"Irrationality" is a big subject in several fields of economics and is intruding on public discourse more and more. New York is debating banning the use of salt in restaurants because it can lead to high blood pressure or something, smoking faces ever more sin taxes and regulation, Libertarian or New Paternalism shows up more and more often. The underlying assumption: People are irrational and do not make the optimum choices. Therefore it is appropriate for the government or someone else to step in and encourage or force them to do what's best for them.
It's paternalistic, Father knows best reasoning.
It's also all based on, what I feel is, a very shakey assumption: The utility of some quality of life at some point in the future is greater than the utility you gain from this activity now.
I have serious doubts about this assumption. First, there is a great amount of uncertainty about the future, and uncertainty causes a rational actor to reduce the expected value of something. Look at smoking, I think they told me in high school that smoking a cigarette reduces my life expectancy by 15 minutes. Rationally, as a high schooler I should be indifferent between smoking and extra living, then, if the utility gained by enjoying that cigarette is equal to a marginal 15 minutes of life 60 or 70 years from now. However, I will only be able to enjoy those extra 15 minutes if I survive to the end of my natural life. I lose the time if I die in a car crash or break my neck in the shower or any number of possibilities, but I am certain to gain the utility of a cigarette if I light up now. Rationally, we should discount the value of future life due to the uncertainty of surviving long enough to enjoy it.
Secondly, this assumes that life in the future provides as much utility as life now, call it the time value of life. Remember to think at the margins, healthy living will add time to your life at the end of it. Is it that much of a stretch to believe that a rational actor will determine that their quality of life in their twilight years will be lower than it is now? Shouldn't the aches, pains, confusion, and indignities experienced at the end of life not affect our estimation of how much utility we gain from living at the end of our lives? If so, isn't it reasonable that a rational actor will discount the value of life at the margin and place a higher weight on activities now?
I don't have all the answers, or even all of the questions to address New Paternalists' assumptions now. But the glib assumption that people are irrational because they choose to smoke or eat fatty foods now instead of enjoying a few extra years when they're 80 seriously irk me. Someone else's preference ordering is different than yours, news at 6:00. There is no reason to assume that behavior that favor utility in the present over utility in the future are any more irrational than behaviors that prefer labor to leisure or pizza to beer.
One of the things that I have to think more about is that the utilty of life _now_ is very high, regardless of whether now is at the age of 15 or 50 or 97. We are always willing to give up a great deal to extend our life at this moment. But, should this future valuation affect our decisions now? I'm thinking this is because of a difference in relative values verses absolute values. Life in the now has a high relative value compared to life close to now. But the absolute value of life changes over time, the value of life during high school might be lower than when your children are in grade school, but higher than while you are in a nursing home. So, in that perspective, borrowing time from the end of your life through destructive behavior now might be the rational way to look at it.
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