DOCSLIB.ORG

Cost-Benefit Analysis and Procedural Values

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Cost-Benefit Analysis and Procedural Values Douglas MacLean Cost-Benefit Analysis and Procedural Values Abstract: One argwnent against using cost-benefit analysis to justifY policies aimed at promoting human life and health or protecting the environment is that it requires putting a price on priceless goods. This distorts the value of these goods, and it can affect their value by cheapening them. This argwnent might be rejected by a moral consequentialist who believes that a rational agent should always be able to reflect on his values, even priceless goods, and assess their costs and their importance. This article defends the argwnent against cost-benefit analysis and suggests that a proper understanding of priceless goods shows that they also raise difficulties for consequentialist moral theories. In 1981, Steven Kelman published an article entitled "Cost-Benefit Analysis: An Ethical Critique" (Kelman 1981). It was written not for philosophers, but for policy makers, scientists, and other professionals and analysts who have an inter­ est in public policy, and it appeared at a time when debates surrounding cost­ benefit analysis in the US had reached a near feverish pitch. The article received considerable attention, prompting critical attacks with replies in the next two issues of the journal in which it appeared. It survives today as an often reprinted article in textbooks and anthologies in which cost-benefit analysis is a subject. 1. Kelman's Objections to Cost-Benefit Analysis Kelman focused explicitly on "cost-benefit analysis as applied to environmental, safety, and health regulation" (Kelman 1981, 33) and he raised three kinds of objections to its use in these areas. The first was a claim that cost-benefit analysis is basically an application of utilitarian moral theory. Utilitarianism, he claimed, is subject to serious criticisms as a moral theory and is therefore rejected by a majority of philosophers today. He remarked that, "it is amazing that economists can proceed in unanimous endorsement of cost-benefit analysis as if unaware that their conceptual framework is highly controversial in the discipline from which it arose - moral philosophy" (Kelman 1981, 34). Kelman's second and third objec­ tions addressed the problems involved in putting dollar values on non-marketed goods. His second objection was that the best methods for doing this are not very good. Few analysts would want to dispute this claim. Two general methods have been developed for assigning surrogate prices to goods like extended life, Analyse & Kritik 16 (1994), S. 166-180 © Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen Cost-Benefit Analysis and Procedural Values 167 improved health, and environmental protection. The first looks at behavior that implicitly reveals a willingness to pay for non-marketed goods. Clean air, for example, is not marketed, but houses in more or less polluted areas are. The premiums people pay for houses in environmentally desirable areas should reveal an implicit economic value for cleaner air. But many factors determine why prices vary for houses in different areas and why people choose to live in one area rather than another. It is a daunting task to attempt to isolate a factor that correlates with preferences for pollution levels. To take another example, life is not marketed, but jobs with greater risk of death are. Some analysts have looked at wage differentials for occupations that have different risk levels but are otherwise similar, in order to reveal the implicit price of accepting an incremental risk of dying. In order for wage differentials to reveal the price of a risk of death, however, workers must be aware of the levels of risk they face, they must be free to choose different jobs with different risk levels, and they must be satisfied with their compensation for the level of risk they have accepted. These are rather strong assumptions, and it is a rare situation in which they are all well justified. These examples indicate the kinds of problems we face when we look at economic behavior to reveal preferences for non-marketed goods. An alternative method for attributing prices to non-marketed goods is to ask people directly what they would be willing to pay for them if the goods were marketed. Here the worry is whether people will express their true preferences when they answer the questions that are put to them. There are several problems, one of which is that the preferences people express in these situations can be artifacts of the way the questions are framed. Kelman mentions studies that show that the expressed preference for environmental protection varies significantly according to whether people are asked how much they would be willing to pay for a good that they do not own or how much they would demand in compensation to give up a good that they do own. In many cases the question can be framed either way. We can assume that people have a right to live in a safe and healthy envi­ ronment and ask them how much they would demand to give up some of this good, or we can assume a somewhat risky status quo and ask how much people would be willing to pay for better health or a cleaner environment. The expressed preference for the good will be determined by the assumptions that guide the framing of the questions. These objections are well known to economists. Nobody pretends that the methods for revealing or expressing preferences yield precise prices for non­ marketed goods. The question is whether they can generate information that is useful enough for making the necessary comparisons, and whether cost-benefit methods, rough though they are, are nevertheless better than the alternatives for evaluating decisions and policies. These