The anti-paternalist case for unconditional basic income provision

This chapter considers how an anti-paternalist case for a basic income fares in light of the two most fully developed accounts of the nature and wrongfulness of paternalism, the liberty- or autonomy-based account offered by Gerald Dworkin and the more recent “rational will” account. It suggests how an in-kind social minimum might, in comparison with an unconditional basic income, represent a form of “weak” paternalism. The chapter shows that because states are entitled to prescribe the means by which individuals may pursue just outcomes, individuals would not be treated paternalistically if states opt to provide a social minimum in terms of a basket of goods rather than in terms of a basic income. Making the provision of a social minimum unconditional thus removes one avenue for state-provided benefits to be paternalistic. A state may permissibly mandate that individuals utilize the means it prescribes in order to realize just outcomes without thereby treating individuals paternalistically.