These are lessons still insufficiently assimilated by moral philosophy. More tentatively, it is suggested that the practice of public choice may itself be improved by attentiveness to some themes more fully addressed within the philosophical literature. I disclaim any pretensions to competence as a public choice theorist, so these reflections are presented in the first instance as autobiographical. The extent to which they can be generalized remains an open question. But human concerns are hardly limited to such considerations.
Persons typically worry as well about how to protect against certain kinds of losses.
The two concerns each play a significant role in Buchanan and Tullock, the Calculus of Consent. Cost-saving or expected gain is central to their argument as to why there is a need for public or collective choice procedures, and concern for protection against certain losses is the basis for their argument for constitutional constraints on public choice. The former argument has generated an enormous amount of research. The latter has been unhappily neglected, despite the fact that it is an enormously important part of the contribution that the Calculus makes to political and social theory. By way of correcting for this, I shall explore the latter argument, and expand on it in two respects.