Amateur Philosophers at BERL

I assume that most people who read this blog also read the excellent Offsetting Behaviour, which is why I haven't really commented on Eric Crampton's devastating critique of the BERL report on the social costs of alcohol. If you're not up on it, economic consultancy group BERL wrote a report on the costs of alcohol with (som say) some poorly defended assumptions, and some heavily misleading conclusions. It got some play through high-up lobby groups, so Crampton and Matt Burgess wrote a heavily critical response. Recently though, one of the authors defended the report in a particularly interesting way:

So for example someone who murders someone, from the individual’s point of view, Eric would be, I presume, quite comfortable with that. The person who decides to murder someone else makes an evaluation of what are the benefits and costs to me of this action? Society says ‘well some people do murder other people’, but society says ‘that’s not good.

If BERL's report was on whether or not society thought people should drink alcohol regardless of the costs, Mr. Slack (who's quote this is) would have a point. But it wasn't a x-phi survey on folk morality, it was an economic analysis. That Mr. Slack has the two confused is perhaps revealing to the approach BERL took to the analysis. Moral philosophy has an important role to play in analysis of public policy. But:

a) It should be done explicitly, rather than hiding it in leading assumptions.
b) Economists aren't generally the best people to do it.

You would think economists out of anyone would understand the benefits of division of labour.

In any case, the only (secular) case I can see for opposing consumption of alcohol prima facie in the same way we oppose murder would be a cost benefit analysis. It would be good if BERL defended their report on these grounds, and left the poorly-considered analogies out of it.