A query for anti-utilitarians – Econlib

Date:

A lot of you already know that I’ve a second weblog entitled “TheMoneyIllusion.  Yesterday, I concluded that weblog and began a alternative, entitled The Pursuit of Happiness:

URL:  scottsumner.substack.com/

Talking of happiness, here’s a query to contemplate:

What are the general public insurance policies that you simply oppose though you consider that they’d make the world a happier place in the long term?

I’m not concerned about unrealistic hypothetical insurance policies involving fanciful creatures akin to “utility monsters”; I’m concerned about figuring out which precise actual world insurance policies you oppose even if you consider these insurance policies would make the world a happier place.

Maybe you’ll discover an instance of an precise coverage that I must also oppose, which is able to persuade me to desert my utilitarianism.

PS.  Please don’t inform me that that is the unsuitable query.  It’s the query that pursuits me.

PPS.  A Straussian studying of this submit is that utilitarianism, correctly understood, doesn’t present clear solutions when deciding which public insurance policies are greatest.  We’re like ships navigating in a dense fog.   (The identical could possibly be stated for Bayesian evaluation.)

Right here’s an image of Jeremy Bentham:

 

Share post:

Subscribe

Latest Article's

More like this
Related