some other kind.
282
Thus, consideration of costs and benefits is not confined
to financial costs and benefits but extends to all types. Nothing is excluded
since the process entails a total evaluation of all effects regardless of their
nature. For example, a fairer distribution of income and behaving
compassionately would both constitute effects to be acknowledged and
evaluated.
Uncertainty
Trying to predict the effect that a statute or meaning of a statute will cause is
not a very scientific endeavour, so that there is usually some degree, often a
considerable degree, of guesswork in deciding that Statute X or Meaning X
will cause Effect X. As discussed later, there are at least three ways of coping
with this uncertainty – disjointed incrementalism, expected value and review of
legislation and judicial decisions.
283
Values
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
284
Policy entails determining then pursuing the best outcome. Determining the
best outcome involves evaluation. This raises the question of how a legislature
or court should decide the values which should be deployed in the task of
making and interpreting law. Broadly, there are two possibilities. One is the
objective view -
that there is a universal and identifiable set of values that
should govern all human conduct including the tasks of making and
interpreting law; the other is the subjective view that those who make decisions
decide for themselves which values to invoke. These are canvassed in later
discussion where the conclusion is made that in principle the subjective view is
correct. Consequently there is not complete uniformity of values, although in
fact some or even many values are widely shared within a community.
285
Model for Policy
The risk is that the present generation of leaders will turn out to be more
focused on the mechanics of politics that the art of government.
286
___________________
282
For discussion of the limitations of economic analysis on its own when
applied to public policy making see Arup (1982).
283
Chapters 13-16
284
This is a proverb or popular saying. In Latin it is extremis malis extrema
remedia, literally extreme remedies for extreme illnesses. In the 1964 Presidential
Campaign a candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater, expressed similar sentiments in
arguing that "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice”.
285
Chapter 19 Choice of Values
286
Tony Abbott “Revisions for Mr Reforms” The Weekend
Australian
26-27
September 2009 “The Inquirer” p 6
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