Showing posts with label Why freedom?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Why freedom?. Show all posts

Sunday, December 31, 2023

How would you describe your philosophy?

 


I don’t think anyone has ever asked me the question posed above. When I tell people that I am an economist, some of them ask about my views on economics before regaling me with their opinions. When I tell people that I am a blogger, they usually ask what I blog about before telling me what I should blog about. I don’t claim to be a philosopher, so there has been no reason for anyone to ask me to describe my philosophy.

However, a comment by Ed Younkins in the addendum to the preceding post on this blog prompted me to think about whether it would be possible for me (as a casual reader of philosophy) to prepare a coherent summary of my philosophical beliefs.

Some readers might be interested in the process I used to summarise my views. I asked ChatGPT to ask a series of questions to help me to explore my philosophical beliefs. I responded to her questions by providing copies of extracts from blog posts etc. that I had written, and asked her to summarise my responses. The summary she produced was done competently, but I did some further editing.

I view the outcome as a work in progress. If anyone points to holes in my reasoning, I will endeavour not to be excessively defensive in my responses.

Summary

I am a Neo-Aristotelian classical liberal.

As will be apparent from what follows, I am strongly of the opinion that it is appropriate to consider what kind of thing an individual human is before engaging in philosophical reasoning related to any aspect of human experience. That is why many of my beliefs are grounded in current scientific knowledge (and speculation) about human evolution, neurology, and psychology.

It seems appropriate to begin with philosophy of mind because awareness of our own awareness is the starting point for all consciousness reasoning. I will then proceed to outline views on epistemology, metaphysics, human nature, ethics, and political philosophy.

Philosophy of Mind:

We cannot doubt that we think. When we are thinking, we may be aware of the flow of inner thoughts and feelings and of our experience of the world in which live. Our observations of other animals suggest that they share with us some awareness of their surroundings. That awareness is a product of evolution – it serves a purpose in helping animals to survive and reproduce. Similarly, our awareness of our own awareness is just another step in the evolutionary process – the purpose it serves is to help individual humans to flourish within the cultures in which they live.  (Main influence: Richard Campbell).

Epistemology:

Humans are born with a potential to acquire knowledge that is particularly relevant to human flourishing. However, knowledge acquisition is primarily experiential. Experiences during early childhood have a major impact on brain development. As brains mature, neural maps become increasingly solidified, but brains retain some plasticity throughout life. Brains learn by evaluating feedback from actions taken – they adjust internal models when predictions are incorrect.

Conscious reasoning plays a crucial role in determining what knowledge adult humans acquire. It makes sense to use probabilistic reasoning when considering alternative explanations for observed phenomena.

Practical wisdom (wise and well-informed self-direction) is integral to individual flourishing. As well as being important in its own right, it helps individuals to maintain good physical and psychological health, good relations with other people, and to live in harmony with nature. (Influences: Aristotle, David Eagleman, Michael Huemer).

Metaphysics:

Metaphysical realism: We exist as part of a real world. Beings exist independently of our cognition of them. (Influences: Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl).

Human Nature:

Humans have inherent potentialities that are good. (Main influence: Abraham Maslow).

Ethics:

Our awareness that we need to make something of our lives emerges before we can make conscious choices relating to our individual flourishing. Ethical intuitions relating to traditional virtues – practical wisdom, integrity, courage, temperance, justice – are a product of social evolution and family upbringing.

Ethical intuitions provide only a foundation for ethical reasoning. Although everyone has a natural inclination to engage in activities that contribute to their own flourishing, actualization of their individual potential requires some understanding of that potential, and the application of practical wisdom that is linked to that person’s dispositions and circumstances. Each individual is responsible for developing his or her own character, and adopting the good habits required to flourish more fully. (Influences: Robert Nozick, Aristotle, Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen).

Political Philosophy:

Individuals should be free to pursue their own ends provided they do not encroach upon the rights of others. Recognition of individual rights enables individuals to flourish in different ways without interfering unduly with the flourishing of others.

The role of government is protection of individual rights. Performance other roles should be contingent upon consent of the governed. (Influences: Friedrich Hayek, James M Buchanan, Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl).

Notes

The summary presented above focuses on some broad categories of philosophical beliefs. I have left out some categories of beliefs (philosophy of science and methodology of economics) because they are too specific to be covered in this overview. One of the most popular posts on this blog is about aesthetics, but I have not read widely on that topic. Some other important categories (e.g. religion) have been left out because I prefer not to display my ignorance.

Anyone interested in further explanation of my beliefs is welcome to ask me. Many of the relevant topics are covered in my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing. There are also relevant articles on this blog that have been written since that book was published e.g. a discussion of Richard Campbell’s views on the emergence of consciousness (here), and David Eagleman’s views on neural mapping and plasticity (here).

References

Philosophy of Mind

Campbell, Richard, The Metaphysics of Emergence, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Epistemology

Aristotle, The Complete Works (Kindle Edition), ATN Classics, 2023.

Eagleman, David, Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain, Canongate Paperback, 2021.

Huemer, Michael, Understanding Knowledge, 2022.

Metaphysics

Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Den Uyl, Douglas J, The Realist Turn, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

Human Nature

Maslow, Abraham, Toward a Psychology of Being (Chapter 14), D Van Nostrand, 1962

Ethics

 Nozick, Robert. Invariances, The Structure of the Objective World, Harvard University Press, 2001.

Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics (Translator: F.H. Peters) Online Library of Liberty, 1893

Den Uyl, Douglas J., and Douglas B Rasmussen, The Perfectionist Turn: From metanorms to metaethics, Edinburgh University Press, 2016.

Political Philosophy

Hayek, Friedrich. The Constitution of Liberty, The University of Chicago Press, 1960.

Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Den Uyl, Douglas J, Norms of Liberty, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.


Saturday, December 9, 2023

Did Ayn Rand recognize the capacity to exercise practical wisdom as a basic good?




 This question is of interest to me for two reasons. First, I am a fan of Ayn Rand’s novels. Second, in the first chapter of my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, I seek to identify the basic goods that a flourishing human could be expected to have.

My view of basic goods

The chapter identified the basic goods as: wise and well-informed self-direction, health and longevity, positive relationships, living in harmony with nature, and psychological well-being. I suggested that the exercise of wise and well-informed self-direction helps individuals to obtain other basic goods.

The chapter also noted that Aristotle saw the exercise of reason as the function that distinguishes humans from other animals and held that a good man’s purpose is to reason well (and beautifully).

