I think I’m actually more comfortable with the scenario where you are the primary/sole beneficiary.
Denying someone’s agency to benefit them is really treating them like a child, and is only appropriate in a case where they really don’t have the capacity to exercise it (besides children, e.g. adults with significant dementia or cognitive impairment.)
Why is treating an adult “like a child” inherently worse than treating a child that way?
Why is treating an adult “like a child” inherently worse than treating a child that way?
Let me rephrase that as “treating them like they have a diminished capacity for agency, which is only appropriate if they actually do.”
There’s a cultural presumption, which I am neither intending to support nor to argue with here, that children fall into this category.
Indeed. But more importantly, do adults fall into that category? That’s what’s being discussed here.