Thought of the Day 06.22.09

It’s vital to realize how many of our ethical intuitions are based on what we perceive as normal, which is basically what we’ve repeatedly seen and been told. This realization leads us to be alert against the tendency to respond from our well-rehearsed biases rather than from our rarely-rehearsed principles. Here’s what I mean.

The government recently announced a plan to pay car owners as much as $4,500 if they will purchase a new car with better gas mileage. Many people, myself included, were outraged at this. At the same time, however, the government will pay first-time homebuyers $8,000 for buying a house this year. Far from being bothered by this, many people are saying you’d be a fool not to buy one now, between this offer and the depressed prices.

So why the outrage over car subsidies but a favorable embrace of house subsidies twice as big? Simple. We’ve been long conditioned to the idea that government should help people buy houses, but the idea that government should help people buy cars is new…for now.