Quote of the Day: Why using moral suasion as a policy tool is a bad thing

When you cast policy issues in moral terms, you degrade the character of public discourse. You lead people to see conflicting priorities as an occasion for battle, rather than an occasion for compromise. You send the message that policy is best decided by appeals to one’s inner conscience (or, more likely, to the polemics of demagogues), rather than by appeals to impersonal cost-benefit analysis. And this is a very bad thing… 

If we’re determined to instill blind moral instincts that make people behave better most of the time, I’d like to nominate a blind moral instinct to respect price signals and the individual choices that underlie them—an instinct, for example, to recoil from judging and undercutting other people’s voluntary arrangements.

This is from Professor and author Steven Landsburg at the Cato Unbound in a debate over recycling. 

Populist-personality based politics have almost always centered their policy discussions based on the moral "feel good noble sounding" context. The appeal to the moral is practically an appeal to the emotion; no matter how coercive, impractical or how short term oriented policies can lead to long term pain. That's the reason why the use of "moral suasion as a policy tool" signifies as "the polemics of demagogues".