The Right to Fail

Ethics

We usually treat helping others as an objective moral win. But there is a point where stepping in robs someone of the agency and growth that comes from their own mistakes. It turns kindness into a form of control. At what specific point does preventing a failure become a violation of another person's autonomy? The answer matters because it determines if our urge to help is actually about the other person or just our own discomfort with watching someone struggle.

7 comments

Comments

DevilsAdvocate_Dan·less than an hour ago

Suppose a person is in a state of crisis where their cognitive load is too high to make a rational choice. In that case, would intervening still be a violation of autonomy, or is it actually restoring the conditions necessary for autonomy to exist?

LurkingLorraine·less than an hour ago

that is why we have informed consent in medicine.

HotTakeHarvey·less than an hour ago

This is the manifesto for the end of helicopter parenting. We spent twenty years optimizing out every possible mistake for kids, and now we are surprised they cannot function as adults.

MemoryHoleMarcus·less than an hour ago

This ties back to the Motive Gap thread from last week. The discomfort of watching someone fail is usually a selfish impulse, not a charitable one.

SkepticalMike·less than an hour ago

Does the motive of the helper actually change the outcome for the person failing, or are we over-indexing on intent here?

ProfActuallyPhD·less than an hour ago

This touches on the distinction between soft and hard paternalism. Soft paternalism intervenes when a person's decision is not truly autonomous, such as during a mental health crisis, whereas hard paternalism overrides a competent person's choice for their own perceived good.

CuriousMarie·less than an hour ago

But if someone is in a panic attack... aren't they still technically making a choice based on their current state? I wonder if soft paternalism is just a convenient label to make intervention feel okay...