are empirical questions, of course, and a satisfactory answer to them will require a detailed assessment and comparison of alternative methods. Kelman's third objection was that the very practice of finding a wiIIingness-to­ pay for goods that we normally regard as priceless or sacred can alter their value for us and lead us to think of them as ordinary commodities, like those we 168 Douglas MacLean exchange and consume in the normal course of our everyday lives. He likened cost-benefit analysis to "the thermometer that, when placed in a liquid to be measured, itself changes the liquid's temperature" (Kelman 1981, 38). He suggested, incorrectly I think, that markets govern our private transactions but that, when we act as citizens in the public forum, we give expression to differ­ ent and higher values. But his central point was that some goods are cheapened when we try to attach a price to them. His examples included goods that are connected with honor or love, and he clearly thought that the goods of life, health, and environmental protection also fall within this class of values. According to Kelman, we can alter and thereby increase the value of these goods by proclaim­ ing that they are "not for sale". Interestingly, Kelman also claimed to be describing what most people believe, as a matter of common sense. He suggested that analysts who think that the value of any good may be expressed in terms of a willingness to pay for it are out of touch with common sense about priceless values. He wrote: "Economists tend to scoff at talk of pricelessness. For them, saying that something is priceless is to state a willingness to trade off an infinite quan­ tity of all other goods for one unit of the priceless good, a situation that empirically appears highly unlikely. For most people, however, the word priceless is pregnant with meaning. Its value-affirming and value-protect­ ing functions cannot be bestowed on expressions that merely denote a determinate, albeit high, valuation." (Kelman 1981, 40) I think Kelman is right to say that most people believe some things are price­ less and that it is wrong to regard those things as marketed commodities. I also believe that this sentiment underlies much of the widespread suspicion of cost­ benefit analysis and antipathy to its use, especially in making decisions about saving lives, promoting health, and protecting the environment. But there is disagreement among economists and philosophers about whether these beliefs are reasonable and can be justified. This is the issue I want to examine in the remain­ der of this article. I will not comment further on the difficult, mostly empirical issues raised by Kelman's second objection about the inadequacy of preference theories for deter­ mining our willingness-to-pay for non-marketed goods. I must say something about his first objection, however, which links cost-benefit analysis to utilitarian­ ism, because it raises an issue that relates to our understanding of priceless values and their connection to procedures, which I want to consider. 2. Cost-Benefit Analysis, Utilitarianism, and Consequentialism Kelman describes a number of objections to utilitarianism that support the conclusion that "some acts whose costs are greater than their benefits may be morally right and, contrariwise, some acts whose benefits are greater than their costs may be morally wrong" (Kelman 1981, 35). For example, an act whose costs are greater than its benefits might be right because it is just or fair, and an act Cost-Benefit Analysis and Procedural Values 169 whose benefits are greater than its costs might be wrong because it violates some­ one's rights. Now, I happen to agree with Kelman's conclusion, but it is not altogether clear how these arguments count against cost -benefit analysis. Kelman thinks the arguments against utilitarianism carry over directly to cost-benefit analysis, because he regards cost-benefit analysis as merely an application of utilitarian moral theory. But the relationship between utilitarianism and cost-benefit analysis is not that simple.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • In Defense of Happiness: a Response to the Experience Machine
    In Defense of Happiness: A Response to the Experience Machine Introduction Hedonism has seen better days. As a philosophical doctrine, it flourished in the utilitarian climate maintained by the great nineteenth-century British empiricists Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Henry Sidgwick. And even though utilitarianism continues to hold sway among many contempo­ rary ethical theorists, its hedonistic foundations have been all but abandoned. Nowadays, most philosophers entertain the idea of hedonism just long enough to dismiss it. Traditionally, hedonism has come in many guises. The term itself is derived from the Greek word hoovi] (hedone), meaning pleasure, and theo­ ries are hedonistic in virtue of the central role they assign to the notion of pleasure. Psychological hedonism is a view about human motivation. It holds that pleasure is the only possible object of a desire or pursuit. Moral hedon­ ism contends that pleasure is the only thing one ought to desire or pursue. A third version, rational hedonism, maintains that pleasure is the only thing one has reason to desire and pursue. 1 The most familiar formulation of hedonism, though, and the one with which I am primarily concerned here, is a doctrine about well-being and prudential value. Well-being is itself an elusive concept in need of explanation. An ex­ haustive and reductive definition is, however, beyond the scope of this essay; I offer instead some synonymous expressions. Although these expressions may not dispel all confusion, they will, I hope, help us recognize what is ascribed to a person when we say that he or she has well-being.
