Key Arguments

• After arguing that great imprudence is seriously wrong and may be coercively prevented, Parfit explicitly limits what autonomy licenses: "Autonomy does not include the right to impose upon oneself, for no good reason, great harm."
• He then states a general normative principle that parallels his earlier principle about future selves: "We ought to prevent anyone from doing to his future self what it would be wrong to do to other people."
• Implicitly, this extends his earlier analogy between future selves and other persons: if an act would be wrong as a harm to another, then an analogous self‑harming act directed at one's future self is also wrong and a proper object of prevention.
• By framing the future self as akin to 'other people', he treats prudentially self‑harming actions as morally comparable to harming distinct persons, thereby supporting paternalistic interference with such actions.

Source Quotes

Since we ought to believe that great imprudence is seriously wrong, we ought to believe that we should prevent such imprudence, even if this involves coercion. Autonomy does not include the right to impose upon oneself, for no good reason, great harm. We ought to prevent anyone from doing to his future self what it would be wrong to do to other people.

Autonomy does not include the right to impose upon oneself, for no good reason, great harm. We ought to prevent anyone from doing to his future self what it would be wrong to do to other people.

Key Concepts

• Autonomy does not include the right to impose upon oneself, for no good reason, great harm.
• We ought to prevent anyone from doing to his future self what it would be wrong to do to other people.

Context

Closing sentences of Section 107, where Parfit draws an explicit limit to the scope of personal autonomy and formulates a principle equating wrongful treatment of one's future self with wrongful treatment of others, thereby grounding paternalistic duties toward future selves.