Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals

The Principle of Roughness, when it applies, implies that we should not discriminate on the basis of relatively small benefits and losses. The future changes at stake—the rest of human history being up for grabs—seem so large that relatively small changes in upfront benefits and costs, such as the dog’s broken leg, do not move the initial compariso

even if we accept the “flatline” empirical result on happiness and wealth, these self-reported happiness questionnaires are given to individuals in normal life circumstances. The answers will not pick up the ability of wealthier economies to postpone or mitigate extreme tragedies. For instance, happiness measures cannot pick up the benefits of grea

Third, we should be very cautious in our attitudes about specific policies. Even if we succeed in taking true aim at what we think are the best courses of action, the chance that we are right on the specifics—even if the chance is as high as possible—is still not very high. It’s like trying to guess at the origin of the universe. The best you can d

Rules The notion that rules and general principles can govern our choices and also our politics is a compelling one. But what does it mean to adhere to such rules and principles? We’d like to think that rules have independent power and intrinsic force, but that view is difficult to defend under fire. After all, virtually all rules have exceptions.

Wealth Plus: The total amount of value produced over a certain time period. This includes the traditional measures of economic value found in GDP statistics, but also includes measures of leisure time, household production, and environmental amenities, as summed up in a relevant measure of wealth.

Expressed differently, when it comes to non-tradable and storable assets, markets do not reflect the preferences of currently unborn individuals. The branch of economics known as welfare economics holds up perfect markets as a normative ideal, yet future generations cannot contract in today’s markets. If we were to imagine future generations engagi

If our values are to rise in importance above the froth of long-run uncertainty about the effects of our actions, we must look to relatively large and important values.

The Principle of Roughness: Outcomes can differ in complex ways. We might make a reasoned judgment that they are roughly equal in value and we should be roughly indifferent to them. After making a small improvement to one of these outcomes, we still might not be sure which is better.

As argued above, a sustainable increase in economic growth, properly understood, will boost many plural values in the medium and long runs. To be sure, some people will be worse off, and some values, in the short to medium run, will not be favored. In these respects, aggregation problems do not disappear. Nonetheless, the competing options do not g