    [Show full text]
  • The Methods of Ethics
    The Methods of Ethics Henry Sidgwick Copyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017. All rights reserved [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer omissions are reported between brackets in normal-sized type.—The division of the work into Books, chapters, and numbered sections is Sidgwick’s. —Cross-references follow this system: ‘chapter 3’ means ‘chapter 3 of this Book’. ‘chapter 4.2’ means ‘chapter 4, section 2, of this Book’. ‘II/3’ means ‘Book II, chapter 3’. ‘IV/3.4’ means ‘Book IV, chapter 3, section 4’. An accompanying page-number refers to the page where the passage in question starts.—This version omits most of the 2,000+ cautions that Sidgwick includes, such as ‘I think. ’, ‘I conceive. ’, ‘it seems. ’ and so on. Even with these out of the way, the work doesn’t come across as bullyingly dogmatic.—In this version, most notably on pages 166 and 196, the author addresses the reader (‘you’), but in the original it is always ‘the reader’ and ‘he’.—This version is based on the sixth edition of the work (1901), the last non-posthumous one. The first edition appeared in 1874, the year after Mill died. First launched: October 2011 The Methods of Ethics Henry Sidgwick Contents BOOK I 1 Chapter 1: Introduction........................................................1 Chapter 2: The relation of ethics to politics.............................................7 Chapter 3: Ethical judgments...................................................
    [Show full text]
  • 6. Railton's “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality”
    6. Railton’s “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality” Martín Abreu Zavaleta July 14, 2015 Railton is addressing one kind of problem that we raised. In class, we discussed the case of a parent who is offered a choice between saving the life of her own child or saving the life of another child. Saving the life of the other child would produce overall more utility than saving the life of her own, so utilitarian consequentialism claims that she should save the life of the other child. To many people, this seems to be the wrong result: surely, they think, whatever duty she has to save the life of the other child is overridden by her duties and obligations to save the life of her own child. Samuel Scheffler presents us with a less tragic, but related problem for consequentialism. Schef- fler observes that consequentialism demands that we don’t buy new shoes if we can spend that money in ways that will help other people more, or that we don’t watch TV if instead we could be doing more utility maximizing things. These two cases point to one important problem for consequentialism (here, under the guise of utilitarianism). Consequentialism seems to alienate us from the people we love and from things that make our lives richer. By focusing solely on the maximization of utility, it seems to ignore the value that other things bring into our lives: things like friendship, the love for one’s family, entertainment, art appreciation, etc. A life lived in line with consequentialist demands seems to be a very impoverished life, enslaved to the maximization of utility.
