Cato Unbound: “Our Moral Sense and the Extensive State” by Gerald Gaus; Response to “Government, Bound or Unbound?” by Anthony de Jasay
Feb 14th, 2008 by Micah Tillman | Start the Discussion |
Gaus is the first to respond to de Jasay’s article (which I summarized here). His primary claim seems to be that de Jasay’s talk of “standards” (or concerns which seem to involve no “interest”) should be expanded to include our “evolved” human “moral sense.”
Government can only grow so far as people feel is morally acceptable. In fact, people will expect government to grow to fulfill what they feel to be morally required.
Gaus thinks it makes sense to talk about a moral sense which has evolved to help humans in the past survive (or something like that), which we now have to figure out how to apply in vastly different situations.
Those who wish to limit government, he says, must convince the majority of people about the apprpriate way in which to apply our moral sense. If you think government is getting too big, it’s the fault of people like you for not convincing the majority of people that they’re misunderstanding their own moral sense.
