Do people "know what's best for them"/what's "in their own interests?"

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s been said a lot in recent years that many people in America are voting against their own interests - i.e., rural folks with no health insurance voting for politicians who won’t improve their health care, etc. And that leads to a broader question: Should people be considered the best judge of what’s “good for them” or in their own self-interests?

Assuming that we’re talking about adults - few would say that a toddler should have the ultimate say in whether he gets his vaccination shots or not - then I think there is potential for slippery slope, or getting close to a slippery slope, with this line of reasoning. This talk doesn’t seem too far away from those who would criticize consensual BDSM - how could it be in a sub’s interest to get beaten and flogged? Doesn’t matter if he/she consents to it and knows full well what it entails,* “it’s not good for them.”*

Exceptions might be medical care; a doctor who has gone to medical school in most cases knows better than the patient what the patient’s body needs. But in politics or social issues, this often isn’t the case.

Does Party A have the position to tell Party B, “I know better than you what’s good for you,” assuming we’re not talking about a legal or medical situation?

2

By definition, yes. A doctor or lawyer or politician may have more knowledge of what will make you healthier, wealthier, and more economical, but they can’t tell you what to value.

Some people think smoking cigarettes is better than living to age 90. Some people think eating Big Macs every day is better than being physically fit. Some people think being an outlaw is better than having a stable, law-abiding life.

All an outsider can do is try to give the person all the relevant facts with which to make their own decisions.

3

People are the best judge of their own goals. They are not necessarily the best judge of what politicians or policies will successfully pursue these goals. So if some people prefer to “get back” at the other party, or to deny rights to people different from them, and don’t care as much for their financial situation, then their biggest goal is to see others suffer, and so that is “good for them”.

On the other hand, if a person’s goal is to decrease the deficit, and think that lowering taxes will do that, they are simply wrong. Of course it would not help to “tell” them that because no one thinks that they themselves are stupid. But just looking at all the other greater examples of self-destruction such as substance abuse will tell you that no, not everyone does know how to best achieve what’s good for them.

4

In your outlook can you find room for the rural person who doesn’t regard a politician as the best agent of good healthcare?

They should. Not because they are always right (self-damaging behaviors have always been part and parcel of human nature) but because the “we know best and we’re going to cram our ideas down your throat” approach has always been odious.

5

I agree to some extent. But like the cliche goes, people are entitled to their own opinions but they’re not entitled to their own facts.

I feel somebody should be entitled to make the decision about whether or not to smoke, for example. They can weigh the pleasures of smoking vs the health risks and make their choice about whether smoking or good health makes them happier. But a person who smokes because they deny the health risks is objectively wrong.

There’s also the issue of who has to live with the consequences of a person’s decision. A person who lives off Big Macs is going to shorten his life expectancy. But he’s not going to be shortening anyone else’s life. But a person who decides to be an outlaw is going to affecting other people’s lives by his actions. So those other people, in the form of society, have the right to deny him his choice of lifestyle.

So how does this affect public policy? First, there are situations where we need to defer to the experts. If, for example, the overwhelming consensus among scientists is the climate change is real then it should no longer be a subject for popular debate. The scientists may be a small minority among the general population but their informed knowledge outweighs public opinion.

Second, there are public policy issues where we all have to live with the consequences of a decision. To refer back to environmental regulation, you can’t say each person has the right to decide for themselves if they want to pollute the environment or not. We share a common environment. But there is no equivalent justification for saying that a person can’t marry another another person of the same gender or saying that a person can’t smoke marijuana. The government should have a minimal authority to tell individuals what to do when the consequences of their actions have minimal effects on other people.

6

Exactly. Like you said, you can’t legitimately say “smoking cigarettes is good for my health” but you can say “so what if it causes cancer? smoking is worth it”.

As for public policy, that’s a different story entirely. Someone can legitimately say “I don’t mind if the environment is polluted”, but they can’t say “therefore you shouldn’t be able to tax or prohibit certain kinds of pollution”. You know, at least not as a valid argument.

