Paternalism attitudes and the happiness value of fundamental freedoms

Abstract Governmental regulations and prohibitions may effectively reduce self-harming behavior, but might also restrict personal freedom rights. This paper investigates into individuals’ preferences for the trade-off between being protected from taking self-harming actions by the state, and the desire to be free to choose. We introduce the Paternalism Preference Index to measure this preference. Our results indicate considerable heterogeneity in how individuals support, or object to, such governmental prescriptions. More importantly, we show the importance of the paternalism preference in a survey on life satisfaction during the Covid-19 pandemic. We find a reversed relationship between the preference for paternalistic state interventions and the valuation of personal freedoms. Individuals who prefer to have a larger choice set at the expense of committing potentially self-harming actions derive a higher value from personal freedoms in terms of life satisfaction.