From Hoover Institution: Richard Epstein's Psychology vs. Public Policy

http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/120381

June 19, 2012

defining ideas

Psychology vs. Public Policy

by Richard A. Epstein (Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow and member of the Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity Task Force)

Why do moral intuitions break down in complex social institutions?

"What is needed is a system of strong property rights so that people who differ on how they wish to live their lives can do so without getting permission from the dominant faction. At that point, they can adopt any allocation of resources they see fit, including charitable contributions. The key issues are for government to control force, fraud, and monopoly, and to create public institutions, including infrastructure (which it is easy to mess up). It ought to achieve these ends without making government the supreme sovereign in the area of individual rights, so that every election does not become an invitation for a major flip-flop from one extreme to another. Our instincts about two-party transactions don’t help to resolve these large-scale structural issues. A much more powerful and self-conscious theory of social welfare is needed to bridge that gap. "