Government incentives revisited
The perfectionism-neutrality debate
Last week I wrote about government’s use of taxes, tax credits, fees and regulations, and legal punishment to incentivize and disincentivize personal behavior, such as the homebuyers tax credit, taxes on alcohol, parking meter fees and speeding tickets. As I noted, one of the key public philosophical questions that arises is “to what ends may government incentivize/disincentivize behavior?”. This question gets at the core of a philosophical debate over whether the state should promote certain conceptions of the good life (“goods”). One side of the debate – perfectionism – claims that the state can and should promote goods. Neutrality, on the other hand, argues that the state can and must refrain from promoting the good and instead promote only “the right.”
NYU Law Professor and sometimes public philosopher, Ronald Dworkin, posits that this debate ultimately sets liberalism, which Dworkin believes is grounded in neutrality, apart from other political theories. Other liberal theorists, such as Rice University philosopher George Sher, believe perfectionism can be compatible with liberalism. In this post I want to elaborate on this debate, though within the space limitations of a blog I will just get to skim the surface.
Neutrality is the belief that the state should not act on judgments about how people lead their lives. In other words, conceptions about how one should live (say, a life of honesty or risk aversion) cannot be used to justify public policy. Instead, the state should be neutral to its citizens’ differing conceptions of the good. This position is based on the belief that people should be free to live their own legitimate (read: bounded by the constraints of justice) conception of the good for one of a number of possible reasons: because a life of value must be autonomous; because a state must be based on only agreed upon principles; or because the state won’t promote right values.
One key characteristic of neutrality is that it is neutrality of justification, not neutrality of outcome, that matters. In other words, the state may not justify public policy on the basis of a conception of the good, though, inevitably, the result of most public policies will be to promote one conception of the good or another. For example, by funding a police force and hiring on the basis of merit, a state will inevitably be incentivizing a conception of the good that values physical fitness, discipline and deference to authority. This is ok, because the state would be funding a police force not to promote these values but to ensure public safety – the promotion of values is a byproduct. On the other hand, the state could not teach these values in schools because lawmakers believe that children should hold them. This would be justifying a policy on the basis of a conception of the good.
Some will incorrectly assert that those who adopt a position of neutrality necessarily hold a subjective view of the good. This is incorrect; for while subjectivists will most likely choose neutrality over perfectionism, subjectivism about the good life is not a characteristic of neutrality. One could have very strong views about how people should live (say, that a good life is characterized by honesty) and even promote these beliefs them self, but still not believe that it is the state’s role to do so.
Perfectionism, on the other hand, is the idea that the state should encourage (though not force) its citizens to live according to a particular conception of the good; that is, by a certain value or set of values (say knowledge, excellence, honesty). Perfectionism is grounded in the beliefs that 1) It matters if people live valuable lives or not; 2) certain actions or traits have inherent value; and 3) there is no moral reason to suspend promoting values in politics that we are committed to in private.
Now perfectionists aren’t cowboy moralizers. They wouldn’t condone the state promoting the good through coercion – say arresting those that don’t life their life in a certain way. Rather, perfectionists claim that it is possible for the state to promote the good in a way that does not infringe on personal autonomy. In particular, they identify three legitimate ways that states can promote valuable ways of life: incentives (such as tax credits), non-rational acquisition (such as rewards, personal example, advertising, etc), and creating institutions that enable the way of life to flourish (such as extending official approval only to monogamous relationships).
Now remember, the debate between perfectionism and neutrality only applies to public policies that are justified on the basis of promoting a conception of the good life. So parking meters designed to promote economic development and tax breaks for buying a home are not of contention. But many other issues could be justified on grounds related to conceptions of the good life. Tax incentives for getting married could be grounded in scientific research on social stability or could be based on ideas about the nuclear family. Tax breaks for education could be designed to promote economic growth or the value of knowledge. Taxes on alcohol could exist to promote public safety or could exist to promote a life of sobriety. What matters to the public philosopher is how politicians justify these policies. So next time you come across a government incentive or disincentive, think about what it promotes and how it was justified. You may come to decide that the law you supported for one reason was actually designed to pursue another illegitimate reason.
-Marc
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- Is government intervention in obesity justified?
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- Is the homebuyers tax credit immoral?
- Health care and small government
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