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by Jeff_Brown 1100 days ago
As long as the laws and their enforcement are just, a theoretical government profit motive doesn't seem like a bad thing.

But it's hard to see how the particular people who brought this case to bear would be motivated by the small slice of the increase in federal funding that would redound to them. And it's not consistent with most of the government's behavior -- it doesn't spend as many resources extracting judgments from big corporations as would be likely if its profit motive loomed large.
1 comments
BSEdlMMldESB 1100 days ago
no, you gotta be much more deep in your reasoning this "high" up

philosophically, at this height, the principle of "justice" is to not so simple... what does it even mean "to be just"? may as well say "be good" but the point is that the issue is good for whom?

the concept is "Empire"... USA government is the empire? aside question: can there ever exist multiple "empires"? monotheistic~ally speaking?

uff... My English prose is answering its own questions... I am no longer deeply disturbed by this phenomenon... but it's not something scientifically real so it still shakes me.

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Jeff_Brown 1100 days ago
Philosophers seem to delight in the idea that the common good is hard to define. I'm an economist. I don't see much wiggle room. The wiggle room that exists is:

(1) How much do you care about whom? In particular, do you care equally about everyone, or are you a jerk?

(2) How do you weight the relative value of things like money, health, longevity, entertainment?

(3) At what rate does the marginal utility of such things diminish?

Okay maybe that's a lot of wiggle room. Still, under any reasonable set of weights, making millions of people sick is not worth the money 3M made.

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