I argued that individuals develop and realize their potential for wise and well-informed self-direction largely by learning from experience. I therefore accepted implicitly that it is good for adults to have a capacity to self-direct even if they make choices that on mature reflection they might later regret.

Rand’s view

Until recently, I was fairly sure that my view of what is good for humans was broadly similar to that of Ayn Rand. Some of the things she wrote suggest that impression was correct. For example, John Galt’s speech (quoted above) suggests that it is good for humans to have the capacity to exercise practical wisdom. A similar sentiment is expressed in the following passage in the chapter, ‘What is Capitalism?’ in Capitalism: The unknown ideal:

“Man’s essential characteristic is his rational faculty. Man’s mind is his basic means of survival – his only means of gaining knowledge.”

However, later in that essay, in endorsing “the objective theory” of the nature of the good, Rand rejects the idea that good can be an attribute of things in themselves:

“The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of ‘things in themselves’ nor of man’s emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value.”

It seems to me that Rand is suggesting that it would not be legitimate to say that the capacity to exercise practical wisdom – which is a thing in itself - is a good attribute for an individual to have, irrespective of how it is used. Rand seems to be implying that having the capability is only good when it is used to make evaluations according to a rational standard of value.

Grades of actuality

Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl (the Dougs) seem to me to provide a less ambiguous approach to considering the nature of the good in a recent article in which they compare their Individualistic Perfectionism (IP) to Rand’s Objectivist Ethics (OE). (‘Three Forms of Neo-Aristotelian Ethical Naturalism: A Comparison’, Reason Papers 43, 2, 14-43, 2023.)

The Dougs acknowledge that a person does not have a concept of moral good apart from the self-directed use of their conceptual capacity. The human good is individualized. It is good for a human being to engage in the act of discovering human good.

However, the Dougs suggest that the process of discovering the human good can be thought of in terms of grades of actuality:

“IP holds with Aristotle that there is a distinction between grades of actuality when it comes to living things. The first grade of actuality is the possession of a set of capacities that are also potentialities for a living thing’s second grade of actuality—that is, their actual use or deployment by a living thing. Included among the set of potentialities of a human being that comprise its first grade of actuality is the potential to exercise one’s conceptual capacity. This first grade of actuality is a cognitive-independent reality. However, when one’s conceptual capacity is exercised and used in a manner that actualizes the other potentialities that require it, then a second grade of actuality is attained. For example, one has the capacity to know one’s good and attain it (first grade of actuality), but one needs to engage in knowing and attaining it in order to be fully actualized (second grade of actuality).”

One’s inner nature

In 2008 I wrote a blog post on the topic, ‘Is our inner nature good?’. The post consisted of a discussion of the views of Abraham Maslow, Aristotle, J S Mill, David Hume, and Jonathan Haidt and Fredrik Bjorklund. My outline of the views of Abraham Maslow is reproduced below because it seems relevant to the current discussion.

Abraham Maslow suggested that humans have an inner nature or core which is good. According to Maslow this inner core is “potentiality, but not final actualization”. He argued that in principle our inner core can easily self-actualize, but this rarely happens in practice due to the many human diminution forces including fear of self-actualization and the limiting belief in society that human nature is evil (“Toward a Psychology of Being”, 1968, chapter 14).

On reflection, I am not sure that the concept of an inner nature makes much sense. However, the idea that all humans have good potentiality is appealing.

Conclusions

In my view it is good for adults to have a capacity to self-direct even if they make choices, that on mature reflection, they might later regret.

I am unsure whether Ayn Rand would have agreed. At one point she seems to imply that a capacity to exercise practical wisdom is only good when it is used to make evaluations according to a rational standard of values.

Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl offer a less ambiguous approach by recognizing different grades of actuality. They suggest that the first grade of actuality is cognitive-independent. On that basis, there is no reason to doubt that the potential to exercise practical wisdom is good.

I like the idea that all humans have good potentiality.

Postscript

My understanding of the quoted passage by Doug Rasmussen and Doug Den Uyl is as follows:

Though we must use our minds and act in the appropriate manner to self-actualize, that is, to attain our second grade of actuality, it does not follow from this that what is being actualized is merely a potentiality.  Rather, it is a cognitive-independent actuality that also has potentialities.  The distinction between actuality and potentiality in the case of living things does not require a dichotomy. It is not 'either-or'. Aristotle is subtle.

Moreover, though attaining one's second grade of actuality requires both cognition and practical actions to exist, this does not make human good simply an evaluation (which Rand claims). To hold that an objective view of human good is an evaluation is a further non sequitur.  Consider this analogy:  Phar Lap was a thoroughbred racehorse, as such he would not have existed without much human thought and effort, and in terms of the function of racehorses he was very good.  But the reality of his goodness did not consist in our evaluation of him as good but in how well he fulfilled his function. The same is so for human beings, mutatis mutandis.  Humans attaining their second-grade of actuality does require cognitive effort and choice, but this does make the goodness thereby expressed merely an evaluation.

Further Reading

I was prompted to write this contribution by my reading of two recent essays on The Savvy Street:

Ed Younkins, Objectivism and Individual Perfectionism: A Comparison; and

Roger Bissell, Ayn Rand’s Philosophy Decoded: Replies to Recent Criticisms of the Objectivist Ethics.

Roger Bissell has also responded to this essay.

I encourage anyone wishing to obtain a better understanding of the issues to read those articles as well as the article by the Dougs referred to above.


Monday, July 24, 2023

Where is the soul of libertarianism?

 


Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi have contributed an excellent history of libertarian ideas in their recently published book, The Individualists. The question I pose for myself is related to the subtitle of the book: “Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism”.

The reason Zwolinski and Tomasi refer to individualists rather than to libertarians in the main title is presumably because they believe that a commitment to “individualism is at the core of libertarianism”. They also note that many of the most intellectually active friends of liberty in Britain were known as individualists before the term libertarian caught on.

Synopsis

The authors spend some time discussing who is, or isn’t, a libertarian. They note that “libertarian” has been used in both a strict sense, to refer specifically to those who see liberty as a moral absolute, and in a broad sense, to include classical liberals who view liberty as a strong presumption. The book discusses the views of contemporary classical liberals, such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, as well as those of “strict libertarians”, but doesn’t devote much attention to historical classical liberalism.