    [Show full text]
  • Paradoxes Situations That Seems to Defy Intuition
    Paradoxes Situations that seems to defy intuition PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information. PDF generated at: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 07:26:17 UTC Contents Articles Introduction 1 Paradox 1 List of paradoxes 4 Paradoxical laughter 16 Decision theory 17 Abilene paradox 17 Chainstore paradox 19 Exchange paradox 22 Kavka's toxin puzzle 34 Necktie paradox 36 Economy 38 Allais paradox 38 Arrow's impossibility theorem 41 Bertrand paradox 52 Demographic-economic paradox 53 Dollar auction 56 Downs–Thomson paradox 57 Easterlin paradox 58 Ellsberg paradox 59 Green paradox 62 Icarus paradox 65 Jevons paradox 65 Leontief paradox 70 Lucas paradox 71 Metzler paradox 72 Paradox of thrift 73 Paradox of value 77 Productivity paradox 80 St. Petersburg paradox 85 Logic 92 All horses are the same color 92 Barbershop paradox 93 Carroll's paradox 96 Crocodile Dilemma 97 Drinker paradox 98 Infinite regress 101 Lottery paradox 102 Paradoxes of material implication 104 Raven paradox 107 Unexpected hanging paradox 119 What the Tortoise Said to Achilles 123 Mathematics 127 Accuracy paradox 127 Apportionment paradox 129 Banach–Tarski paradox 131 Berkson's paradox 139 Bertrand's box paradox 141 Bertrand paradox 146 Birthday problem 149 Borel–Kolmogorov paradox 163 Boy or Girl paradox 166 Burali-Forti paradox 172 Cantor's paradox 173 Coastline paradox 174 Cramer's paradox 178 Elevator paradox 179 False positive paradox 181 Gabriel's Horn 184 Galileo's paradox 187 Gambler's fallacy 188 Gödel's incompleteness theorems
    [Show full text]
  • Obdrzalek, Moral Transformation and the Love of Beauty In
    [Penultimate draft; Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2010 (Vol. 48), 415-44] Moral Transformation and the Love of Beauty in Plato's Symposium Suzanne Obdrzalek 1. Introduction On the day Eros was conceived, the gods were having a party to celebrate the birth of Aphrodite. His father-to-be, Poros (resource), was having a grand old time, and in fact got so carried away with the nectar that he passed out cold in Zeus’ garden. His mother-to-be, Penia (poverty), had not made the guest list, and was skulking around the gates. She was poor but cunning, and on seeing Poros sprawled on the ground, hatched a plot to relieve her poverty. She would sleep with him—after all, Poros was too drunk to know what was going on—and conceive a child who would enable her to escape her penury. The name of this child was Eros. This is the story of the origins of erōs which Diotima offers in her speech in the Symposium, and on the face of it, Plato couldn’t have come up with a stranger, more startling myth (203b1–204c6). Love, we learn, is born when a scheming, desperate woman who takes advantage of a drunk man who lies passed-out in the dirt. There is no mention of marriage, the wedding-bed, affection, beauty, even lust—no mention of any of the things which one would ordinarily associate with a myth about the origins of love. Plato is focusing on the seamier side of erōs; his myth describes just the sort of sexual encounter which might make a man mistrust erōs, in which a man is seduced by a cunning woman for the sake of profit.
    [Show full text]
  • List of Paradoxes 1 List of Paradoxes
    List of paradoxes 1 List of paradoxes This is a list of paradoxes, grouped thematically. The grouping is approximate: Paradoxes may fit into more than one category. Because of varying definitions of the term paradox, some of the following are not considered to be paradoxes by everyone. This list collects only those instances that have been termed paradox by at least one source and which have their own article. Although considered paradoxes, some of these are based on fallacious reasoning, or incomplete/faulty analysis. Logic • Barbershop paradox: The supposition that if one of two simultaneous assumptions leads to a contradiction, the other assumption is also disproved leads to paradoxical consequences. • What the Tortoise Said to Achilles "Whatever Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down...," also known as Carroll's paradox, not to be confused with the physical paradox of the same name. • Crocodile Dilemma: If a crocodile steals a child and promises its return if the father can correctly guess what the crocodile will do, how should the crocodile respond in the case that the father guesses that the child will not be returned? • Catch-22 (logic): In need of something which can only be had by not being in need of it. • Drinker paradox: In any pub there is a customer such that, if he or she drinks, everybody in the pub drinks. • Paradox of entailment: Inconsistent premises always make an argument valid. • Horse paradox: All horses are the same color. • Lottery paradox: There is one winning ticket in a large lottery. It is reasonable to believe of a particular lottery ticket that it is not the winning ticket, since the probability that it is the winner is so very small, but it is not reasonable to believe that no lottery ticket will win.
