Buckley’s Mix

Fair Governance III

Let me now strengthen the argument for perfectionism, where the government restricts individual choices to promote a moral vision, with an example that nearly everyone would find compelling from the 1964 Civil Rights Act. One of the Act’s then-controversial sections prohibited discrimination on the basis of race when people rented out rooms in their homes. Critics [...]

Fair Governance II

The case for government interference with individual preferences is usually made as a matter of paternalism, not perfectionism. That is, the claim is made that we’re really trying to make people better off or happier, not more moral. Any project to reform morals runs against the relativism of our time. Of course, the paternalist can’t be a relativist. He has to [...]

Fair Governance

I am asked to present my book, Fair Governance, on Reason TV. That will be a bit of a challenge, becuse the book can be technical and I’ll have to simplify. The book describes two principal rationales goverments might offer for interfering with personal preferences. First, the state might do so with the goal of making individuals [...]