Zwolinski and Tomasi identify six markers which form the core of a libertarian world view: private property, skepticism of authority, free markets, spontaneous order, individualism, and negative liberty. They observe that while libertarians don’t necessarily view those principles as absolutes, they typically see them “as a tightly integrated system of thought, with each commitment being supported by, and lending support to, the others”.

After providing a historical overview, the book discusses the history of radical and reactionary libertarian ideas relating to private property, libertarian anarchism, big business and free markets, poverty and spontaneous order, racial justice and individualism, and global justice and noninterventionism. Much of this information was familiar but I was surprised about how much was new to me.

Zwolinski and Tomasi’s final chapter focuses largely on the battle between bleeding heart libertarians, left libertarians and paleolibertarians for control of the libertarian party in the United States. The authors conclude that libertarianism is “intrinsically a diverse ideology”, and that “the struggle between libertarianism’s progressive and conservative tendencies, a struggle for the soul of libertarianism, is likely to go on”.

That may be an appropriate way to end a history of ideas directed to an audience composed largely of people who live in the USA. As a person who doesn’t fit into that category, however, I am concerned that describing differences of opinion as “a struggle for the soul of libertarianism” may generate more heat than light. As I see it, libertarians should be encouraged to acknowledge good ideas whether they are espoused by conservative or progressive libertarians. I would have preferred to see the book end by acknowledging that libertarians are engaged in an ongoing struggle against authoritarianism as people on opposing sides of the culture wars seek to enlist the coercive powers of the state to pursue their interests.

More fundamentally, the struggle the authors describe - about which set of political prescriptions will come to be most closely identified with the ideology – seems to me to be conducted without much reference to the soul, or essence, of libertarianism. The book left me wanting to promote the view that the soul, or essence, of libertarianism stems from the nature of human flourishing. Zwolinski and Tomasi may have good reasons for not exploring that idea more fully in their book, but it seems to me to be an idea that deserves to be given more attention.

The soul of libertarianism

In my view, the passage from Wilhelm von Humboldt quoted at the beginning of this review comes close to capturing the soul of libertarianism. Liberty is the best principle for the coexistence of humans because it offers conditions most favourable to self-directed individual flourishing.

Humboldt’s contributions influenced John Stuart Mill in writing On Liberty. They were also acknowledged by Friedrich Hayek in the conclusion of the chapter of The Constitution of Liberty discussing education and research:

“And we cannot think of better words to conclude than those of Wilhelm von Humboldt which a hundred years ago John Stuart Mill put in front of his essay On Liberty: ‘The grand, the leading principle, towards which every argument unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity’.”

Readers who are eager to know more about Humboldt will find an online article by George H Smith published on libertarianism.org to be of interest.

The discussion of egoism in The Individualists is relevant to considering the link between liberty and individual flourishing. Zwolinski and Tomasi note that in the 19th century American libertarians, such as Benjamin Tucker, were influenced by Max Stirner, a German theorist, who held that the only standard or right was the ability to transform one’s will into action. That view is in stark contrast to the ethical egoism advocated by Ayn Rand and her followers during the 20th century. Rand denied that might makes right and argued that egoism is compatible with recognition of universal natural rights.

The link between liberty and individual flourishing is recognized today in the writings of some classical liberal and libertarian authors. Doug Rasmussen and Doug Den Uyl deserve special mention because they have developed related ideas rigorously in their trilogy of books: Norms of Liberty, The Perfectionist Turn, and The Realist Turn.

Readers looking for a non-technical introduction to these ideas may find relevant discussion in various places including an article by Ed Younkins on The Savvy Street, and in my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing.  Rasmussen and Den Uyl have provided a summary of their views in Chapter 2 of The Realist Turn. A quote from the conclusion of that chapter will convey the essence of their understanding of the role of liberty in the context of human flourishing.

“In essence, natural rights represent a realization of certain normative requirements that are inherent in the individualized nature of human flourishing within a social context. In particular, when thinking about rights, we are concerned with the conditions that must be secured for the individualized nature of flourishing to function. Although liberty is the key term in this context, we regard it not as the central concept for flourishing generally, but only with regard to setting the social context for flourishing. And although we reject constructivism as a foundational principle, we recognize the role of social constructs within the constraints provided by a framework of natural rights. As such, our theory is not about the whole of political and social life, but about the political/legal structure within which such life should and must be allowed to function if flourishing is our standard.”

Conclusions

My reading of The Individualists by Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi has prompted me to present a view about the soul of libertarianism. Zwolinski and Tomasi end their excellent history of libertarian ideas by suggesting that progressive and conservative factions within libertarianism will continue to struggle over the soul of libertarianism. I put the view that the soul, or essence, of libertarianism stems from the nature of human flourishing. Wilhelm von Humboldt came close to capturing the soul of libertarianism 230 years ago when he suggested: “The highest ideal … of the co-​existence of human beings seems to me to consist in a union in which each strives to develop himself from his own innermost nature, and for his own sake”. The link between liberty and individual flourishing has been recognized by many libertarians and classical liberals, and is rigorously explained in the writings of Doug Rasmussen and Doug Den Uyl.

References

Bates, Winton, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, Hamilton Books, 2021.

Den Uyl, Douglas J., and Douglas B Rasmussen, The Perfectionist Turn: From metanorms to metaethics, Edinburgh University Press, 2016.

Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Den Uyl, Douglas J, Norms of Liberty, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.

Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Den Uyl, Douglas J, The Realist Turn, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

Smith, George H., ‘The Culture of Liberty: Wilhelm von Humboldt’, libertarianism.org, 2013.

Younkins, Edward W., ‘Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s Trilogy of Freedom and Flourishing’, The Savvy Street, 2021.




Wednesday, May 31, 2023

To what extent do international differences in personal freedom reflect people's values?

 


The accompanying graph shows that personal freedom tends to be greatest in countries where people hold the most emancipative values (on average). However, it also suggests that in some countries personal freedom is much less, or much more, than might be expected on the basis of the values commonly held by the people. For example, there is less personal freedom in Belarus than might be expected, whereas there is more personal freedom in Armenia and Georgia than might be expected.

Before going further, I need to explain what emancipative values and personal freedom actually measure.

