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Public Policy-Making as Practical Reasoning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Ronald Manzer
Ronald Manzer
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

Public policies can be understood as practical judgments which involve both self-regarding prudential reasoning and other-regarding moral reasoning. A general model of decision-making that has an adequate concept of policy rationality should have a place for both kinds of practical reasoning. Two paradigms of decision-making have dominated contemporary studies of public policy-making, but neither meets this test. Pluralist-exchange models assume that the reasons backing policy decisions are always self-regarding. Elitist-planning models assume they are exclusively other-regarding. Because each of the paradigms separately produces only partial models of decision-making, they must be used together to provide a full account of public policy-making.

Résumé

Les politiques publiques peuvent être considérées comme étant des jugements d'ordre pratique impliquant à la fois des raisonnements prudentiels intéressés et des raisonnements moraux altruistiques. Un modèle général de prise de décision offrant une conceptualisation adéquate de la rationalité décisionnelle devrait pouvoir accommoder ces deux sortes de raisonnement pratique. Deux paradigmes ont dominés les études contemporaines sur la prise de décision publique, cependant ni l'un ni I'autre rencontre ce barème. Les modèles « pluralist-exchange » partent de la présupposition que ce sont toujours des raisons intéressées qui sous-tendent les choix de politiques. Les modèles « elitist-planning » assument que ce sont exclusivement des raisons altruistiques. Puisque séparément ces deux paradigmes ne nous offrent que des modèles partiels de la prise de décision, ils doivent done étre utilisés conjointement afin de nous donner un compte rendu compte rendu complet de la prise de décision publique.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 1984 , pp. 577 - 594
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1984

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References

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2 See Gauthier, David, Practical Reasoning (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 1.Google Scholar The possible application of Gauthier's work initially was suggested to me by reading Graham Orpwood's excellent thesis, “The Logic of Curriculum Policy Deliberation: An Analytic Study from Science Education” (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Toronto, 1981).Google Scholar I am also grateful to Professor William Abbott, Department of Philosophy, University of Waterloo, for helping me to understand the importance of Gauthier's contribution to contemporary moral philosophy.

3 Ibid., 3.

4 Gauthier makes the point that practical judgments are action-guiding not action-determining. He recognizes that very often we act on present desires or inclinations against what we know to be the reasonable course of action. “Unless the criterion for what I judge best to do is assumed to be what I decide to do–and this is to beg the question–it cannot be supposed impossible for me to decide and act against my judgment” (Ibid., 13).

5 Ibid., 43-44.

6 Ibid., 49; emphasis in the original. Gauthier argues that only a practical judgment produced after limited deliberation is useful because the time to deliberate is limited. Such a limited practical judgment still serves to explain or justify action. “ In general, a practical argument is satisfactory if the arguer takes reasonable care to determine the sufficiency of the basis, recognizing that to presume to know the agent's future history, whether the agent be himself or another, is absurd. If reflection does not suggest the presence or probable future presence of wants sufficiently compelling to over-ride those considered, if the situation in which the action must be performed is carefully assessed, if the consequences of the more promising actions are examined, then it is probable that the action proposed in the consequent judgment will be the most desirable one for the agent to perform.”

7 Ibid., 90; emphasis in the original.

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