Utility, Paternalism, and Slavery
| Author | G. W. Smith |
| Published date | 01 November 1981 |
| Date | 01 November 1981 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9256.1981.tb00052.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
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3
$60-1
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A
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15
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-0-000-0-
UTILITY)
PATERNAL IS^^^
AND
SLAVERY
G.
W.
SMITH
Vinit Haksar has argued that
J.S.
Mill's ban on voluntary slavery is entire-
ly consistent with liberal principles, even though
it
involves perventing the
intending slave from doing something we may assume doesn't harm others. Haksar's
position hinges upon the fact that, like any(~t~e~potentia~ contractor, an agent
who wishes seriously to promise himself into lifelong servitude (for what he
considers
to
be some substantial advantage) needs the legal facilities of the
state. Haksar maintains, however, that as the withholding of facilities is not
coercive, the state's action
(or
rather inaction) in the intending stave's case
cannot be said to restrict his liberty nor, consequently, to restrict
it
for his
own good. This
is
why, despite the appearances, Mill's ban on voluntary slavery
is
not
a
paternalistic exception to his general anti-paternalism.
it
rests (between coercion, which limits liberty, and the withho?djng
of
facili-
ties, which does not)
is
unpersuasive.
Mill
always believed that
a
society in
which contracts are possible is one
of
greater freedom than one
in
which they
are not; not only is the whole of his political economy predicated upon this con-
viction but, in The Subjection of Women, he attacks the Victorian institution
of marriage precisely because
it
condemned wives
to
a condition tantamount to
slavery and he advocates in the name
of
freedom changes
in
their civil status
which involved extending to them legal facilities in respect
of
property(rights
to contract independently of their husbands)
as
well as political facilities in
the form
of
the vote
(J.S.
and
H.T.
Mill,
1970,
Chs.
2
and
3).
Haksar covers
himself to some degree by stipulating that the state's refusal to co-operate in
achieving the purposes of its citizens might be coercive
if
it
has a duty to
co-operate (Haksar,
1979,
p.254).
So,
it
might be urged that the inactions of
the Victorian state were coercive upon women because
it
had
a
duty, in this in-
stance, to provide the facilities in question. But to argue that the state has
no duty to facilitate the particular purposes of the slave (nor, we should not
forget, those
of
his prospective owner), out of a consideration of the likely
harm the former is supposed to be about to do himself, is simply to beg the
question in favour
of
paternalism.
Though Haksar's conclusion is essentially correct, the distinction upon which
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