The concept of emancipate values was developed by Christian Welzel to measure the beliefs that people hold about such matters as the importance of personal autonomy, respect for the choices people make in their personal lives, having a say in community decisions, and equality of opportunity. Welzel’s research, using data from the World Values Survey, suggests that larger numbers of people have tended to adopt emancipative values in an increasing number of societies as economic development has proceeded. The strengthening of emancipative values is explained by growth of action resources (wealth, intellectual skills, and opportunities to connect with others) rather than civic entitlements such as voting rights. As emancipative values have strengthened, more people have come to recognize the value of civic entitlements and have used their growing material resources, intellectual skills, and opportunities to connect with others, to take collective action to achieve such entitlements. The process has been ongoing, with people showing greater concern for promoting more widespread opportunities—including greater opportunities for women, ethnic minorities and the disabled—as material living standards have risen and emancipative values have strengthened. (There is more information about Welzel’s research on emancipative values here.)

The personal freedom component of the Fraser Institute’s Human Freedom Index incorporates indicators of rule of law, security and safety, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, freedom of association and civil society, freedom of expression and information, and relationship freedom.

As already noted, international differences in personal freedom don’t always reflect people’s values. The reason why that is so is fairly obvious when one looks at the country labels I have shown on the outliers in the graph. What is it that Armenia, Cyprus, and Taiwan have that Egypt, Iran, China, Belarus and Vietnam do not have?   Representative government. 

Two cheers for democracy!


Tuesday, May 16, 2023

What is holding back the growth of economic opportunities in PNG?

 


Why should you care about the economic opportunities available to the people of Papua New Guinea?  Perhaps some readers didn’t even know the location of Papua New Guinea (PNG) before looking at the accompanying map.

There is a lot to be said for the view that the people of PNG should be left to solve their own problems for themselves. However, one of the problems the people of PNG need to solve is how to reduce their dependence on foreign aid. Another problem they need to solve is how to cope with living in a part of the world in which China and the United States are increasingly competing for influence.

Joe Biden, the president of the United States is to visit Port Moresby, the capital of PNG, on May 22 for discussions with Pacific Island Forum members, while on his way to Sydney for a Quad meeting.

My personal interest in the economic opportunities available to people in PNG stems from having worked there as a consultant on economic policy, having visited as a tourist on several occasions, and not least, from having relatives who live there. I maintain an interest in economic and social development in PNG and have written about it on this blog in the past (here, here, here, and here).

In this article I suggest that opportunities for human flourishing in PNG are less promising than recent macroeconomic indicators might suggest. After considering some macro-economic indicators, I briefly discuss population statistics, corruption and profligacy, the law and order problem, poor opportunities for young people, and lack of economic freedom.

Macro-economic indicators

The World Bank’s latest Economic Update paints a fairly rosy picture, with economic growth of 4.5 percent for 2022. Government revenue from mining and petroleum taxes surged (reflecting the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on natural gas prices). The increased revenue led to a reduction in the fiscal deficit. The magnitude of public debt remains a problem, with interest payments exceeding public spending on both health and education.

Inflation at around 6 percent per annum is not unduly high by comparison with other countries, but rising food prices have made life increasingly difficult for many people in urban areas. Foreign exchange rationing, associated with pegging of the Kina against the USD, has been a hindrance to business.

Population statistics

I mention population statistics mainly because questions that have recently been raised about the reliability of official estimates of the population illustrate the existence of deep-seated problems in public administration. The official estimate of population for 2022 is between 9 and 11 million. However, a leaked UN report has suggested that the population could be as high as 17 million. In this instance, the official estimate seems more likely to be correct. However, the last credible census took place 20 years ago, so no-one really knows the size of the PNG population.

It is widely accepted that the population of PNG has been growing rapidly and that the majority of people are relatively young, probably under 25 years old.

Corruption and profligacy

Corruption is still a major problem in PNG, although there seems to have been some reduction over the last decade. Of the 180 countries included in the Corruption Perceptions Index, only 50 were rated as more corrupt than PNG in 2022.

Profligacy in spending of public money by some government ministers is legendary. For example, in 2018, when PNG hosted the APEC summit, Justin Tkatchenko attracted controversy by purchasing 40 custom-made Maserati luxury cars. He claimed that they would sell like hot cakes after the event. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. More recently, the same minister again attracted criticism for taking an overly large contingent of people with him, at public expense, to the coronation of King Charles III. It was his intemperate response, labelling critics as “primitive animals”, which eventually led to his resignation from the position of Foreign Minister.

The law-and-order problem

There has been a law-and-order problem is PNG for many years. In 2015 I wrote:

“It is unsafe for tourists to walk around most parts of Port Moresby alone except within the boundaries of major hotels, modern shopping malls and other locations where security is provided. The same applies to local residents. Tourists are more fortunate than most of the locals because they can afford to be transported safely from one secure area to another.”

It is particularly unsafe for women and girls to be in public places. A recent article on DEVPOLICYBLOG by Sharon Banuk, a university student, describes the nature of the problem that she has faced in staying safe.

PNG is ranked second, behind Venezuela, as the country with the highest number of reported crimes per 100,000 people. The ranking of PNG seems to have remained the same since 2017, having risen from 16th place in 2015.

Poor economic opportunities for young people

The law-and-order problem has been linked to the increasing problem of youth unemployment in an article by Ms. Julian Melpa for the National Research Institute. A recent study found 68 per cent of people aged between 14 to 35 in Port Moresby were unemployed. Even people with tertiary qualifications often find it difficult to obtain employment.


The difficulty of finding employment is illustrated the accompanying photo of job seekers, published with a report in The National newspaper on Feb 6, 2023. The crowd were competing for a few advertised vacancies at a hotel in Port Moresby.

Lack of economic freedom

International agencies tend to label the main deficiencies in economic freedom in countries like PNG as governance problems. That labelling may make their advice more palatable to politicians who have ideological hangups about free markets but it obscures the adverse impact of lack of economic freedom on incentives to invest, innovate and create greater opportunities for human flourishing.

Only 36 of the 176 countries included in the Heritage Foundation’s index of economic freedom have a lower ranking than PNG. A similar picture emerges from the Fraser Institute’s economic freedom ratings. Only 43 of the 165 countries included in the Fraser index have a lower economic freedom rating than PNG.

PNG has particularly low ratings for rule of law (covering property rights, judicial effectiveness, and government integrity) business freedom, and investment freedom.

PNG governments have obviously been having major problems in performing the core functions of government in protecting natural rights of individuals to be safe and have opportunities to flourish. Governments face a formidable challenge in protecting economic freedom in PNG, with most of the population living in village communities and having little contact with the market economy.

However, similar challenges face governments in some other countries. Some African countries which face similar challenges now seem to be performing better than PNG in facilitating growth of economic opportunities.

