Mark Sagoff:  ‘At the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, orWhy Political Questions Are Not All Economic’Noteson the Sagoff Article  CBA (Cost-benefit analysis) theory saysthat public money should be spent on programs that will produce the largestaggregate benefits.  Basing policy decisions on CBA is supposed to insureimpartiality and legitimate the role of policy makers.The goal of a cost-benefit analysis is to determinewhether the overall financial gain from a program will be greater than the costof implementing it.Sagoff says we are not just consumers (i.e., bearers of costs and benefits whose preferencescan only be determined objectively based on determining what we are willing topay for something); we are also citizens,or persons in the political and moral sense.Example: I can want cheap gas for myself as anindividual consumer, yet vote for higher gas taxes for everyone as acitizen.  Sagoff asks what the justification is for adopting CBAtheory as our ultimate guide for policy-making decisions.  Sagoff distinguishes between a CBA approach to makingpolicy decisions and a cost-effectiveness approach to implementing publicpolicy decisions.  Sagoff rejects a consequentialist-based ethics (inparticular, he rejects the preference utilitarianism that seems to bepresupposed by CBA theory) in favor of a Kantian conception of value accordingto which at least some values are objective (perhaps moral values, inparticular).CBA theory seems to assume, in particular, that theonly way to make policy decisions objective/impartial is by basing them on acost-benefit analysis, since all values (cultural, historical, aesthetic,moral) are subjective.  (In this context,a ‘subjectivist’ is someone who holds that all moral claims are relative toindividual preferences, and so are not true independently of what particularindividuals may believe about them).  So,the adoption of CBA theory is not value-neutral (bottom page 673, top page674).Hereare some of the more important passages to pay attention to in the Sagoffreading:What sorts of values are public values driven bypublic concerns rather than private values driven by self-interest?  Cultural, historical, aesthetic, moral—“theydepend not so much on what each person wants individually as upon what he orshe believes we stand for collectively.” (674, left)“The role of the legislator,the political role, may be more important to the individual than the role of consumer.  The person, in other words, is not to betreated as merely a bundle of preferences to be juggled in cost-benefitanalyses.  The individual is to berespected as an advocate of ideas which are to be judged in relation to thereasons for them.”  (p. 673)“Nowhere are the rights of the moderns, particularlythe rights of privacy and property, less helpful than in the area of thenatural environment.  Here the values wewish to protect—cultural, historical, aesthetic, and moral—are public values;they depend not so much upon what each person wants individually as upon whathe or she believes we stand for collectively. We refuse to regard worker health and safety as commodities; we regulatehazards as a matter of right.”  (p. 674)“If health and environmental statutes reflect a visionof society as something other than a market by requiring protections beyondwhat are efficient, then this may express not legislative ineptitude butlegislative responsiveness to public values. To deny this vision because it is economically inefficient is simply toreplace it with another vision.”  (p.673)“It is the characteristic of cost-benefit analysisthat it treats all value judgments other than those made on its behalf asnothing but statements of preference, attitude, or emotion, insofar as they arevalue judgments.  The cost-benefitanalyst regards as true the judgment that we should maximize efficiency orwealth.  The analyst believes that thisview can be backed by reason; the analyst does not regard it as a preference orwant for which he or she must be willing to pay.  The cost-benefit analyst, however, tends totreat all other normative views and recommendations as if they were nothing butsubjective reports of mental states.” (p. 674)“The individual, for Kant, is a judge of values, not amere haver of wants, and the individual judges not for himself or herselfmerely, but as a member of a relevant community or group.  The central idea in a Kantian approach toethics is that some values are more reasonable than others, and therefore havea better claim upon the assent of members of a community as such.” (p. 675)“Consider, by way of contrast, a Kantian conception ofvalue.  The individual, for Kant, is ajudge of values, not a mere haver of wants, and the individual judges not forhimself or herself merely, but as a member of a relevant community orgroup.  The central idea in a Kantianapproach to ethics is that some values are more reasonable than others andtherefore have a better claim upon the assent of members of the community assuch.”  (p. 675)“Thus Kant discusses valuation in the context not ofpsychology but of cognition.  He believesthat a person who makes a value judgment—or a policy recommendation—claims toknow what is right and not just whatis preferred.  A value judgment is like an empirical ortheoretical judgment in that it claims to be true, not merely to be felt.”(p. 675)“Our failures to make the right decisions in thesematters are failures in arithmetic, failures in wisdom, failures in taste,failures in morality—but not market failures. There are no relevant markets to have failed.  What separates these questions from those forwhich markets are appropriate is this. They involve matters of knowledge, wisdom, morality, and taste thatadmit of better or worse, right or wrong, true or false—and these conceptsdiffer from that of economic optimality.” (p. 676)“The result of this is to deny the individual statusas a cognitive being capable of responding intelligently to reasons; it reduceshim or her to a bundle of affective states. What Rogers’ therapist does to the patient the cost-benefit analyst doesto society as a whole.  The analyst isneutral among our “values”—having first imposed a theory of what value is.  This is a theory that is impartial amongvalues and for that reason fails to treat the persons who have them withrespect or concern.  It does not treatthem as persons but only as locations at which wants may be found.”  (p. 676)“A market, or quasi-market approach to arithmetic, forexample, is plainly inadequate.  Nomatter how much people are willing to pay, three will never be the square rootof six…Similarly, we do not decide to execute murderers by asking how muchbleeding hearts are willing to pay to see a person pardoned and how much hardhearts are willing to pay to see him hanged. Our failures to make the right decisions in these matters…are failuresin morality…not market failures.  Thereare no relevant markets to have failed.” (p. 676)“What separates these questions from those for whichmarkets are appropriate is this: They involve matters of knowledge, wisdom,morality, and taste that admit of better or worse, right or wrong, true orfalse—and these concepts differ from that of economic optimality.  Surely environmental questions—the protectionof wilderness, habitats, water, land, and air as well as policy towardenvironmental safety and health—involve moral and aesthetic principles and notjust economic ones.”  (p. 676)SagoffPaper TopicHow does a Kantian conception of value differ from theconception of value embodied in cost-benefit analyses?  Why does Sagoff favor the Kantian conceptionof value over the utilitarian view?Your papershould be double-spaced, with one-inch margins, using 12-point font, and nolonger than two pages.  Citations fromthe readings can be made by simply citing the relevant page numbers from thetext parenthetically at the end of a sentence or paragraph. Your only sourcesin answering the questions should be the article and the video from Singer, andthe notes provided in this document.  Inparticular, you should not use any secondary sources from the Internet.