Peter Singer

And I say, well, where are you going to hang that?

And they say, oh, I'm not going to hang it, actually.

I've decided to cut it into small pieces and use it to wallpaper my bedroom in different places.

Well, we might say, okay, so you own this.

Perhaps you have the right to do it.

But don't you think you're damaging something that millions of people have seen and wanted to see and that perhaps we'll see again after your period of ownership is over?

Is that really the best thing to do in the long run?

So I think saying I have a right is not the end of the discussion.

The question is where we draw the line of being overly interventionist, right?

Certainly utilitarianism does provide a license for paternalism.

And the seatbelt example, as you said, is one that utilitarians have won or consequentialists have won that battle.

So that suggests that...

most societies really accept a degree of paternalism.

And the question is, what is overly interventionist?

And that's a discussion that utilitarians can have.

And they may differ from people who are not utilitarians, who place intrinsic value on autonomy.

That's true.

Or it may be that you can have...

utilitarian arguments against being too paternalistic as i said you may it may mean that people um you know just don't take responsibility for their own actions in the right way and that the state has to become more more powerful if you like more um it has to become more omnipresent and that might lead to abuses in the wrong hands once this if the government is not a

a genuinely paternalistic one, but is seeking its own power.