Postscript

Readers who are interested in a more comprehensive picture of the well-being of people in PNG should visit the relevant country site of The Legatum Prosperity Index. For the purpose of the Legatum index, prosperity is defined broadly as occurring "when all people have the opportunity to thrive by fulfilling their unique potential and playing their part in strengthening their communities and nations".

My article mentions a visit to PNG by Joe Biden, which was scheduled for May 22. Unfortunately, this  visit will not occur as planned because he has given higher priority to political negotiations over the U.S. government debt ceiling.  


Monday, February 27, 2023

How authoritarian are American political leaders?

 


A few days ago, I took the Political Compass test for a second time. The test, devised by politicalcompass.org , requires individuals to respond to questions which indicate where their views place them on scales labelled Authoritarian - Libertarian and Left - Right. My position had not changed since I last took the test 7 years ago (see below) but as I looked around the site, I noticed the chart (reproduced above) which suggests that the main contenders in the U.S. 2020 election held relatively authoritarian and right wing views (with Biden somewhat less authoritarian than Trump).



Does the political compass make sense?  The horizonal axis measures economic freedom, with people at the right end favoring more economic freedom. That corresponds, more or less, to the conventional left-right spectrum. The vertical axis measures personal freedom, with people whose views place them at the top end favoring greater restriction of personal freedom. It seems to me that the positioning of a person on a political compass incorporating a personal freedom axis is much more informative than attempting to position them on only one axis.  However, the labelling adopted is not ideal. To be considered a libertarian, in my view it is necessary to advocate economic freedom as well as personal freedom.

I was somewhat surprised by the placement of both Biden and Trump as favoring a relatively high level of restrictions on personal freedom. I don’t follow American politics closely enough to dispute how accurate that placement might be within that context.

However, by international standards, it would make little sense to view Biden or Trump as advocates of authoritarian policies. The policies they have advocated in their efforts to win votes have not been greatly different from those currently prevailing in the United States. By international standards, people in the U.S. have relatively high levels of personal and economic freedom.

The results of the latest Human Freedom Index, published by Cato and the Fraser Institute, can be used to illustrate the point. The Human Freedom Index is the result of painstaking efforts to compile a vast amount of data relating to economic freedom and personal freedom in 165 countries.

It is interesting to see the relative position of various countries in a comparable scatter diagram showing economic freedom and the x axis and personal freedom on the y axis. In the diagram below, which I have labelled “Ideological Map of the World”, the values on the personal freedom axis are in reverse order to make it comparable to the political compass. The horizontal and vertical lines drawn on the diagram are positioned at median levels of economic and personal freedom.



The position of the U.S. is clear from the chart. The levels of both personal freedom and economic freedom in the U.S. are comparable to those of other liberal democracies, and far greater than in China or Russia.

My libertarian friends in the U.S. may have good reasons to view their national political leaders as excessively authoritarian, but they are competing for the votes of people who, by international standards, enjoy relatively high levels of personal and economic freedom.

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

How is it possible to believe in both right to life and freedom to choose?

 


The ongoing public debate between “right to life” and “freedom to choose” advocates, seems to be falsely suggesting that a choice must be made between irreconcilable positions. The debate overlooks the legitimate reasons that people have to support both “right to life” and “freedom to choose” in different contexts. I argue in this article that opportunities for human flourishing are likely to be greatest when the political/legal order recognizes the validity of both “right to life” and “freedom to choose” in contexts where those concepts are most relevant.

The article is addressed to people who believe that our main focus in considering the appropriateness of laws relating to termination of pregnancy should be on their implications for human flourishing. I hope that includes all readers.

My starting point is the proposition that opportunities for human flourishing are likely to be greatest within a political/legal order which allows individuals with differing values to flourish in different ways without coming into conflict with each other. The underlying idea here is that individual flourishing is an inherently self-directed process. The advocates of differing values may all think that they have the best recipe for human flourishing, but no-one can flourish if they are forced to live according to values they oppose.


The “live and let live” view presented in the preceding paragraph is not original. It is explained more fully, with references to major contributors to relevant philosophy, in my book Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing.

The line of reasoning sketched above suggests that people who hold widely differing views about issues such as termination of pregnancy may be able to live in peace and seek to flourish in their own ways, provided they refrain from attempting to coerce one another to modify their behavior. Such attempted coercion usually involves groups of people using their political power to impose their will on others.  

Of course, we may have good reasons to believe that some people are seeking to flourish in ways that are unlikely to succeed. We can try to persuade them to alter their ways but use of coercion to modify their behavior has potential to reduce further their potential to flourish. Putting people into jail does tend to diminish their opportunities to flourish.

When should the legal order recognize the right to life?

To this point I have obviously been writing about behavior that does not infringe the rights of others. When behavior does infringe the rights of others, it is appropriate for it to be subject to legal constraints. Infanticide is the example that is most pertinent to the current discussion.

The proposition that infants have a right to life is not controversial. Even so, legal systems tend to recognize that extenuating circumstances are often associated with the crime of infanticide. In high-income countries, infanticide is often attributed to post-natal depression. In 18th century Britain, when infanticide more commonly occurred for economic reasons (for example, to give other children in a family a better chance of survival) it was apparently common for juries to practice “pious perjury” to avoid convicting offenders for murder. In the 19th century, laws gave explicit recognition to the possibility that extenuating circumstances might exist in cases of infanticide.

There are strong grounds to argue that late term abortion is tantamount to infanticide because the unborn child is at that stage capable of living outside the womb. It makes sense to argue on that basis that in the final weeks of pregnancy the unborn child has a right to life almost equivalent to that of an infant. The “almost” qualification is appropriate because the mother’s life may sometimes to be endangered if an unborn child is accorded the same right to life as an infant.

When should the legal order recognize that women have a right to choose?

In my view the legal order should recognize that a woman has responsibility to decide what status should be accorded the embryo in her womb in the weeks immediately following conception. She is best placed to make such judgements because the embryo is only capable of existing with the life support that she provides it.

The most common alternative is for politicians to assert that they have a right to decide the status of embryos. They may follow the advice of religious authorities, philosophers of various kinds, the majority view of electors, swinging voters, party leaders, their spouses, their best friends etc. or they may rely on their own intuitions and feelings. Some politicians argue that embryos should be sacrificed to achieve their objectives concerning optimal growth of population, or to enable other species to flourish. Others argue that abortion should be illegal because human life is precious from the moment of conception.

