Addiction

"Addiction" is one of those expansive words that mean different things to different disciplines. Here's how Psychology Today defines it:

Addiction is a condition that results when a person ingests a substance (alcohol, cocaine, nicotine) or engages in an activity (gambling) that can be pleasurable but the continued use of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary life responsibilities, such as work or relationships, or health. Users may not be aware that their behavior is out of control and causing problems for themselves and others.

Economists tremble at the lack of relative prices in this description and would insist on a mismatch of utility and cost in downstream consumption events (Becker and Murphy wrote the flagship paper on the topic). We here at EE are awfully fond of the no ex post regret condition to purposely eliminate exchange in addictive substances as candidates for euvoluntary exchange.

But could there be too much tooth in that bite? Is it possible for someone to rationally (and I mean "rationally" in the colloquial sense, not merely in the strict economists' use of the word) choose to take the first step down the road to addiction? In other words, contrast ex ante regret expectations with ex post regret expression. In 21st century America, you'd have to have been raised in the middle of a swamp by manatees to not know that smoking cigarettes is addictive, and not particularly good for your health to boot. Yet, people still routinely pick up the habit, de novo, against all available public medical advice and common sense.

Nor is it the case that heroin's well-deserved reputation for shortening one's expected lifespan is a great secret kept well-hidden from the scrying eyes of would-be junkies. Yet, surprisingly, people still shoot up from time to time. It seems as if that, even with all available rational-mind information (Kahneman's rider, rather than the elephant), people still still choose the coffin nail, or the spike, or the bottle, or the pill.

So perhaps the important question is not "is addiction euvoluntary," but rather, "what institutions might make addictive behaviors more euvoluntary?" In the black markets that arise to feed addictions, merchants may not necessarily have good incentives to monitor the quality of their wares (there are exceptions to this rule, as Andrea noted in her podcast appearance). Under prohibition, the severity and frequency of ex post regret should be expected to increase. The salient question for euvoluntary exchangeurs is whether or not there is any change to the ex ante regret calculus under legalization, and whether or not the associated tradeoff is worth it.

Note here that the empirical literature helps only so far. The tradeoff question is ultimately a value judgement. And justice is a tricky virtue, even under the most favorable circumstances.

Fiscal Externalities are not Real Externalities: Baby Execution Edition

A-Cast points us to a provocateur JME piece on "after-birth abortion" aka infanticide. ATSRTWT.

Money quote:

[T]o bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care. On these grounds, the fact that a fetus has the potential to become a person who will have an (at least) acceptable life is no reason for prohibiting abortion. Therefore, we argue that, when circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.

The authors essentially claim that the birth event is not morally relevant in the decision to terminate a pregnancy. If abortion is morally permissible, it's a non-sequitur to hold that infanticide (the authors object to the use of this word for rhetorical purposes) is immoral, so long as the only salient difference in the decision is that the organism is now located outside of the womb.

Swiftian pro-life arguments are fun to contemplate, but they'd be a lot better if they refrained from making explicitly fallacious appeals to fiscal externalities. The "burden on society" argument is one of public choice. That is, the level of care of the poor or infirm funded through public expenditure is made by the sovereign. If welfare payments are the problem with "burdensome" children, advocate for reforming the welfare system. The median voter only supports poor families by express political choice.

Of course, a Straussian reading of this piece would suggest that this frippery is what the authors want you, dear reader, to cluck your tongues at, but this is in the Journal of Medical Ethics. My priors are that they're sincere on the fiscal externalities point. More's the pity.

But on the chief argument: does birth impart full moral status on a person? Or is there more of a spectrum starting at conception and increasing logarithmically to adulthood (however that might be measured)? If early infanticide were completely legal, what would be the actual outcome? Do you suppose there would be a rash of baby murders o'er the land?

Raising children is not euvoluntary (for infants—think of their BATNA). Let's not compound the issue by confusing legitimate externalities with politically chosen "externalities". It's so rare that it's practically unheard of for a healthy human to be a net lifetime negative externality on society, and when he is, it's probably because he's chosen either a life of crime or of politics.