Abstract
Democracy is essentially a political system that respects people's preferences, with models of democracy differing principally in how they accomplish that. Choice among those models can be facilitated by reflecting upon various public policies which are not preference-respecting. Examination of policies which are paternalistic, and justifiably so, reveals which sorts of preferences ought be to respected and which not. These findings are then used to reflect back onto our choice among models of democracy.
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Goodin, R.E. Democracy, preferences and paternalism. Policy Sci 26, 229–247 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00999718
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00999718