SHOULD CITIZENS OF A WELFARE STATE BE TRANSFORMED INTO “QUEENS”?

Mathias Risse

Economics and Philosophy, 2005, vol. 21, issue 2, 291-303

Abstract: Motivation, agency, and public policy: of knights and knaves, pawns and queens, by Julian Le Grand, Oxford University Press, 2003, 230 pages.Julian Le Grand offers an account of public policy that arranges views along two axes: a motivational axis, along which individuals can be knights or knaves, and an agency axis, along which they can be pawns or queens. Knaves are concerned to further their self-interest, understood broadly in terms of whatever people may care about. Following Hume, Le Grand calls such characters “knaves,” but this has no automatic connotations with illegal activities. Knights, on the other hand, are motivated to help others for no private reward, even to the detriment of their interests. Pawns, like the pieces on the chess board, are passive victims of circumstances, unable to make responsible choices. Queens do make such choices: they are empowered agents responsible for their fates.

Date: 2005
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