But that’s more a situation where you don’t care what is best for the other party, rather than one where you “know what’s best for them”. Maybe for some reason having a yard full of toxic sludge is best for that particular person. But as a whole, from a public policy standpoint, we just don’t care what they think because we have to take the everyone else’s opinion into account, too.

7

But should that rural person be able to say a public health care system shouldn’t exist because they don’t agree with the idea? Should a person who prefers home schooling be able to say the public education system shouldn’t exist? Should an anarchist be able to say the public legal system shouldn’t exist? These people aren’t just saying they want to personally opt out of these systems; they’re saying the system they don’t personally like shouldn’t exist for anyone.

What happens if the reasons for their opposition are based on incorrect information? Suppose the rural person is opposed to a healthcare system because he believes vaccination causes diseases and modern medicine is a conspiracy. He refuses to look at any evidence to the contrary because he believes the evidence is made up as part of the conspiracy. Can we really say this person is making informed opinions about the value of a healthcare system?

Suppose sixty percent of the population decides that fluoridating water is a communist conspiracy. Scientists are in universal agreement that fluoridation has health benefits. Who do we let set public health policy: the expert minority that knows health care or the popular majority that doesn’t?

8

Also, to a very large extent many many voters determine choices by ressentiment and provided the choice punishes, say, undeserving people on welfare or homeless people, or prisoners, or even billionaires, then even sacrificing one’s own betterment in income or social environment ( such as increase in crime ) the world’s well lost for hate.
And if course, even if one agrees with any policy, if the standard-bearer makes one vomit, such as say Ryan ( posterboy for that ressentiment above ), or Hillary, one can’t in good conscience encourage their bad behaviour even if their selections benefit you.

9

Sometimes it’s knowing what their own interests actually ARE. As in, people will vote for tax breaks for the rich because they’re not rich now, but will be soon. Or deregulation for business because they don’t own a business, but they wouldn’t want to deal with those purely regulations if they did.

10

The thing about politics is that there is almost no feedback loop so no one really knows if they have made the right decision.
One vote makes no difference in any election so someone could vote for someone who wanted the exact opposite as the voter and it would still make no difference.
Voting is a package deal so someone who loves international trade but could still vote for Trump because they are pro-life.
Making change is hard and just because you vote for someone with a policy does not mean they can do it. Someone could have voted for Obama because they wanted Gitmo closed.
Someones preferred policies may have the opposite of their intention when voting. Maybe someone votes for Trump because they think less trade will mean better jobs and it could mean worse jobs.
Because of this politics is the worst way for a society to make decisions. Government should only act when there is a consensus among experts that the policy undertaken will lead to the desired results and there is a consensus among the voters that the desired results are worth the trade offs.

11

The experts’ desired results? Or someone else’s? That’s the sticking point. Whose desires are we talking about here, and what do experts in any subject have to do with people’s personal desires?

12

All that post was very good. Thank you. I’d like to follow up on your excellent point excerpted above.

One of the interesting things about the slippery slope and local vs. non-local (or personal versus collective) consequences is how it’s a proxy for how interconnected we are as a society.

Example 1: In a country with totally private self-pay medical care reckless behavior hurts no one but the doer. Ride your motorcycle drunk without a helmet, smoke for 60 years, live on Big Macs, whatever. The adverse consequences, both bodily and financial, are 100% on you.

Example 2: In a country with totally taxpayer paid national health care that same reckless behavior costs the reckless person nothing beyond the direct bodily consequences. The reckless doer hands the rest of society the entire bill. A bill they pay while getting zero benefit from the reckless behavior.

Many of the “freedom lovers” will argue they prefer example #1. Not that they’re indifferent to risk or the value of insurance. But that they fear the potential creeping tyranny of “everything anyone does affects everyone some, so therefore everyone has a veto over anyone.”

I’m not arguing those folks are making the correct value judgment. I’m just pointing out the value judgment exists to be made.

