Fundação Getulio Vargas • 2023 • Receita Federal
🔐 Texto de apoio
Policy decisions on taxation and public expenditures intrinsically reflect moral choices. How much of your hard-earned money is it fair for the state to collect through taxes? Should the rich pay more? Should the state provide basic public services such as education and health care for free to all citizens? And so on.
Economists and public finance practitioners have traditionally focused on economic efficiency. When considering distributional issues, they have generally steered clear of moral considerations, perhaps fearing these could be seen as subjective. However, recent work by evolutionary moral psychologists suggests that policies can be better designed and muster broader support if policymakers consider the full range of moral perspectives on public finance. A few pioneering empirical applications of this approach in the field of economics have shown promise.
For the most part, economists have customarily analyzed redistribution in a way that requires users to provide their own preferences with regard to inequality: Tell economists how much you care about inequality, and they can tell you how much redistribution is appropriate through the tax and benefit system. People (or families or households) have usually been considered as individuals, and the only relevant characteristics for these exercises have been their incomes, wealth, or spending potential.
There are two — understandable but not fully satisfactory — reasons for this approach. First, economists often wish to be viewed as objective social scientists. Second, most public finance scholars have been educated in a tradition steeped in values of societies that are WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). In this context, individuals are at the center of the analysis, and morality is fundamentally about the golden rule — treat other people the way that you would want them to treat you, regardless of who those people are. These are crucial but ultimately insufficient perspectives on how humans make moral choices.
Evolutionary moral psychologists during the past couple of decades have shown that, faced with a moral dilemma, humans decide quickly what seems right or wrong based on instinct and later justify their decision through more deliberate reasoning. Based on evidence presented by these researchers, our instincts in the moral domain evolved as a way of fostering cooperation within a group, to help ensure survival. This modern perspective harks back to two moral philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment — David Hume and Adam Smith — who noted that sentiments are integral to people’s views on right and wrong. But most later philosophers in the Western tradition sought to base morality on reason alone.
Moral psychologists have recently shown that many people draw on moral perspectives that go well beyond the golden rule. Community, authority, divinity, purity, loyalty, and sanctity are important considerations not only in many non-Western countries, but also among politically influential segments of the population in advanced economies, as emphasized by proponents of moral foundations theory.
Regardless of whether one agrees with those broader moral perspectives, familiarity with them makes it easier to understand the underlying motivations for various groups’ positions in debates on public policies. Such understanding may help in the design of policies that can muster support from a wide range of groups with differing moral values.
🔗 Texto adaptado de:
🔗 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/Addingethics-to-public-finance-Mauro.
QUESTÃO
The adjective in “is it fair for the state to collect through taxes” (1st paragraph) is equivalent in meaning to
bewildering.
befuddling.
bemusing.
beguiling.
befitting.
📝 Resolução Comentada – Questão 13
A questão avalia Vocabulary por meio de Lexical Substitution. O candidato precisava identificar qual alternativa poderia substituir fair preservando exatamente o sentido da frase.
O trecho decisivo é:
"...is it fair for the state to collect through taxes?"
Nesse contexto, fair significa justo, adequado ou apropriado, e não "claro", "bonito" ou "razoável".
fair
⇩
just / appropriate
⇩
befitting
Portanto, befitting é o único adjetivo que preserva o significado da frase.
🟢 (E) Gabarito Oficial
Mecanismo explorado: Lexical Substitution.
A alternativa correta substitui fair por befitting, mantendo a ideia de algo apropriado, justo ou condizente com determinado contexto.
Mapeamento:
fair
⇩
just / appropriate
⇩
befitting
Nota técnica: befitting significa "apropriado", "condizente" ou "compatível com a situação".
❌ (A)
Tipo do Distrator: Eco Vocabular (Language Echo).
Por que está errada?
Bewildering significa desconcertante ou confuso, sem qualquer relação semântica com justiça ou adequação.
Mapeamento do Erro:
O Texto diz:
fair
A Alternativa apresenta:
bewildering (desconcertante)
Técnica utilizada pela banca: Eco morfológico através do padrão be- + -ing.
❌ (B)
Tipo do Distrator: Eco Vocabular (Language Echo).
Por que está errada?
Befuddling significa confuso ou atordoante, sem qualquer equivalência com fair.
Mapeamento do Erro:
O Texto diz:
fair
A Alternativa apresenta:
befuddling (confuso)
Técnica utilizada pela banca: Repetição do mesmo padrão gráfico para induzir falsa familiaridade.
❌ (C)
Tipo do Distrator: Eco Vocabular (Language Echo).
Por que está errada?
Bemusing significa intrigante, curioso ou desconcertante. Não expressa a ideia de justiça, adequação ou legitimidade presente em fair.
Mapeamento do Erro:
O Texto diz:
fair
A Alternativa apresenta:
bemusing (intrigante)
Técnica utilizada pela banca: Eco Vocabular por repetição do padrão morfológico be- + -ing.
❌ (D)
Tipo do Distrator: Eco Vocabular (Language Echo).
Por que está errada?
Beguiling significa sedutor, encantador ou enganador. O termo não possui qualquer equivalência semântica com a ideia de justiça tributária discutida no texto.
Mapeamento do Erro:
O Texto diz:
fair
A Alternativa apresenta:
beguiling (sedutor / enganador)
Técnica utilizada pela banca: Eco Vocabular explorando apenas a semelhança gráfica e fonológica.
- Questão típica de Synonyms and Antonyms.
- O mecanismo explorado é Lexical Substitution.
- O candidato precisava reconhecer que fair, nesse contexto, significa justo / apropriado, e não simplesmente "bom" ou "agradável".
- A FGV construiu todos os distratores utilizando Eco Vocabular (Language Echo), repetindo deliberadamente o padrão morfológico be- + -ing para criar falsa familiaridade visual.
Chunk family:
- fair taxation
- fair policy
- befitting
- appropriate
- Lexical Substitution
- Language Echo
- Synonyms and Antonyms
Gabarito Oficial: E