NOTE : this paper was delivered at the PDG Conference, Braziers Park, May 2000.
I doubt if many readers of this Newsletter would deny that it is desirable to accord individuals a large amount of personal freedom and that they should have the liberty to make choices for themselves over a large number of items which impinge upon their well-being. Western (and many other) societies embody such principles, albeit sometimes imperfectly: people are often accorded freedom in their choices of job, marriage partner, friends, political and religious affiliation, place of abode, leisure activities and so on. Of course this freedom is not entirely unconstrained, and there may be good reasons for some constraints, but certain types of interference with people's choices are widely frowned upon.
Also, many of us probably adopt an approach to many social and ethical problems which might be described without too much inaccuracy as `utilitarian', although this is something we might do only implicitly. Our approach may not be too different from the classical utilitarianism of Mill and Bentham, according to which social policy should maximise the sum of utilities of the population. Perhaps we can describe our approach as `welfarist', something which is broader than, although it includes, utilitarianism. The idea is that what matters in evaluating any policy is its effect on people, and its desirability or otherwise depends on these effects. It is hence consequentialist, but a particular type of consequentialism. We can think of whether a policy benefits or harms individuals, obtain some idea of the extent to which it does this and thus obtain some measure of the impact of the policy, which may be thought to be desirable if, on balance, the benefits to those who gain outweigh the losses to those who suffer. Many debates on policy can be put within such a framework. For example, it might be argued that capital punishment is desirable since it deters murder and by so doing saves more lives than it costs. (Perhaps I should add that I do not accept this argument - I wish merely to illustrate the point that many debates and discussions about ethical issues and policies take place within such a framework. An opponent of capital punishment might argue that in fact it does not deter, so that it costs more lives than it saves, and so is unjustified on welfarist grounds, and so on.)
The question I wish to consider in this article is whether freedom can be given a `welfarist' justification. I shall also outline such a justification, and explore some of the implications of these views. But first of all, why is it necessary or desirable to do this? Might it not be argued that freedom is a basic right which does not need defending? But such a position is unsatisfactory. Often, the question of whether someone's freedom should be infringed is raised and we need criteria to help us think about these cases. Examples abound - laws against certain types of drugs, for the compulsory wearing of seat belts and against assisting suicides. These are issues over which reasonable people disagree and we need criteria to help us make decisions on these things.
It might be thought that there is a basic incompatibility between freedom and utilitarianism - that promoting the `greatest happiness of the greatest number' may involve highly coercive, Brave New World type policies. I believe this position is unjustified and that a reasonable defence of freedom on welfarist grounds can be given. The basic point concerns information - how does the government, or whoever carries out the policies designed to maximise utility, actually know what policies will do this? Information is incomplete. But, over and above this, information is asymmetric - all individuals do not possess the same (limited) information. Some people know things that others do not. Furthermore, some of the things people know (but others do not) are important for their well-being. Consider, for example, someone's choice of where to live or marriage partner. The relevant information is quite complex and not at all easy to communicate - in fact, it may be `tacit' or intrinsically non-communicable. The solution is to allow people to make their own choices about these things. They have an incentive to make the decision they consider to be in their own best interest. Of course there may need to be constraints if the decisions affect the well-being of others. But here, the price system may offer (to some extent) a solution. My decision to purchase something from a supplier at a price he is quoting does impinge on his welfare, but presumably in a positive direction - otherwise, he would not be willing to carry out the transaction.
So the idea is that allowing people freedom over certain actions is an efficient way of allowing the imperfect and asymmetric information that is spread throughout society to be harnessed to the social good. Restrictions on freedom may be justified when people's actions impinge on others' welfare (this point has of course been recognised by many others, most notably Mill), as mentioned above, although ingenious use of the price system may enlarge the area of unconstrained personal choice. What insights does such a view provide into reasons for restricting freedom? It is easy to give a justification for certain restrictions on freedom, for example the prohibition of shouting `fire' in a crowded cinema (unless, presumably, there is a fire). How about arguments for paternalistic intervention? By this is meant interventions of various types designed to protect people from themselves - policies to force people to do things for their own good. The compulsory wearing of seat belts is a good example. One might argue that sometimes, people always do not make fully rational decisions. And occasionally, the consequences of so doing may be horrific. So, I would argue, we may be justified in forcing people to take actions which they would take if they were fully rational and had the right information.