Politicians should show some modesty when contemplating laws that over-ride the natural rights of individual pregnant women to make judgements about the status of  the embryos in their wombs and to act according to their consciences. They have a right to seek to persuade pregnant women to adopt their views on the status of the embryo, but there is no good reason why any of their views should constrain the actions of a woman who is not persuaded by them.

There is nothing in human nature that ensures that every woman with an embryo in her womb will view it as having the status of an entity that is worthy of being provided life support, given the opportunity costs that might entail for herself and her family. If the woman does not wish to maintain life support to the embryo, the use of force to require her to do so imposes a form of involuntary servitude upon her.

The authoritarianism involved in denying women the right to choose in the early stages of pregnancy is compounded by the invasion of privacy that is required to ensure compliance with this policy.

The transition

If it is accepted that right to life should prevail at the late stages of pregnancy and that freedom to choose should prevail at the early stages, that leaves the question of what rules should apply between those stages. It makes sense for the option of termination to be progressively restricted as pregnancy proceeds, rather than legal one day and illegal the next.  

A personal view

The views presented above have focused on what should be lawful or unlawful in a society which rejects authoritarianism and recognizes the rights of individuals with differing values to flourish in different ways. The discussion has been about the ethics of alternative legal orders, rather than personal ethics.

In case anyone thinks they can infer my views on the personal ethics of abortion from what I have written above, I will make them clear now. I subscribe to the view that because human embryos have potential to become human persons they should not be lightly discarded. I think the world would be a better place if more people were persuaded to adopt to that view, but it has potential to become a much worse place if governments attempt to impose it.

Conclusions

Opportunities for human flourishing are likely to be greatest in a political/ legal order which allows individuals to flourish in different ways without coming into conflict with each other.

When behavior infringes the rights of others it is appropriate that it should be forbidden. Infanticide obviously falls into that category. It is appropriate to recognize an unborn child as having a right to life almost equivalent to that of an infant in the final weeks of pregnancy.

The issues involved in the early weeks of pregnancy are quite different because the embryo is totally dependent on a woman to provide it with life support. The woman should be recognized to have responsibility to decide the status of the embryo at that stage. If she does not consider it to have a status worthy of being provided ongoing life support, her view should be respected. Laws requiring women to provide life support against their impose a form of involuntary servitude upon them.


Tuesday, December 14, 2021

What have you been thinking about this year?


 

I expect that many readers of this blog will have spent some time this year thinking about the response of governments to the COVID-19 pandemic. That is a topic I have been thinking about, but I have not previously blogged about it this year. I wrote about it on this blog in March and October 2020. With the benefit of hindsight, I think that what I wrote then is defensible, although not particularly illuminating.I set out to write something about the costs and benefits of lockdowns a few weeks ago, but got sidetracked into considering the WELLBY approach to assessing the value of a human life. I thought I might write on that topic in this article but after some additional reading I have decided to adopt less ambitious objectives. My objectives are to consider:

  • why there is disagreement on such basic issues as whether lockdowns work;
  • whether it would be desirable to have a uniform regulatory approach in all jurisdictions; 
  • what we should learn from policies adopted in East Asia; and
  • how we should be thinking about government intervention.

Do lockdowns work?


I don’t think disagreement about the effectiveness of lockdowns can be attributed solely to the ideologically blinkers of the participants in policy debates. Some people who are not ideologically opposed to much other government regulation – including Paul Frijters, Gigi Foster, and Michael Baker (authors of The Great Covid Panic) claim that lockdowns do not prevent deaths. On the other side of the debate, some classical liberals who are opposed to much government regulation, nevertheless saw merit in lockdowns - at least during the early stage of the pandemic - to buy time to enable hospitals to prepare for an influx of patients requiring treatment.

The reasoning behind lockdowns is that if you can get people to stay far enough apart from each other, they cannot infect each other. The most obvious problem in getting people to stay at home that is that they need to go to shops to buy food and, in some instances, to deliver health and other “essential” services.  

Lockdowns seemed to suppress virus transmission in Australia in the first half of 2020. In October 2020 I suggested that the combination of self-isolation, shutdowns and lockdowns had worked well in April and May of that year. I have become more pessimistic about the efficacy of lockdowns in Australia this year.  Lockdowns seem to have become less effective in Australia in presence of more infectious strains of the virus, and a decline in public support for lockdowns which was particularly evident in Melbourne - the world’s most locked down city.

Some evidence from other parts of the world suggests that lockdowns have never been effective in reducing death rates. For example, despite its relatively elderly population, Florida did not experience higher death rates than other regions of the United States after abandoning lockdown policies.

The chart shown above (based on a survey conducted by YouGov, an international research data and analytics group) suggests an important reason why the effectiveness of lockdowns is likely to depend on context. Willingness to comply with such regulations is much higher in some countries than others. I think the relatively high compliance level in Australia reflects strong public support for the regulations rather than the substantial penalties that applied if non-compliance was detected. The regulations were difficult to police even in the presence of strong public support, and would have been impossible to police if blatant non-compliance had become widespread.

Would it be desirable to adopt a uniform approach in all jurisdictions?

Differences in support for regulation and associated differences in willingness to comply, are good reasons for different approaches to be adopted in different jurisdictions.

Frijters et al suggest a more fundamental reason why a diversity of approaches is desirable. After noting the value of state-level experiments in the United States, including the minimalist policies adopted in South Dakota, the authors suggest:

“The provocative takeaway is that the intelligence of a whole country is enhanced when it contains communities adhering to truths completely opposed to those of the intellectual elites. That takeaway is, moreover, a deep lesson from history that Western countries have embedded into their institutions over centuries. It has been remarked upon before by historians that competition between radically different systems leads Western countries to learn faster than more centralised places like China.”   

What should we learn from the policies adopted in East Asia?

The experience of East Asian countries in preventing deaths from COVD-19 has been held up as example for others to follow. For example, an article by Mingming Ma,  Shun Wang, and Fengyu Wu, published as Chapter 3 of World Happiness Report 2021, concludes as follows:

“In general, we find that the relatively successful story of the five East Asian regions, compared with the six western societies, can be attributed to the stronger and more prompt government responses and better civic cooperation. Except for Japan, all of the East Asian governments implemented more stringent mobility control and physical distancing policies, as well as more comprehensive testing and contact tracing, especially at the early stages of the outbreak. A summary of the government interventions and anti-COVID measures in the East Asian regions indicates that a combination of strong government response systems, early and rigorous mobility control, extensive screening, testing, contact tracing and isolation, coordinated resource allocation, clear communication, enforced self-protection practice, and supportive economic measures are important in fighting COVID-19 outbreaks and resurgence.”

