We should not try to ban the use of "the public
good" on the grounds that it is imprecise, an attraction to
demogogues and a tool for ideological hegemony, nor try to define
it narrowly (except for the limited operational purposes of a particular
analysis), but instead appreciate the way the concept acts linguistically
and politically as a site for contesting meanings. Historically,
Plato and Adam Smith, among others, have attempted to show in different
ways that the public interest and individual interests were compatible,
while medieval christian thought opposed the two. The game theoretic
structure of a prisoners' dilemma indicates the kinds of analytical
mistakes earlier theorists made. It also suggests that the altruistic
motivations of love and duty, which operate independently from material
reward, must nevertheless be "nested" within a social
and economic structure that materially rewards such motivations
in order that the motivations not be extinguished by social learning
and evolutionary selection.
Jane Mansbridge,Department of Political Science, Northwestern
University
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