An example may clarify the point. Suppose someone is standing under a tree which, unbeknownst to him, is about to fall on him. He is clearly lacking information about something which is pretty crucial for his welfare! An obvious solution would be to provide the information - to shout him a warning, which will induce him to take the appropriate remedial action. However, one can imagine circumstances where this is not possible - for example, the person threatened by the tree might be deaf or not understand the language spoken by the warner. In this case, it being impossible to convey the information in time, it may be justified to use coercive action by, for example, pushing the threatened individual out of the path of the tree.
This approach, that information, or rather its absence, lies at the heart of the case for justifying paternalistic intervention or coercion (where it is justified), obviously needs further discussion, analysis and debate. However, I would argue that this is the way to analyse the problem. This article is merely intended to suggest that this approach should be explored further.
Coercion may be justified if one person's actions impinge negatively on another's well being. However, what is not always realised is that such constraints or coercion can make everyone better off. This is the message of the celebrated prisoners' dilemma, a well-known problem of game theory. Consider the situation where two prisoners stand accused of a certain crime. Each has the choice between confessing and not confessing. If both confess, both get five years in jail. If neither confesses, each receives one year. However, if one confesses and the other does not then the non-confessor receives ten years whilst the confessor is freed. It can easily be seen that each prisoner's best action is to confess. If the other agent does not confess, then confessing beats not confessing. But equally if the other agent does confess, confessing still beats not confessing. So both end up confessing, and both go to jail for five years. However, both would be better off if they failed to confess and received just one year in jail. The moral of the story is that individual rationality and free choice may not produce a socially desirable outcome; coercion may make everyone better off; in terms of the prisoners' dilemma, if the prisoners could agree that a confessor gets an additional term of slightly more than five years, they both will rationally fail to co-operate, and hence produce the outcome that is best for the prisoners. Many societal problems can be argued to be, in essence, prisoners' dilemmas. Would we expect individuals to offer to contribute to buy a public good (a good that benefits everyone and the benefits of which cannot be excluded from anyone)? If each agent's contribution does not affect the probability that the public good is provided, then it is rational for each agent not to contribute; however, everyone may be better off if everyone contributes than if no one contributes. So there may be a case for compulsory contributions by means of taxation.
The prisoners' dilemma shows the complexity of social decision making - what may be in everyone's own interest may not be in society's interests. However, the lessons of the prisoners' dilemma are not always appreciated. Sometimes it is argued that the prisoners' dilemma would be solved if agents could communicate before making their decision. However, mere communication will not solve the problem; each agent will still have an incentive to confess rather than not confess - agents have no reason to believe that a promise not to confess will be kept. Of course, it would be different if agents could enter into binding agreements not to confess. But prisoners' dilemmas often occur at the societal level, with millions of agents involved, when coming to a binding, voluntary agreement would be prohibitively expensive.
Another erroneous assertion sometimes made about the prisoners' dilemma is that such problems would be solved with altruism. Although the particular prisoners' dilemma illustrated above may be solved if agents were altruistic (e.g., if they cared solely about the well-being of the other prisoner), it is quite easy to construct altruists' dilemmas, where everyone's behaving altruistically makes everyone worse off (in terms of an appropriately defined welfare criterion) than if everyone behaved selfishly. However, one should certainly not draw the conclusion that it would not be desirable if everyone became more altruistic - I think it probably would be. Rather, the message is that the situation is complex, and that there may be circumstances in which more altruism may in fact make things worse.
My conclusion is that a welfarist approach to social issues is of some value, and that it is possible to reconcile our deeply held conviction that freedom is desirable with such an approach. Also, social issues and policy are not straightforward; there is a complex interaction between institutions and the motivations and actions of individuals, and policy makers need to take these interactions carefully into account.
John Fender