    [Show full text]
  • Hedonism Reconsidered
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LXXII1, No. 3, November 2006 Hedonism Reconsidered ROGER CRISP St Anne’s College, Oxford Tlus paper is a plea for hedonism to be taken more seriously. It begins by charting hedonism’s decline, and suggests that this is a result of two major objections: the claim that hedonism is the ‘philosophy of swine’, reducing all value to a single common denominator, and Nozick’s ‘experience machine’ objection. There follows some eluci- dation of the nature of hedonism, and of enjoyment in particular. Two types of theory of enjoyment are outlined-internalism, according to which enjoyment has some special ’feeling tone’, and externalism, according to which enjoyment is any kind of experience to which we take some special attitude, such as that of desire. Internalism-the tradi- tional view-is defended against current externalist orthodoxy. The paper ends with responses to the philosophy of swine and the experience machine objections. 1. Hedonism’s Decline Hedonism has a distinguished philosophical history. It was central in ancient philosophy. One interpretation of Plato’s Protugorus has Socrates defending the view, and it is taken seriously in many other dialogues, including the Philebus and the Republic. Aristotle analyses it closely in his Ethics. It was defended vigorously by the Epicureans and Cyrenaics, and attacked equally vigorously by the Stoics. More recently, hedonism was the standard view of the British empiricists from Hobbes to J.S. Mill.’ In the twentieth century, however, hedonism became significantly less popular. There are at least three reasons for this. First, Mill’s attempt to deal with the objection that hedonism was the ‘philosophy of swine’, using his distinction between higher and lower pleasures, was thought to be either an ’ See esp.
    [Show full text]
  • Hedonism and Indian Philosophy of Peace: an Examination
    IDEA – Studia nad strukturą i rozwojem pojęć filozoficznych XXIX/1 Białystok 2017 Aditya Kumar Gupta, Kanika Saraf (Delhi, Indie) HEDONISM AND INDIAN PHILOSOPHY OF PEACE: AN EXAMINATION Human being,like other animals,is a creature who desires pleasure and avoids pain.It is natural for a man to avail or allow only those moments which give pleasure to him and to go away from moments of pain. But despite being pleasure-loving, what do we get in the end?, Do we remain happy after we get pleasure?.Why is it so that a pleasure creates a type of boredom after some time which, later on, develops the desire for another or higher pleasures?What is the mystery of human life -we seek pleasure but remain unsatisfied even after we get it? The Proposed article is the critical study of hedonism in the light of Indian philosophy of Renunciation and Peace. The term ‘Hedonism’ comes from Latin term ‘ Hedone ’, which means pleas- ure. This is the philosophy which believes in pleasure as the aim of life and of any particular human action. Why do we do any particular task which is volun- tary in nature?; What do we want to get in the end? Hedonists answer these questions in one word- pleasure. Here by ‘pleasure’ they mean sensual pleasures which include even mental pleasure 1. There are six commonly accepted sense organs-Eyes, Ears, Nose, Skin, Tongue and Mind. Pleasure is always associated with these six sense organs. Hedonism is based on two assumptions,-a metaphysical and a psychologi- cal. According to Metaphysical assumption, self or mind is purely sensuous in nature, a series of sensations, feelings, appetites, and instincts.
    [Show full text]
  • Plato the Hedonist?
    Plato, The Hedonist? by Brooks A. Sommerville A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy University of Toronto © Copyright by Brooks A. Sommerville 2014 Plato, The Hedonist? Brooks A. Sommerville Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy University of Toronto 2014 Abstract Most moral philosophers agree that a happy life involves pleasure in some way. Some go so far as to claim that pleasure alone is what makes a life happy or worthwhile. In either case, it seems that any complete account of a desirable life owes us an explanation as to what pleasure is. So, what is pleasure? As the history of moral philosophy attests, answering this question turns out to be surprisingly difficult. Although we all experience pleasures of various kinds, it is by no means clear that a unified account can cover all the things we take to be pleasant. This conceptual question about pleasure has clear implications for the distinct ethical question of pleasure’s value. In short, if we don’t know what pleasure is, then it isn’t at all clear why we should value it. Plato appreciates this. Pleasure’s place in the good life is one of Plato’s enduring ethical concerns, and so it should come as no surprise that he also undertakes to develop a unified account of pleasure. My aim in this dissertation is to argue that Plato arrives at a definitive answer as to what pleasure is, and that this helps us to understand his considered view as to pleasure’s role in the happy life.
