Daniel Hausman

:Contemporary behavioural economics has documented common failures of reasoning that apparently make possible policies that benefit individuals by contravening or correcting their judgements. These policies appear to be paternalistic, even though a traditional view would deny that they are paternalistic on the grounds that policies such as nudges do not restrict individual liberty. It appears to many that a new definition of paternalism that takes its cue from behavioural economics is needed. Furthermore, if one revises the definition of paternalism, one must revisit traditional views concerning whether paternalist policies are wise. In Government Paternalism, Julian Le Grand and Bill New make a valuable start, although some corrections are needed. This essay provides a general setting for revising the definition of paternalism and suggests a revised definition of paternalism.

This essay responds to the helpful criticisms of Valuing Health: Well-Being, Freedom, and Suffering, which have been offered by Elselijn Kingma, Adam Oliver, Anna Alexandrova, Alex Voorhoeve, Erik Nord and James Wilson. I am extremely grateful to Jonathan Wolf and especially James Wilson for arranging a one-day conference on my book, Valuing Health: Well-Being, Freedom, and Suffering [Hausman, D.. Valuing Health: Well-Being, Freedom, and Suffering. Oxford: Oxford University Press.], and for publishing this symposium. I am also grateful to the wonderful six scholars who took the time to study my work and to offer perceptive and helpful criticisms. Without unduly trying the patience of readers, I cannot respond to all their remarks, but I hope that in what follows I have replied to the most important of their comments on the arguments and conclusions of Valuing Health. Before I begin these replies, a brief synopsis of Valuing Health may be helpful to the reader.

Preferences are the central notion in mainstream economic theory, yet economists say little about what preferences are. This article argues that preferences in mainstream positive economics are comparative evaluations with respect to everything relevant to value or choice, and it argues against three mistaken views of preferences: (1) that they are matters of taste, concerning which rational assessment is inappropriate, (2) that preferences coincide with judgments of expected self-interested benefit, and (3) that preferences can be defined in terms of choices.

Chapter 5 is an essay on the methodology of equilibrium theory. In the course of examining recent controversies concerning lawlike claims and "assumptions" in economic theory, I reach a position similar to J. S. Mill's. Neo-classical economics is what Mill would call "a separate science." It follows a deductive method, since its basic laws supported by everyday experience. In its general equilibrium formulation, equilibrium theory possesses, however, no explanatory worth and very little explanatory importance, since its idealizations are not legitimate. General equilibrium theory ought fundamentally to be regarded as an explanation of how economic equilibrium is possible. ;In conclusion I argue that Sraffa's contribution is a legitimate form of economic theorizing. Those methodological views, like Lionel Robbins', which would proscribe the sort of piecemeal theorizing Sraffa exemplifies, are, as methodological strictures, unjustified. In fact they involve an ideological distortion. Given the weaknesses in general equilibrium theory identified in Chapters 3 and 5, one has good reason to be eclectic. The Austrian theory, despite the Cambridge criticisms, may be useful in some investigations. A much more segmented economics built around Sraffa's work may have a great deal to teach us. Theories of capital, interest and exchange value currently are underdeveloped, unsupported, and subject to ideological influence. ;In Chapter 3 one special formulation of intertemporal general equilibrium theory is examined. I argue that general equilibrium theory may be taken as a theory of the rate of interest to which the Cambridge criticisms do not apply. Puzzles remain, however, concerning both the apparently lawlike claims and the unrealistic stipulations concerning background conditions that general equilibrium theory makes. ;In Chapter 4 Sraffa's system in The Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is presented and tentatively assessed. I argue that it is consistent with equilibrium theory, but may be combined with other claims that are not consistent with equilibrium theory. What is puzzling but, I argue, methodologically legitimate in Sraffa's work is that he takes as givens factors like the composition of output, that are themselves subject to further economic analysis. Sraffa's work, when properly understood, can prove valuable to Marxian economists. ;Chapter 1 establishes a contrast between physical cost and marginal utility theories of exchange value and examines why issues concerning capital and interest are theoretically central to both theories. I point out that physical cost theories of value are not tenable. ;Chapter 2 is concerned with simplified aggregate capital theories, especially Wicksell's Austrian theory of capital, and with the Cambridge criticisms of such theories. The Cambridge criticisms show, I conclude, that aggregative capital theories make unwarranted economic claims. ;This dissertation examines from both an economic and a philosophical perspective controversies concerning the theory of capital and interest and the relationship of capital and interest to exchange value. The fundamentals of the neo-classical and neo-Ricardian approaches to economic theory are made explicit and compared. The neo-Ricardian approach is partially defended

