> a [economic] solution to a social vice

Pigovian taxes are an economic solution, as are sin taxes. To the pocketbook there is no difference.

no, that’s the whole point. these have very different purposes. pigouvian taxes are meant to internalize externalities. sin taxes are punitive and regressive, which is decidedly uneconomic. you may still support sin taxes, but not on economic grounds.

> you may still support sin taxes, but not on economic grounds.

I do not recognize a distinction. I see that you are citing common critiques of the sin tax relative to the Pigovian tax, but they are substantively and consequentially the same. As a consumer I pay $Price + $Tax for the good, be it due to a taboo good or internalization of cost. Perhaps your concern is on the constraint -- Pigovian taxes are intended to encourage socially optimal consumption, whereas sin taxes are to encourage disuse of the good (which, as it stands, a Pigovian tax is also encouraging for some subset of the consumers on the demand curve). Ergo sin taxes are a subset of Pigovian tax where the legislative body has deemed the optimal social consumption of the taxed good to be zero.

Now, _WHY_ the legislative body or society writ large deems said taxed good's total consumption to be zero versus some lower optimal consumption amount the free market cannot attain is a question on where preferences and metapreferences originate, which is a bridge economics is not prepped to cross.

But regardless, it fits squarely in the framework of Pigovian tax policy.

a pigouvian tax attempts to attain an economic optimum, while a sin tax disregards it, and in fact, blows right past and into economic inefficiency. by your own admission, you're making an non-economic argument (for sin taxes), and that was the point.

I highly recommend revisiting the definitions for normative versus positive economic statements.

A sin-tax is a subset of pigovian taxes where the social norm for optimal consumption is zero. This is squarely in the realm of economics, your protests aside.

As I stated in the prior comment that I believe you perhaps only skimmed, how the society came to that conclusion that the optimal consumption is zero is beyond economics. If you would like to discuss belief formation and other psychology/sociology discussions, I'm happy to engage but I'm sorry to say it's only an area of interest.