On the other hand, many of us would like to believe that we might be protected from acting against our best interests during periods of delusion that might, after all, be temporary. As was noted when the concept of force was introduced, physical restraint does not always constitute praxeological force—for example, when we physically restrain the absent-minded professor from accidentally drinking the glass of poison that was lying next to his soft drink (p. 4.5:11). Our action in that case is based on the recognition that the professor does not really intend suicide. By an extension of the same principle, our constraint of a deranged, self-destructive individual to a mental hospital might be justified if our action was consistent with that person's voluntarily expressed long-range self-interest.

A good solution to this dilemma, which would be entirely compatible with the non-initiation-of-force principle that underlies a free society, might be a standard legal document by which a competent adult could, if desired, designate in advance a party that would have the power to determine when he or she is no longer competent. If the individual were later judged to have become incompetent by that party, his or her interests would be placed in the power of a guardian, who could also be designated in advance through a document similar to the Nomination of Guardian already used in our current system. That guardian could then, if necessary, make the decision to hospitalize the incompetent.