Abstract
One rationale policy-makers sometimes give for declining to fund a service or intervention is on the grounds that it would be ‘unaffordable’, which is to say, that the total cost of providing the service or intervention for all eligible recipients would exceed the budget limit. But does the mere fact that a service or intervention is unaffordable present a reason not to fund it? Thus far, the philosophical literature has remained largely silent on this issue. However, in this article, we consider this kind of thinking in depth. Albeit with certain important caveats, we argue that the use of affordability criteria in matters of public financing commits what Parfit might have called a ‘mistake in moral mathematics’. First, it fails to abide by what we term a principle of ‘non-perfectionism’ in moral action: the mere fact that it is practically impossible for you to do all the good that you have reason to do does not present a reason not to do whatever good you can do. And second, when used as a means of arbitrating between which services to fund, affordability criteria can lead to a kind of ‘numerical discrimination’. Various attendant issues around fairness and lotteries are also discussed.
Highlights
One rationale policy-makers sometimes give for declining to fund a service or intervention is on the grounds that it would be ‘unaffordable’, which is to say, that the total cost of providing the service or intervention for all eligible recipients would exceed the budget limit
The question of whether ‘affordability’ necessarily ought to present a bar to public funding opens up a host of interrelated normative questions, including perfectionism in moral action, matters of fairness between persons and the moral arbitrariness of group membership
Even when employed solely as a means of deciding between services, we argue that the use of an affordability criterion in funding decisions leads to a kind of ‘numerical discrimination’; that is, it unjustly penalises some potential recipients for the morally arbitrary property of happening to belong to a group of a certain size
Summary
One rationale policy-makers sometimes give for declining to fund a service or intervention is on the grounds that it would be ‘unaffordable’, which is to say, that the total cost of providing the service or intervention for all eligible recipients would exceed the budget limit. It appears clear that, such is the strictness of the conditions under which this kind of argument could be made, it is generally true that policy-makers ought not deny funding to an intervention merely because its total cost is such that it is practically impossible for us to provide it for all those who would be eligible.
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