The risks to groups posed by research involving human beings—including genetics research—should be conceived of as a species of third-party risks. The important task of protecting third parties from the risks posed by the conduct and the findings of research should not be assigned to IRBs because they are not designed or equipped to handle such a broad responsibility. The serious problems raised by third-party risks require an integration of policy-making and regulation that is beyond the scope and competence of IRBs

The truth about health care policy lies between two exaggerated views: a market view in which individuals purchase their own health care from profit maximizing health-care firms and a control view in which costs are controlled by regulations limiting which treatments health insurance will pay for. This essay suggests a way to avoid on the one hand the suffering, unfairness, and abandonment of solidarity entailed by the market view and, on the other hand, to diminish the inflexibility and inefficiency of the control view. It suggests that the way to mitigate these problems is to recognize the malleability of motivation and the range of factors, in addition to financial incentives, that may influence the behavior of patients and especially physicians.

Constructive empiricism, Bas van fraassen's new variety of anti-Realism, Maintains that science aims at empirically adequate, Rather than true theories and that, In fully accepting a theory, One should believe only that it is empirically adequate. A theory is empirically adequate just in case it has a model in which all observable phenomena may be embedded. I challenge van fraassen's main arguments and argue that the observable/unobservable distinction will not bear the weight that van fraassen places on it

This essay develops an account of health, the functional efficiency theory, which derives from Christopher Boorse's biostatistical theory. Like the BST, the functional efficiency theory is a nonevaluative view of health, but unlike the BST, it argues that the fundamental theoretical task is to distinguish levels of efficiency with which the parts and processes within organisms and within systems within organisms function. Which of these to label as healthy or pathological is of secondary importance. Because the statistical distributions that Boorse's account relies on are distributions of functional efficiency, the functional efficiency theory arguably complements rather than challenges the BST.

People condemn inequalities for many reasons. For example, many who have no concern with distribution per se criticize inequalities in health care, because these inequalities lessen the benefits provided by the resources that are devoted to health care. Others who place no intrinsic value on distribution believe that a just society must show a special concern for those who are worst off. Some people, on the other hand, do place an intrinsic value on equality of distribution, regardless of its contribution to other goals. Derek Parfit and Larry Temkin call these people "egalitarians." I shall always employ quotation marks when referring to "egalitarians" in this special sense, because, as I shall argue, this terminology is misleading. One of its unhappy implications is that almost all egalitarians are not "egalitarians."

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis want to redirect egalitarianism away from redistribution of income and toward redistribution of assets, particularly productive assets. <1> Their main reason, apart from the fact that income redistribution is so obviously dead in the political waters, is that income redistribution lowers productivity and competitiveness, while asset redistribution raises these, and in the long run the welfare of the worst-off depends more on increasing productivity than it does on distribution. Compound interest is a wonderful thing. Young workers in an inegalitarian society growing at 5% per year making half the wages of those in an egalitarian society growing at 1/2% per year will catch up in 16 years and by the time of their retirement will have four times the income. Bowles and Gintis argue that such mathematics, which has long been an argument for inegalitarian trickle-down policies, in fact supports egalitarian asset redistributions.

The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics offers an overview of standard microeconomics and general equilibrium theory. These are not the whole of orthodox economics, and orthodox economics is not the whole of economics. But orthodox economics dominates the profession, and the theoretical core of microeconomics and general equilibrium theory – what I called ‘equilibrium theory’ – is central to most orthodox economics. Unlike many methodological works, which focus almost exclusively on the empirical problems of equilibrium theory and its applications, ISSE is also concerned with the structure, strategy and heuristics of equilibrium theorizing, and it attempts to link questions about theory appraisal to questions about structure and strategy. It is addressed both to philosophers interested in epistemological questions posed by the social sciences and to economists interested in reflecting on and improving their discipline. Its inspiration lies in the work of John Stuart Mill.

ABSTRACT Genetics research, like research in sociology and anthropology, creates risks for groups from which research subjects are drawn. This paper considers what sort of protection for groups from the risks of genetics research should be provided and by whom. The paper categorizes harms by distinguishing process‐related from outcome‐related harms and by distinguishing two kinds of group harms. It argues that calls for community engagement are justified with respect to some kinds of harms, but not with respect to others; and it cautions that community engagement may itself be harmful.