The School for Moral Ambition (SMA) describes itself as a movement of idealists taking on the world’s most pressing problems. Their proposed campaign to ‘abolish the tobacco industry altogether’ is one of their more ambitious proposals. This would require governments to override the consumption choices of the roughly one in five adults globally who use tobacco.
SMA quickly dismisses the idea that these billions of adults are making free choices about what to put into their bodies, stating
But if regretted choices are treated as non-choices, the implication is extremely broad: many of us regret our social media use, diet, screen time, or sleep habits. We generally do not conclude from this that the state should control those behaviors. It is also ironic SMA chooses alcohol as an example of a more permissible industry, given that they eventually aim to target that industry, as well as junk food, in further campaigns. They also neglect to mention that most cigarette consumers report benefits from their use.
SMA further states
What about the decision to start smoking? Isn’t that a free choice? This idea doesn’t hold up either, because the vast majority of smokers start lighting up in their teens. Research by the Trimbos Institute found that the average age at which people in the Netherlands take up smoking is 17, and that two-thirds start before reaching 18 (and almost all smokers start before the age of 26). Plus, the younger smokers are when they start, the more cigarettes they smoke and the harder it is for them to quit. When you lay out the facts, we’re dealing with a product that hooks people at a young age, right when their brains are most susceptible to nicotine. So, just how is that a “free choice”?
Even if we grant that those who started smoking before adulthood are not making a free choice to continue smoking, the conclusion would not be that all adult smoking lacks autonomy or that a blanket abolition is justified. SMA does not argue that two-thirds of the industry should be abolished; they argue for abolishing the entire thing.
Those making the case for tobacco abolition will cite statistics on the health cost; years of life lost, increase in incidence of respiratory illness. But this is a one sided perspective, considering only one side of the ledger—the lessened health from smoking—and not the other side: the benefits the smokers gain (which, by revealed preference, outweigh the health costs in the minds of the smokers.) This is the fundamental problem with analyses of the impact of tobacco control policy, such as Open Philanthropy’s and Givewell’s; these analyses implicitly assume that health is the dominant or overriding component of welfare, a assumption rarely defended explicitly.
...is up to the individual to determine the kind of life he will lead—a short one, including what he considers to be pleasurable activities, or a longer one, without such enjoyment. Since there is no objective criterion for such choices, there is nothing irrational or even suspect about any choice on the spectrum. One may choose to maximize the possibility of longevity, even if this means the renunciation of liquor, tobacco, gambling, sex, travel, crossing the street, heated debate, and strenuous exercise. Or, one may choose to engage in any or all of these activities, even if that means a shortened lifespan
‘No objective criterion’ may be going to far. If we believe in an objective morality we may believe some tradeoffs between pleasure and longevity are intrinsically more valid than others. But how confident should we be? Confident enough to use the state to force specific answers to these tradeoffs upon the public?
According to Jackson et al. (2024), smoking a cigarette decreases life expectancy by approximately 20 minutes. Is it not possible a rational person would forgo 20 minutes of life for a short pleasure (to say nothing of the possible social and emotional-regulation benefits)? I fail to see how this choice is different in kind from that of someone who waits in a tedious line to see a performance, or who risks death by hiking a treacherous trail to access a remote peak.
If the SMA is confident the costs of tobacco are never worth the harms to consumers, they can attempt to educate the public of this fact and to assist those who choose to quit. But before trying to enforce this view upon others, they should remember their core principle of epistemic humility as stated on their webpage; “the world is complicated, and there are many things we don’t know or aren’t sure about.”
Epistemic Humility vs. Tobacco Abolition
The School for Moral Ambition (SMA) describes itself as a movement of idealists taking on the world’s most pressing problems. Their proposed campaign to ‘abolish the tobacco industry altogether’ is one of their more ambitious proposals. This would require governments to override the consumption choices of the roughly one in five adults globally who use tobacco.
SMA quickly dismisses the idea that these billions of adults are making free choices about what to put into their bodies, stating
But if regretted choices are treated as non-choices, the implication is extremely broad: many of us regret our social media use, diet, screen time, or sleep habits. We generally do not conclude from this that the state should control those behaviors. It is also ironic SMA chooses alcohol as an example of a more permissible industry, given that they eventually aim to target that industry, as well as junk food, in further campaigns. They also neglect to mention that most cigarette consumers report benefits from their use.
SMA further states
Even if we grant that those who started smoking before adulthood are not making a free choice to continue smoking, the conclusion would not be that all adult smoking lacks autonomy or that a blanket abolition is justified. SMA does not argue that two-thirds of the industry should be abolished; they argue for abolishing the entire thing.
Those making the case for tobacco abolition will cite statistics on the health cost; years of life lost, increase in incidence of respiratory illness. But this is a one sided perspective, considering only one side of the ledger—the lessened health from smoking—and not the other side: the benefits the smokers gain (which, by revealed preference, outweigh the health costs in the minds of the smokers.) This is the fundamental problem with analyses of the impact of tobacco control policy, such as Open Philanthropy’s and Givewell’s; these analyses implicitly assume that health is the dominant or overriding component of welfare, a assumption rarely defended explicitly.
As economist Walter Block puts it in ‘Defending the Undefendable’
‘No objective criterion’ may be going to far. If we believe in an objective morality we may believe some tradeoffs between pleasure and longevity are intrinsically more valid than others. But how confident should we be? Confident enough to use the state to force specific answers to these tradeoffs upon the public?
According to Jackson et al. (2024), smoking a cigarette decreases life expectancy by approximately 20 minutes. Is it not possible a rational person would forgo 20 minutes of life for a short pleasure (to say nothing of the possible social and emotional-regulation benefits)? I fail to see how this choice is different in kind from that of someone who waits in a tedious line to see a performance, or who risks death by hiking a treacherous trail to access a remote peak.
If the SMA is confident the costs of tobacco are never worth the harms to consumers, they can attempt to educate the public of this fact and to assist those who choose to quit. But before trying to enforce this view upon others, they should remember their core principle of epistemic humility as stated on their webpage; “the world is complicated, and there are many things we don’t know or aren’t sure about.”