Paternalism Attitudes and the Happiness Value of Fundamental Freedoms

In many areas, the state restricts individual freedoms in order to protect its citizens from potentially self-harming behavior. Prominent examples include the compulsory use of seatbelts in cars and the prohibition of certain drugs. But how do individuals react? Do they perceive such regulation as welcome protection or unacceptable intrusion - or something in between? And is it possible to measure these different attitudes? Kai A. Konrad and Sven A. Simon have developed a preference indicator, the Paternalism Preference Index, and validated it in a large-scale study. They also analyze the relationship between an individual's preference for paternalism and the perceived role of personal freedoms for their life satisfaction.

Paternalistic government intervention needs careful consideration. On the one hand, regulations and prohibitions can reduce self-harming behavior. On the other hand, they restrict personal freedoms at the expense of the greatest possible freedom of choice.

In their research, Konrad and Simon investigate the empirical question of whether and to what extent individuals want to be 'protected' from themselves by the state, or whether they insist on their freedom of choice. They develop an innovative questionnaire, the 'Paternalism Preference Index'. It measures individual approval or disapproval of different paternalistic interventions and allows conclusions to be drawn about general attitudes towards paternalism.

The results of the study, which involved over 5500 people in Germany, show considerable differences between people. Some people are generally critical of paternalism, while others are in favor of it. In many cases, however, attitudes depend on the policy area in question: while the majority are in favor of paternalistic intervention in drug policy, they prefer to decide for themselves when and how much to save for their own pension.

Konrad and Simon also examine the relevance of paternalistic attitudes to the valuation of personal freedoms. The timing of the survey experiment during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity to shed light on this question: People were confronted with a sudden and unprecedented restriction of their personal freedoms.

It turns out that people who are critical of paternalism report a significantly greater loss of life satisfaction during the pandemic than people who are in favor of paternalism. More importantly, however, people who are critical of paternalism blame restrictions on their personal freedom for a disproportionate share of the decline in their life satisfaction during the pandemic. This suggests that an aversion to paternalistic intervention is linked to a higher valuation of personal freedom.

Published:   Konrad, K. A. und Simon, S. A., 2025. Paternalism Attitudes and the Happiness Value of Fundamental Freedoms. Economics of Governance. Open Access: DOI 10.1007/s10101-024-00322-y