I painfully wrote a piece on why liberty is the end of the state to further explore another related idea that I had shared earlier. Specifically, the earlier material would affect my perception on the state. Despite that, I did not say how it would affect my view of the state. This entry explains how it would affect my view of the state.
If I had concluded that happiness is the end of the state, that would effectively mean that I should be supportive of welfare state arrangement. The support for welfare state is the would be conclusion that I am uncomfortable of.
I see the purpose of welfare state as the advancement of happiness of the society that form the state; the state’s end is happiness. It seeks something similar to the joint utility function or joint happiness as mentioned previously. A welfare state seeks a “happiness floor” for its citizens. Never mind of the measurement of central tendency because that floor could be seen as a joint happiness. For the uninitiated, joint happiness is:
A democratic system may provide a mean or median happiness — mean or median joint utility function — and the state may take that as the state’s happiness.
Having a joint happiness will inevitably violate a person’s happiness. Why?
As written earlier, joint happiness does not represent non-centrists’ view or in this case, happiness. The farther a person’s utility function away from the joint happiness, the less happy a person would be. In other words, the end of the state contradicts the end of the individual, the citizens.
Perhaps an example is in order.
Let us consider a safety net called unemployment benefits. To escape debate on the effectiveness of unemployment benefits, let assume a very generous benefit that eliminates any possible effectiveness related to the state.
Also, let us assume of an unemployed person. Unemployment deprives the person from a stream of income. A prolonged unemployment later exhausts the person’s saving and eventually, zero wealth. This adversely affect the person’s happiness and brings the person’s happiness to somewhere below a joint happiness as agreed by citizens of a state to be enforced by the state. The state therefore provides unemployment benefits to the unemployed person.
Such provision however can only be possible through taxation.
For a person, let us call the person a dissenter, that disagrees with welfare state arrangement, any taxation upon the dissenter meant for unemployment benefits reduces the dissenter’s happiness. Notice how one’s happiness has to be subsidized by another person and this effectively reduces the happiness of the latter.
So, if I had concluded that the end of the state is happiness, I would have come to two conflicting conclusions. That was what was bothering so much.
p/s – another example is the film adapted from Isaac Asimov’s idea which Will Smith starred in — I, Robot. Not directly related to happiness but the reasoning is similar: citizens’ security is trampled upon for the sake of the species’ security.