    [Show full text]
  • Routledge Dictionary of Philosophy
    The Routledge Dictionary of Philosophy First published in 1976, the Dictionary of Philosophy has established itself as the best available text of its kind, explaining often unfamiliar, complicated and diverse terminology. Thoroughly revised and expan- ded, this fourth edition provides authoritative and rigorous definitions of a broad range of philosophical concepts. Concentrating on the Western philosophical tradition, The Routledge Dictionary of Philosophy offers an illuminating and informed introduc- tion to the central issues, ideas and perspectives in core fields such as metaphysics, epistemology and logic. It includes concise biographical entries for more than one hundred major philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle through to contemporary figures such as Dummett, McDowell, Parfit and Singer. All major entries are followed by helpful suggestions for further reading, including web links, and contain extensive cross-referencing to aid access and comprehension. This edition also features a brand new guide to the most useful philosophy sites on the internet. The Routledge Dictionary of Philosophy is an invaluable and up-to-date resource for all students of philosophy. Michael Proudfoot was Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Reading, UK, and is now an Honorary Fellow of the Department. A. R. Lacey is formerly a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at King’s College, University of London, UK The Routledge Dictionary of Philosophy Fourth Edition Michael Proudfoot and A. R. Lacey First published 1976 Second edition 1986 Third edition 1996 Fourth edition 2010 by Routledge 2 Milton Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
    [Show full text]
  • Hedonism and Happiness 1
    1 HEDONISM AND HAPPINESS Ruut Veenhoven In: Journal of Happiness Studies, 2003 vol. 4. (special issue on 'Art of living') pp. 437-457 ABSTRACT Hedonism is a way of life, characterised by openness to pleasurable experience. There are many qualms about hedonism. It is rejected on moral grounds and said to be detrimental to long-term happiness. Several mechanisms for this 'paradox of hedonism' have been suggested and telling examples of pleasure seekers ending up in despair have been given. But is that the rule? If so, how much pleasure is too much? An overview of the available knowledge is given in this paper. The relation between hedonism and happiness has been studied at two levels: that of the nation and the individual. At the national level average happiness is correlated with moral acceptance of pleasure and with active leisure. At the individual level it is similarly linked with hedonistic attitudes and also correlated with hedonistic behaviours such as frequent sex and use of stimulants. In most cases the pattern is linearly positive. The relation between happiness and consumption of stimulants follows an inverted U-curve, spoilsports and guzzlers are less happy than modest consumers. Yet these data cannot settle the issue, since the observed relations may be spurious or due to the effects of happiness on hedonism rather than the reverse. Even if we can prove a positive effect of (mild) hedonism on happiness, there is still the question of how that gains balances against a possible loss of health. A solution is to assess the effect of hedonistic living on the number of years lived happily.
    [Show full text]
  • Discursive Matrixes of Motherhood: Cultivating Decency and Emotion In
    Discursive Matrixes of Motherhood I 00_Martisk.pmd 1 24.11.2006, 15:27 University of Helsinki Department of Sociology Discursive Matrixes of Motherhood Cultivating Decency and Emotion in Finnish and French Mother-Talk Heini Martiskainen de Koenigswarter Helsinki 2006 III 00_Martisk.pmd 3 24.11.2006, 15:27 Research Reports No. 249 Department of Sociology University of Helsinki Layout Anssi Sinnemäki / Tamara Press © Heini Martiskainen de Koenigswarter ISSN 0438-9948 ISBN 952-10-3593-5 (paperback) Helsinki University Printing House, Helsinki 2006 IV 00_Martisk.pmd 4 24.11.2006, 15:27 Abstract Discursive Matrixes of Motherhood examines women’s discourse on their ex- periences of new motherhood in Finland and France. It sets out from two cul- turally prevalent turns of speech observed in different social forums: in conver- sations amongst mothers with tertiary education and in the print media. The pool of data includes: 30 interviews, 8 autobiographically inspired novels and 80 items from women’s magazines. With instruments loaned from the toolbox of rhetorical analysis, the recurrence of certain expressions or clichés is analyzed with regard to the national, cultural, biographical, political and daily contexts and settings in which the speaking subjects are immersed. Staying at home is such a short and special time, the first expression under scrutiny, caught the sociological eye because of its salience in Finland and be- cause it appeared as contradictory with a core characteristic of the Finnish con- text: long family leave. The cliché was found to function as a discursive micro- mechanism which swept mothers’ ‘complaints’ under the proverbial carpet. Proper emotions and decency in mother-talk thereby appear as collective achievements.
    [Show full text]