The five East Asian jurisdictions referred to are China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. The six Western countries included in the study for comparative purposes were France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

 The authors seem to be suggesting that all the East Asian jurisdictions adopted stringent policy responses.

Frijters et al reach a different conclusion using the same data on policy stringency in a study published in Chapter 3 of The Great Covid Panic. The authors group countries and regions into three categories, Minimalists, Pragmatists, and Covid Cults, on the basis of the stringency of the average stringency of their policies during 2020. They found that the minimalists had far fewer claimed Covid deaths than either the pragmatists or the cults and that the pragmatists accumulated only a little over half the death rate of the cults.

It is interesting that most of the East Asian jurisdictions referred to in the first study were classified as either minimalists or pragmatists. Taiwan and Japan were classified as minimalist, and South Korea was classified as pragmatist. The United States and most European countries were classified as cults, along with China, Australia and New Zealand.

It is certainly difficult to maintain that stringency has been a major factor explaining the relative success of policy responses in the East Asia region.  I am not sure what other conclusions can be drawn, except that further study will be required if we are to learn from the experiences of countries adopting different policy responses.

How should we be thinking about government intervention?

Many politicians and other commentators seem to imply that apart from lives lost (or saved) the only other factor that needs to be considered in evaluating policy responses to COVID-19 is their impact on GDP. Far too little account is taken of the future consequences of increases in public debt that have been incurred to support people during lockdowns and the psychological impacts of restricting social interactions for long periods.

When freedom is mentioned by advocates of stringent regulation, it is often viewed as something frivolous that must be sacrificed to prevent deaths from Covid. That is the way a bureaucrat might view the options if given prevention of deaths from Covid as a key performance indicator (KPI). Within that mindset, freedom must be sacrificed to a sufficient extent to ensure that lockdowns work. Prevention of deaths from Covid is seen as being of utmost importance. Just as some soldiers have claimed that they had to destroy villages in order to save them, the single-minded advocates of lockdowns seem to be willing to destroy people’s lives in order to save them.

I am not implying that freedom is more important than health, or that liberty is more important than human flourishing. I am just suggesting that it is unhelpful to view the issues in that way.  

About 15 years ago, after reading some of the writings of Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl, I realized that it makes no sense to think in terms of a need to choose whether priority should be given to liberty or to human flourishing. Human flourishing does not exist apart from the flourishing of individuals, and the flourishing of individuals is not possible without opportunities for self-direction. Once we recognize the importance of self-direction to individual flourishing, that poses the question of what rules of the game – or political / legal order - would allow greatest opportunities for individual self-direction. Liberty is the answer! The protection of individual liberty – or the natural rights of individuals – provides the context in which individuals can flourish in different ways, provided they do not interfere with the rights of others. (You can find further explanation and links to the works of Rasmussen and Den Uyl in my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing.)

Recognition of the foundational role of liberty doesn’t tell us what rules of the game should apply in a pandemic. However, it does tell us that we should be looking for rules of just conduct that would provide an appropriate balance between the different interests of individuals in getting on with their lives and avoiding exposure to infection.

The discussion earlier in this article suggests:

  • The most appropriate rules in any society must depend, to a large extent, on the degree of support for them.
  • A diversity of approaches in different jurisdictions is highly desirable to provide greater opportunities to learn from the experience of others.
  • Different interpretations of the East Asian experience suggests that some caution is required to ensure that we learn the right lessons from the experience of others.

Thursday, November 25, 2021

How useful is the WELLBY concept in assessing the benefits and costs of alternative policies?


 

There are good reasons why public policy discussions often revolve around the benefits and costs of alternative policies. Discussions that begin with the consideration of rights often require participants to acknowledge conflicting rights and to weigh up consequences in a search for the principles that can most appropriately be applied.

For example, consider what followed when I suggested recently in a discussion of the merits of lockdowns to counter the spread of COVID19 that such policies should be assessed against the principle that individuals have a right to direct their own flourishing, provided they do not interfere with the similar rights of other people. The latter part of that assertion implies a willingness to consider whether infected people who spread disease are interfering with the rights of others. At an early stage of the discussion, I acknowledged that it would be a step too far to insist that everyone has the right to recklessly endanger the lives of others. I argued that there should nevertheless be a presumption in favour of freedom, and that those who advocate restriction of freedom should be required to demonstrate that the benefits clearly exceed the costs.

That illustrates how the discussion of benefits and costs tends to rule the roost in civilized discussions of public policy. An exchange of different views about rights can be enlightening, but endless repetition of conflicting assertions about rights does not qualify as civilized discussion in my view.

A WELLBY (or Wellbeing Year) is equal to a one-point increment on a 10-point life satisfaction scale. If you assessed your level of life satisfaction as 8/10 in 2019 and 7/10 in 2020, that would be a decline of one WELLBY.

I began thinking about the WELLBY concept while considering how it is possible to measure the costs and benefits of lockdowns, but in this article, I will focus on the usefulness of that concept rather than on the question of whether benefits of lockdowns could ever exceed the associated costs.

Assessing the psychological cost of lockdowns

Indicators of subjective well-being are obviously relevant in assessing the psychological costs associated with policies that require people to stay at home. Available evidence suggests that lockdowns caused a decline in average life satisfaction of about half a point in the UK and similar countries in the
period to March 2021. On that basis, Paul Frijters, Gigi Foster, and Michael Baker estimate that lockdowns cause loss of life satisfaction to the general public in the U.K. of 41,667 WELLBYs per million citizens for each month of lockdown. This estimate is in Chapter 5 of their book, The Great Covid Panic, 2021.

I think that is an appropriate use of the WELLBY concept. If anyone knows of a better way to assess the psychological costs of lockdowns, I would be interested to know what it is.

Frijters, Foster, and Baker incorporate several other items in their assessment of the costs of lockdowns. I will consider one of those later, but I want to turn now to use of the WELLBY concept in the assessment of the main hypothetical benefit of lockdowns, namely lives potentially saved.

Assessing the value of a life saved

Richard Layard and Ekaterina Oparina have published a provocative article using a WELLBY approach to assess the monetary value of preventing the loss of one year of human life (Chapter 8 of World Happiness Report, 2021).