There are a tremendous range of public policy issues that amount to “limit freedom of action because of the micro-impacts one person doing X has on lots of other unwilling bystanders.” Many folks would argue the micro impacts should be ignored as de minimis. Which they might be if only one person wanted to do X. But when many people do X the consequences get bigger.
Part of the so-called urban/rural divide is really a population density divide. Where I live absolutely anything anyone does directly impinges on a lot of people. Blow your car horn and 300 people wince at the racket. Folks who live in high density environments quickly learn to either be polite and considerate of others or to consciously actively not give a damn about anyone else and work to actively piss them off for the lulz.

By contrast, a person living low density may never even conceive of the idea that anything they do has the slightest effect on anyone else. The Earth is huge and empty; my campfire in the woods isn’t air pollution. They don’t see it as a small effect; they see it as a zero effect. Zero times many campfires is still zero. A small effect times many campfires is a large effect. That difference is a threshold issue that goes right past many people.

This loops back to the freedom argument. I, you, or all of us can get away with an infinite number of zero-impact actions without harm to each other. But we can’t all get away with lots of small-impact actions. So we should try as a society to actively prevent as many connections as possible so more actions remain zero impact and hence free for all. Or so say the freedom-firsters

The hard thing about environmental action is that the Earth is getting to be a real high density environment. Vastly more so than 100 or even 50 years ago. But it doesn’t look that way to lots of people who look and think only locally not globally.

13

This is an interesting observation I hadn’t seen before.

14

I think it’s a bit more complex than “knowing what’s in your best interest”.

Firstly, everyone’s interests are not the same.

Second, there is a bit of a Prisoner’s Dilemma when it comes to individual interests. That is to say, that everyone acting to maximize their individual outcome doesn’t always result in the greatest possible outcome.

Finally, one of the main issues is trusting that those who are put in a position of authority are actually acting in their constituents best interest, and not their own. You can tell people that “doing X, Y and Z is best for everyone as a whole”. But if they don’t believe you, they aren’t going to do it.

15

In single-payer medical systems, Pain is also a deterrent to enjoying an industrial accident or pneumonia.

16

What part of “… beyond the direct bodily consequences …” wasn’t clear to you?

17

I think this comes down to “field of view”.
Colloquially put as “When you are up to your ass in alligators, it can be difficult to remind yourself that your original intent was to drain the swamp”.

When you are looking for any watertight container to catch all the drips in the roof (you have a real roof? You lucky bastard!) and are debating if the stew you made last week is still good enough to eat…

Seeing the doctor is WAY down the list.

One tale from the lottery:
Reporter: You know that ticket has one chance in 52 million of paying off, don’t you?"
Lottery player (a bit shabby, but clean) “That’s one chance more than I’ve got now”.

OP is backing into “Benevolent Dictator” - I know what’s best for ALL (countrymen) - trust me, and you will see a perfect world.

Yes, this does kinda sound topical, doesn’t it?

18

Another similar aspect to your second paragraph is the “tragedy of the commons.” Even without a formal commons to plunder, often free-swinging individual action is depleting some shared resource we don’t think of. Such as truth or a common narrative of our society.

Your last point was especially key to recent politics in the US and in Europe. And will remain so for some years.

Many countries have seen the so-called “elites” of science, but more so politics and business simply doing what looks like looting the country for their own exclusive benefit. It’s certainly an easy charge for a rabble-rouser to make and a hard one to rebut even if the elite in question is truly blameless. And most aren’t quite that pure.

Eventually that feeds into kind of a nihilist’s version of the prisoner’s dilemma: “If a low level guy like me is screwed anyway, I sure want to take down a few fatcats on my way to hell.” Bunches of ordinary Greeks were real pleased by the idea their fatcats would finally take it in the neck. They were less pleased at what that did in turn to themselves.

19

You don’t have to talk to a Kansas farmer very long before he starts ripping into federal government farm policy. But for over a century, they kept going back to the polls every two years and putting the same old Republicans right back into Congress.

My neighbors, who borrow their rent money every month from payday loan outlets, are the voters who decide on a sound national budget and economic policy.

20

I think a logical extension of this thought is a quote from Milton Friedman. “Nobody spends someone else’s money as carefully as they spend their own.”
In the same vein nobody watches out for someone else’s best interest as they do for their own.