Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Ethics, politics, and public choice
- 2 The logic of electoral choice
- 3 The nature of expressive returns
- 4 The analytics of decisiveness
- 5 The theory of electoral outcomes: implications for public choice theory
- 6 From anecdote to analysis
- 7 Interpreting the numbers
- 8 Consensus, efficiency, and contractarian justification
- 9 Paternalism, self-paternalism, and the state
- 10 Toward a democratic morality
- 11 Constitutional implications
- Bibliography
- Index
9 - Paternalism, self-paternalism, and the state
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Ethics, politics, and public choice
- 2 The logic of electoral choice
- 3 The nature of expressive returns
- 4 The analytics of decisiveness
- 5 The theory of electoral outcomes: implications for public choice theory
- 6 From anecdote to analysis
- 7 Interpreting the numbers
- 8 Consensus, efficiency, and contractarian justification
- 9 Paternalism, self-paternalism, and the state
- 10 Toward a democratic morality
- 11 Constitutional implications
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
We cannot accept want-satisfaction as a final criterion of value because we do not in fact ourselves regard our wants as final; instead of resting in the view that there is no disputing about tastes, we dispute about them more than anything else; our most difficult problem in valuation is the evaluation of our wants themselves and our most troublesome want is the desire for wants of the “right” kind.
Frank Knight, “The Ethics of Competition”Merit goods
Some goods are underproduced and underconsumed. Least controversially, the class of such goods will include Samuelsonian public goods of varying degrees of purity (i.e., goods that exhibit significant nonappropriability and/or joint consumption characteristics). Unless market provision of such goods is supplemented by nonmarket provision of an appropriate kind, a Pareto-inferior output will result. More controversial is the existence of merit goods, items underconsumed even in ideal markets. Among the goods for which such status has been claimed are the fine arts, attendance at economics lectures, and nutritious cholesterol-free diets. And as well, there can be demerit goods – those that are overconsumed at market prices. A representative listing of contenders for this status would include heroin, cigarettes, gambling, whiskey, and perhaps rock music. While the concept of a public good can be presented in terms that may appear to be value free, it is apparent that the concept of a merit good is fundamentally and ineliminably normative.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Democracy and DecisionThe Pure Theory of Electoral Preference, pp. 143 - 166Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993
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