Category Archives: Regulation

Bruce Ivins was suspected of being the anthrax killer and recently committed suicide.  Ivins was a Ph.D. MICROBIOLOGIST who worked for the U.S. military and according to his therapist was a SOCIOPATH and HOMICIDAL KILLER.

Just how much damage could a sociopathic, homicidal killing microbiologist do?  If the blind idiot God of evolution can develop microorganisms that kill millions, what could an observant, intelligent microbiologist accomplish? 

Should governments perhaps force all microbiologists to be evaluated to determine if they are sociopaths?  After all, if employees of the Department of Commerce have to undergo background checks before they can see classified commerce related information, shouldn’t microbiologists be subject to some kind of governmental screening process?

My newly published parable, saying we should be clearer on what justifies our paternalism, or be less paternalistic:

Imagine finding yourself near someone about to walk off a cliff. If he seems distracted enough to not notice a crucial bend in the cliff edge, you might feel quite justified in grabbing his arm, to stop him from falling. You might even expect his gratitude.

But what if he seems well aware of the cliff before him? Well, if he seems crazy, either permanently insane or temporarily drugged, you might still grab him. You might also grab him if you knew his family would miss him terribly. In such cases you might at least expect gratitude from his family, his caretaker, or his future sober self. And if you were morally outraged enough by the very idea of walking off a cliff, you might grab him no matter who was grateful or offended.

But what if, aside from the whole cliff thing, he seems no crazier or immoral than most? What if his action mainly affected only him? What if the cliff was only five feet tall, or 20 feet tall over deep water, or if he walked near the cliff at what he considered a close but safe distance? You might still think of grabbing his arm, if you thought you understood something important that he did not. Perhaps you know the wind is unusually gusty, or the ground is unusually slippery. Perhaps there is no time to explain, or he doesn’t understand your language.

But what if he does understand you, and there is time enough to say "Watch out! That cliff is dangerous." If he dismisses your concern and does not back away, would that justify your intervention? Well we can’t very well allow anyone to intervene in anyone else’s life anytime they feel like it. So if you persist in grabbing we might let him sue you for assault.

But what if you were not alone? What if a great many of you also thought him careless? What if you lived in a democracy and could get enough voters to pass a law banning cliff-walking? Perhaps your law requires tall fences, or threatens to jail those who approach cliffs. Are you justified now?  Even in this situation, you are arrogant if you do not at least consider the possibility the cliff-walker knows what he is doing. …

Read the whole thing here.

Memo to self: check Will Wilkinson more often.  From last week:

I say, again and again, that it is an embarrassing non-sequitur to argue that people are "irrational" and then leap to the conclusion that they need benevolent paternal guidance from the state. After all, if people are irrational then voters are irrational, politicians are irrational, bureaucrats are irrational, etc. … There is no way to wriggle out of the fact that people who win elections are just like the rest of us. … I don’t doubt that non-terrible policies are sometimes successfully enacted. To doubt that would be a bit like a market skeptic doubting that anyone ever succeeds in buying a candy bar. That would be terrifically dense. What I doubt, very strongly, is that the discovery of "irrationalities" undermines the authority of market institutions more than it undermines the authority of government institutions.

Similar words have often escaped my lips.  Let me put it this way.  We each realize, to varying degrees, that we have various "irrational" tendencies, and there are many possible advisors, mechanisms, and institutions that we could rely on to help us mitigate these tendencies.  We can think twice about decisions, we can ask for advice, we can empower advisors to veto our decisions, we can join groups that make decisions together, we can seek out contexts where such problems are minimized, or we can endorse politicians who empower regulators to create and enforce rules.  It is not enough to show that we seem to have a certain problem and that a certain regulation might plausibly mitigate it.  The question is the relative value of this last option, government regulation, compared to all the other ways we might deal with our "irrationalities."

Added 7Mar: George McGovern, ’72 Demo Pres Candidate, is now against paternalism. HT: Arnold Kling. 

The fourth film adaptation of Jack Finney’s 1955 novel Invasion of the Body Snatchers, this time with Nicole Kidman, is now out on dvd.  It doesn’t seem to be anyone’s favorite, but it does re-raise an interesting thought experiment in paternalism.  After all, in this movie "pod people" retain their memories and their new "culture" makes them happy, serene, cooperative, and peaceful.  Their main crimes are:

• a flatter emotional tone,
• a foreign origin, and
• converting others by force

But similar complaints apply to giving kids Ritalin, pushing upper class culture in the inner city, or pushing western culture in the third world.  Now hard-line libertarians can consistently oppose using government power to purse such policies, even if they really benefit people.  But what about the rest of you?  Are happy people with the emotional range, peace, and productivity of a typical engineer really such a horror?  From the view of non-libertarian pod people, doesn’t it make sense to force everyone else to convert? 

In yesterday’s Post, philosopher Martin Bunzl says:

I spend most of my waking hours worrying about how to reduce my output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Yet my behavior seems to march to a different drummer. I need to get the best deal. For me, not the world. When it comes to what counts as the best deal, my values don’t get incorporated into the calculation. I am attuned only to price. And I don’t think I am alone in this.

Fine, you say. Big deal. The solution is obvious: We adjust the price to make the "right thing" priced right for me. But here is another problem — when it comes to pricing I am totally irrational. Offer me two washing machines, one that is more expensive now but more efficient over its lifetime, and hence cheaper in the long run, and I’ll choose the one that is cheaper now. … 

Continue reading "I Dare You Bunzl" »

Worried about teens taking risks tonight, on New Year’s Eve?  Most people think teens take too many risks, and so we should limit the risks teens can take, for their own good.  And from the usual lectures we give teens, it seems we think teens underestimate the rate and severity of bad events.  But in fact, a recent NYT says teens overestimate drug and sex risks:

Scientific studies have shown that adolescents are very well aware of their vulnerability and that they actually overestimate their risk of suffering negative effects from activities like drinking and unprotected sex.

Continue reading "Honest Teen Paternalism" »