Abstract

The expressive theory of paternalism holds that an action is paternalistic when and because it expresses the insulting idea that the actor knows better than the person acted upon. I argue that the expressive theory has implausible implications. First, it entails that a government’s interventions in people’s lives count as paternalistic only if their motivations are sufficiently consistent and well-publicised that the circumstances allow its policies to express the relevant insult. In other words, secret paternalism is impossible. Second, the theory implies that governments can remove any objection to a policy qua paternalistic by means of a manipulative exercise in public relations. Nor, I argue, does the expressive theory offer any explanatory advantage over autonomy-based theories.