I began to write a long comment about how to possibly identify poverty-restoring forces, but I think we actually should take a step back and ask: Why do we care about poverty in the first place? ”The utility function is not up for grabs” Sure, but poverty seems like a rather complex idea to really be directly in our utility function, instead of instrumentally. “Well we care about poverty because it causes suffering” Ok. But why not just talk about reducing suffering then? ”Suffering can have multiple causes. It is helpful to focus on a single cause at a time to produce solutions” Sure—but we just said we don’t know what causes it, so that’s not why. Why don’t we just talk about eliminating suffering? ”Because that would feel too...utilitarian. Too sterile. Cancer is unfortunate, but poverty is just wrong.” And that’s exactly it I think—we care about ‘poverty’ in particular because we care about justice. There is something worse about someone dying of a preventable disease. So poverty is not simply a state of resources or of hedonic experiences. It’s not even about the poor. Someone suffering of an unpreventable cause is unfortunate. They only become poor once others have the ability to help them and doesn’t. We also care about suffering for itself, but poverty is actually a moral defect we see in the other humans who don’t help.
Once we frame the discussion this way, it becomes easy to see why universal basic income might not fix human moral defects.*
*And even if we object that poverty is not about just the moral defect, but about it also indirectly causing suffering , it is still much easier to see why UBI might not prevent human moral defects from indirectly causing suffering.
I began to write a long comment about how to possibly identify poverty-restoring forces, but I think we actually should take a step back and ask:
Why do we care about poverty in the first place?
”The utility function is not up for grabs”
Sure, but poverty seems like a rather complex idea to really be directly in our utility function, instead of instrumentally.
“Well we care about poverty because it causes suffering”
Ok. But why not just talk about reducing suffering then?
”Suffering can have multiple causes. It is helpful to focus on a single cause at a time to produce solutions”
Sure—but we just said we don’t know what causes it, so that’s not why. Why don’t we just talk about eliminating suffering?
”Because that would feel too...utilitarian. Too sterile. Cancer is unfortunate, but poverty is just wrong.”
And that’s exactly it I think—we care about ‘poverty’ in particular because we care about justice. There is something worse about someone dying of a preventable disease. So poverty is not simply a state of resources or of hedonic experiences. It’s not even about the poor. Someone suffering of an unpreventable cause is unfortunate. They only become poor once others have the ability to help them and doesn’t. We also care about suffering for itself, but poverty is actually a moral defect we see in the other humans who don’t help.
Once we frame the discussion this way, it becomes easy to see why universal basic income might not fix human moral defects.*
*And even if we object that poverty is not about just the moral defect, but about it also indirectly causing suffering , it is still much easier to see why UBI might not prevent human moral defects from indirectly causing suffering.