they are error prone (on top of incentives that are not aligned with my well being), but that this type of intervention in individuals lives can lead to a lazy populice, which can become even more error prone.

The reason we are taught to walk across the street safely, is so that we can become independent adults, pursuing what makes us happy in our own way. If we no longer need to be taught to walk across the street, or how to choose a doctor, or what to do with our money, then we are no longer individuals pursuing our own happiness. We are merely mechanisms of a society which has robbed us of our path to empowerment and self fulfillment, the maturity to take responsibility for our actions. I would prefer to live with people who feel responsible for thier own actions and felt empowered and esteemed for being able to do things like, walk across the street.