Layard and Oparina begin their discussion by observing that the average WELLBY is 7.5 in advanced countries. On that basis, they claim that preventing the loss of one year of the life of one person saves 7.5 WELLBYs.

The authors draw upon information on the relationship between income and life satisfaction in order to assess the monetary value of that loss. After some discussion of relevant research, they suggest that a coefficient of 0.3 is an appropriate measure of the impact on life satisfaction of a unit change in absolute log income. With average income of $30, 000, the loss of $1 is equivalent to 1/100,000 WELLBYs (0.3/30,000). It follows, they suggest, that “we” should be willing to pay up to around $750, 000 to save a year of life (7.5 WELLBYs).

Layard and Oparina point out that the $750, 000 would be shared over the whole population. Nevertheless, it still seems an extremely large sum to pay to prolong a life by just one year.

One possible source of error is that life may have no value for people with very low life satisfaction, for example those with a rating less than 2/10. If you assume that a life year is equivalent to 5.5 WELLBYs (7.5 minus 2.0), the estimated sum that “we” should be willing to pay to prolong life by one year is reduced to $550, 000. That still seems implausibly high.

The estimate could be further reduced by taking account of the fact that the people who are most vulnerable to COVID19 often have pre-existing ailments that would tend to reduce their life satisfaction, and many of those in nursing homes would be unlikely to live another year in any case.

However, let us return to the question of whether $550,000 is a plausible estimate of what “we” should be prepared to pay to prolong by one year the life of a person with an average life satisfaction rating. An alternative way to approach the issue of determining the monetary value of a year of life is to consider estimates of the impact of changes in healthy life expectancy on average life satisfaction. Regression analysis suggests that the addition of one year to healthy life expectancy adds only 0.033 to average life satisfaction (Table 2.1, World Happiness Report, 2019). The income loss providing an equivalent loss of life satisfaction is only $3,300 (0.033*100,000). That strikes me as an implausibly low estimate of the value of a year of life.

My view of what is a plausible estimate of the value of one year of life is not based solely on my own gut feelings. The assumed value of a life year in cost-benefit analysis typically ranges from $50, 000 to $250, 000. Those assumptions are based on surveys asking people how much they would be willing to pay to extend their lives and estimates of amounts people need to be paid to accept jobs involving greater risks to life.

Estimates of the value of a year of life within that range seem to be broadly consistent with community expectations. Some groups may lobby for lives to be valued more highly in assessing whether life-saving drugs should be subsidized by governments. However, I don’t see large numbers of people suggesting that they would be willing to pay higher taxes to fund that.

There seems to me to be a fundamental problem in attempting to assess the value of a life-year from the relationship between average income and average WELLBYs. As I explain in Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, psychological well-being is just one of the basic goods of a flourishing human. When you ask individuals open-ended questions about how they are faring, their responses are not confined to the extent that they are “satisfied” with life. They are likely to talk about whether they are achieving their aspirations, the state of their health and their personal relationships. If you ask a person who already has high life satisfaction why they aspire to earn a higher income, they are not likely to claim that they expect a higher income to enable them to become more satisfied with their own life. They are more likely to say that they want to put some money aside for various reasons, for example to assist with education of children or grandchildren, or to have something to fall back on in the event of illness.

If an individual is faced with a decision about whether to use accumulated wealth (or to mortgage their house) to purchase an expensive drug that might prolong their life for a year, the quality of that extended life (WELBYs) is not the only factor that they are likely to consider. The choice they make may well give consideration to their desire to improve opportunities available to the next generation of their family. There is an intergenerational choice involved in placing a value on an additional year of life.

What value should be placed on the lives of potential humans?

Frijters, Foster, and Baker include among the costs of lockdown the shutting down of the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) program during lockdowns in the UK because it was deemed to be a nonessential service. This resulted in about 30 fewer IVF births per million citizens per month of lockdown.

The cost of disruption of the IVF program is not critical to the authors’ conclusion that the cost of lockdowns exceed the benefits. Nevertheless, in my view there is a strong case for it to be taken into account. Potential parents clearly place a high value on the new lives that the program makes possible.

However, the methodology which Frijters, Foster, and Baker use to estimate the cost of disruption of the IVF program is a straightforward application of the WELBY concept to value lives. They calculate that each of these potential humans could be expected to enjoy 480 WELLBYs during his or her life – each is assumed to have a value equal to 6 WELLBYs and to live on average for 80 years. With the loss of 30 IVF babies per month, that amounts to the loss of 14,400 WELLBYs worth of human well-being per month per million citizens.

The reasoning is impeccable if you accept the utilitarian assumptions associated with use of the WELLBY concept to measure the value of a human life. Within that framework, if government policies prevent potential humans from being born, that diminishes the sum of human happiness by the amount of happiness they would have enjoyed during their lifetimes.

I have already indicated that I don’t accept that people value their own lives exclusively on the basis of WELLBYs. However, if I have not yet persuaded you to reject the WELLBY approach to evaluation of lives, you may wish to consider the following possible outcome of applying that approach.

Let us suppose that a government is considering a ban on all forms of contraception and seeks the services of some utilitarian advocates of maximization of human happiness to evaluate the costs and benefits of the proposal. It seems reasonable to predict that the utilitarians would conclude that the additional births resulting from the policy change would result in a large net increase in WELLBYs, and therefore an increase in the sum of human happiness. The more, the merrier they might say!

Conclusions

The WELLBY concept has a useful role to play in evaluation of some policies that have an impact on psychological well-being.

However, the valuation of lives according to the number of WELLBYs individuals might enjoy seems to be at variance with the approach that individuals take in making choices in relation to extension of their own lives. That approach to valuing lives is widely at variance with the approach most people in advanced countries adopt in considering the value of potential lives of the many additional humans that they could bring into the world if they felt inclined to do so. It counts the lives of potential people as having equal value to the lives of the living.

The WELLBY approach to valuation of human life should be rejected.


Postscript

A survey conducted by UBS has provided relevant information on the proportion of wealth that investors are willing to sacrifice for additional years of life. The survey covered 5,000 wealthy investors in 10 countries. On average, those with financial wealth in the $1 to $2 million range indicated that they were willing to give up 32% of their wealth for an additional decade of healthy living. That may seem a lot, but amounts to only $32,000 to $64,000 per annum when spread over 10 years.

Those figures are far lower than the $750,000 (discussed above) that an application of the WELLBY approach to life evaluation has suggested that “we” should be willing to pay to save a year of life.