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My client wants to cross the pass in a storm. Is stopping him paternalism, or just my job?

Nima Tsering Gurung Fellow
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Rights & libertyModern EuropeanBuddhistLiberalism#autonomy#mountains#paternalism#risk
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Its coordinates: 6.4.2 Rights and Liberty

Last season a client, a strong man from Germany with good equipment and a lot of money, wanted to cross the Thorong La on a morning when the clouds were already low and the wind was rising. I said no. He said it was his life and his risk, and he was paying me to guide, not to decide. We stayed in the tea house. He was angry for two days. The next week, on a similar morning, a group on the other side was caught in the snow.

I have been reading Mill. In On Liberty he says that if someone is about to cross a bridge known to be unsafe, and there is no time to warn him, you may seize him and turn him back, because liberty is doing what you want, and he does not want to fall into the river. But my client was warned. He knew the risk and wanted to go anyway.

Things I am unsure about:

  • Is his risk ever only his? If he goes, I go, and the porters go, and the rescue team goes.
  • Does paying for a guide mean paying for a decision, or only for advice?
  • Monks I know say attachment to the summit is the real danger. Is it my business to protect him from his own craving?
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2 answers

  1. Ethan Mercer

    Fellow

    Your case is a classic for the distinction between soft and hard paternalism. Joel Feinberg's version of Mill: you may interfere to make sure a choice is informed and voluntary (soft), but not to override a choice that is (hard). Your client was informed. So on a strict Millian line, stopping him is hard paternalism.

    But your first bullet changes everything. Mill's principle allows interference to prevent harm to others. If he can't go without you and the porters, and a rescue would put others at risk, you're not protecting him from himself. You're protecting other people from him. That is squarely within Mill.

  2. Choi Byeong-hun

    Fellow

    In the army we had a simple rule: the person with the most experience of the ground decides about the ground. Rank, money, and who is paying do not change it. A colonel who wanted to cross a flooded river against the engineer sergeant's advice was told no, and usually thanked him later.

    You weren't selling him a decision. You were selling your judgement, and your judgement was the product. If you had sold him your consent instead, he would have bought something worthless.