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 underlined expression in “regardless of who those people are” (4th paragraph) can be replaced without change in meaning by
alike.
despite.
whereas.
however.
concerning.
📝 Resolução Comentada – Questão 14
A questão avalia Link Words, mais especificamente Connector Equivalence. O candidato precisava identificar qual conectivo preserva a mesma relação lógica estabelecida por regardless of.
O trecho decisivo é:
"...treat other people the way that you would want them to treat you, regardless of who those people are."
A expressão regardless of introduz uma ideia de concessão ou indiferença. O significado permanece preservado quando substituída por despite.
regardless of
⇩
despite
⇩
"independentemente de"
🟢 (B) Gabarito Oficial
Mecanismo explorado: Connector Equivalence.
A alternativa correta mantém exatamente a relação de concessão presente em regardless of, preservando a ideia de que a identidade das pessoas não altera a aplicação da regra de ouro.
Mapeamento:
regardless of
⇩
despite
⇩
mesma relação concessiva
Nota técnica: ambos introduzem uma ideia de indiferença perante determinada condição.
❌ (A)
Tipo do Distrator: Distorção de Sentido (Distortion of Meaning).
Por que está errada?
Alike significa "semelhante" ou "igualmente". Não estabelece relação concessiva nem possui a mesma função sintática de regardless of.
Mapeamento do Erro:
O Texto diz:
regardless of
A Alternativa apresenta:
alike
Técnica utilizada pela banca: Substituição por palavra semanticamente próxima ao tema da igualdade, mas incompatível com a relação lógica exigida.
❌ (C)
Tipo do Distrator: Distorção de Sentido (Distortion of Meaning).
Por que está errada?
Whereas introduz contraste ou comparação entre duas ideias ("ao passo que"), alterando completamente a relação de concessão estabelecida por regardless of.
Mapeamento do Erro:
O Texto diz:
regardless of (independentemente de)
A Alternativa diz:
whereas (ao passo que)
Técnica utilizada pela banca: Substituição de um conector concessivo por um conector comparativo/adversativo.
❌ (D)
Tipo do Distrator: Distorção de Sentido (Distortion of Meaning).
Por que está errada?
However é um conector adversativo entre orações. Além de exigir estrutura sintática diferente, rompe a equivalência semântica com regardless of.
Mapeamento do Erro:
O Texto diz:
regardless of
A Alternativa diz:
however
Técnica utilizada pela banca: Troca entre conectores de funções sintáticas diferentes.
❌ (E)
Tipo do Distrator: Contradição Direta (Direct Contradiction).
Por que está errada?
Concerning significa "a respeito de". Em vez de ignorar quem são as pessoas, passa justamente a direcionar a atenção para elas, invertendo a lógica do trecho.
Mapeamento do Erro:
O Texto diz:
regardless of who those people are
A Alternativa diz:
concerning who those people are
Técnica utilizada pela banca: Inversão do núcleo lógico do enunciado, transformando indiferença em focalização.
- Questão típica de Link Words.
- O mecanismo explorado é Connector Equivalence.
- O candidato precisava reconhecer que regardless of e despite preservam a mesma relação concessiva no contexto.
- A FGV construiu três distratores por Distorção de Sentido (A, C e D), alterando a relação lógica do conector, e um por Contradição Direta (E), invertendo completamente o sentido do trecho.
Chunk family:
- regardless of
- despite
- however
- whereas
- Connector Equivalence
- Link Words
- concessive connectors
Gabarito Oficial: B