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Smoking &
Libertarianism: Amartya Sen's article and J C Lester's reply
J. C. LESTER
***
Financial Times
Unrestrained smoking is a libertarian half-way house
By Amartya Sen
Published: February 12 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 12 2007 02:00
Proposals, including those in Britain and France, for fairly draconian bans on
smoking in public places have caused much anger and protest. This is as it
should be, since the issue is controversial. But the contrary arguments demand
critical scrutiny. One line of critique questions the use of statistical
evidence for policymaking. Another invokes the importance of liberty to do
what one likes in one's own life.
David Hockney, the distinguished artist, has argued that he has read "all
their statistics" about the connection between smoking and disease, but
he must observe that "fate plays part in life, that mysterious forces are
at work on life": "Medical statisticians cannot grasp this, but
almost everyone else does." What, then, should we make of such
foundational doubts about the relevance of statistical reasoning?
This is, in fact, nostalgic territory for me personally. As a young student at
Cambridge in the 1950s, I listened with rapt attention to Professor R. A.
Fisher, perhaps the leading statistical theorist of his time, questioning the
use by Richard Doll, the renowned medical scientist, of statistical evidence
linking smoking with cancer. I was fascinated by the debate for many different
reasons, not the least of which was the thoroughly personal one that I did
smoke for four years from the age of 14 (it seemed to me, then, to be a very
reasonable gesture of defiance) but ended
up with cancer of the mouth when I was just 18 (I was lucky enough to get by
with massive radiational treatment in Calcutta, though not without some
long-lasting penalties).
Of course, my own experience may well have been a fluke and certainly just one
case would prove nothing. But I do not see how we can rely on invoking
"mysterious forces" and ignore arguments based on assessments of
likelihood (Fisher, in fact, offered a different explanation of the observed
connection, which proved unsustainable).
As far as public policy goes, group statistics can still be used to predict
group results with some degree of certainty. It has been estimated by public
health experts such as Professor Prabhat Jha and his colleagues that more than
5m premature deaths per year are currently connected with the use of tobacco.
Unless smoking trends change, there would be about 150m tobacco-related deaths
in the first quarter of this century, which would rise to 300m in the second
quarter.
A seemingly more plausible argument, based on the value of freedom, has been
presented against smoking bans by Martin Wolf on these pages ("The
absurdities of a ban on smoking," June 23, 2006). People have the right
to do what they like with their own lives. While there is possible harm from
breathing in smoke from others ("passive smoking"), that is not in
itself decisive. Mr Wolf argued that while "harm to others is a necessary
justification" for interfering with liberty, "it is not
sufficient". "Intervention should also be," he went on to
argue, "both effective and carry costs proportionate to likely
gains."
I agree with Mr Wolf that freedom is centrally important. But how should we
see the demands of freedom when habit-forming behaviour today restricts the
freedom of the same person in the future? Once acquired, the habit of smoking
is hard to kick, and it can be asked, with some plausibility, whether youthful
smokers have an unqualified right to place their future selves in such
bondage.
A similar issue was addressed by the leading apostle of liberty, John Stuart
Mill, when he argued against a person's freedom to sell himself or herself in
slavery. Mill concluded his discussion of this issue, in On Liberty, by
noting: "The principle of freedom cannot require that the person be free
not to be free", and that "it is not freedom to be allowed to
alienate his freedom". Mill's principle may demand more discussion but it
is important that the practical case for tobacco control is not dismissed on
the basis of an incomplete libertarian argument.
Another question to ask is: who exactly are the "others" who are
affected? Passive smokers are not the only people who might be harmed. If
smokers are made ill by their decision to go on smoking, then the society can
either take the view that these victims of self-choice have no claim to public
resources (such as the National Health Service or social safety nets), or more
leniently (and I believe more reasonably) it could accept that these people
still qualify to get social help. If the former, we would live in a
monstrously unforgiving society; and happily I do not see Britain or France
going that way. If the latter, then the interests of "others" would
surely be affected through the sharing of the costs of public services.
Libertarian logic for non-interference, when consistently explored, can have
extraordinarily stern implications in invalidating the right to assistance
from the society when one is hit by self-harming behaviour. If that annulment
is not accepted,
then the case for libertarian "immunity" from interference is also
correspondingly undermined.
We should not readily agree to be held captive in a half-way house erected by
an inadequate assessment of the demands of liberty.
***
The writer, who received the 1998 Nobel Prize for economics, is Lamont
university professor at Harvard University and former master of Trinity
College, Cambridge
http://www.ft.com/cms
Subject:
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: re "Unrestrained smoking is a libertarian half-way
house", by Amartya Sen (February 12, 2007)
Dr J C Lester
February 14th 2007
Dear Sir,
re "Unrestrained smoking is a libertarian half-way house", by
Amartya Sen (February 12, 2007). Liberty is not Professor Sen's forté. Some
libertarian corrections:
1. Any harm from "passive smoking" is self-inflicted when one is voluntarily on premises where smoking is allowed by the owner. Therefore, there is no libertarian case at all for restricting it.
2. Harm to others is not a "necessary justification" for interfering with liberty. We may harm others with their consent (such as in a boxing match).
3. No "habit-forming behaviour" ever "restricts the freedom of the same person in the future." Firstly, this has nothing to do with having our freedom (or liberty) restricted by the interference of others, which is what libertarianism is about. Second, there is nothing to stop us from choosing to put up with any temporary withdrawal symptoms.
4. John Stuart Mill was simply mistaken to write of someone's selling himself into slavery that, "it is not freedom to be allowed to alienate his freedom". If someone chooses to alienate any of his freedom by contract, or even completely by suicide, then clearly that is his decision and it would be an invasion of his liberty to stop him. (Though comparing acquiring the habit of smoking with a slave contract is absurd.)
5. There is no such moral agent or organisation as "society" that can judge smokers. Professor Sen can only mean agents of the state. And the NHS is not a "public resource", it is a state resource. These are euphemisms for unlibertarian collectivism.
6. The revenue from tobacco taxation is many times the
amount that the NHS allegedly spends on smoking-related health problems. So
it is the non-smokers who are being subsidised at the coerced expense of the
smokers.
The "half-way house erected by an inadequate assessment of the demands of
liberty" would, if completed, give smokers much more liberty than
now, and certainly more than Professor Sen would like. However, if private
health insurance replaced the disastrous universal "free at the
point of consumption" NHS, then we might expect smokers to think twice
when they see the immediate and ongoing financial costs to themselves of
their behaviour.
Yours sincerely,
J C Lester
***
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"I have limited the selection to the books I have read. I keep to the norm of not recommending to others books I have yet to read. Clearly, books I have not read by now suggests a judgement of some sort."
