Lots of you recognize that I’ve a second weblog entitled “TheMoneyIllusion. Yesterday, I concluded that weblog and began a substitute, entitled The Pursuit of Happiness:
URL: scottsumner.substack.com/
Talking of happiness, here’s a query to think about:
What are the general public insurance policies that you just oppose regardless that you imagine that they might make the world a happier place in the long term?
I’m not fascinated with unrealistic hypothetical insurance policies involving fanciful creatures similar to “utility monsters”; I’m fascinated with realizing which precise actual world insurance policies you oppose even if you imagine 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 can persuade me to desert my utilitarianism.
PS. Please don’t inform me that that is the improper 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 finest. We’re like ships navigating in a dense fog. (The identical may very well be stated for Bayesian evaluation.)
Right here’s an image of Jeremy Bentham:
