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How delightful it is to be invited to express my view of "spirituality" in
one thousand words. I am thereby commissioned to practice one of my specialties - making
outrageous overgeneralizations and oversimplifications and blaming the editors (May the
Holy Light shine upon them!) for denying me the space to make the distinctions,
refinements, and qualifications which are called for.
One of the striking ironies of the present age is that there has been/is arising a
phenomenal resurgence of materialism while at the same time a variety and diversity of
spirituality claims are proliferating. What is startling about the emergent materialisms
is that they are not coming from physics, which earlier in the century dealt what appeared
to many to be a death-blow to classical materialism. Rather, they are emerging from the
biological and cognitive sciences. As regards the latter, strong A-I proponents
are secure in their faith that we will in the "near" futures see computers arise
"who" can not only calculate but also feel. When that happens, as one of the
leading believers has recently noted, they will be just as deserving of "rights"
as old-fashioned humans are.
In the biological sciences, the genetic codes are someday to be not only enumerated but
also "cracked." Already there has surfaced the hypothesis which attributes
happiness to the presence or absence of a particular gene. Can the discovery/creation of
faith, hope, and love genes be far off? If and when such an age of gene-creation arrives,
those still talking about spirituality will have a standing equivalent to that of the Flat
Earth Society. In the meantime (now), we are witnessing a veritable flood of spirituality
claims from a variety of sources - from Eastern, Western, African, indigenous peoples,
among many others. And such spirituality proponents are to be found among some of the most
respected intellectual figures of the day.
Although there have been a few significant efforts to reconcile the scientific and
nonscientific perspectives and claims, the more dominant tendency is simply to juxtapose
them. We are in danger of relapsing into a mode of ontological dualism, into that
"partitioning of territories" lamented by John Dewey at the outset of the
century, in which "facts" are the domain and responsibility of the sciences and
"values" that of philosophy and religion. How are we to avoid this dualistic
abyss? My ploy, aided and abetted by thefts from a variety of sources but principally from
a mode of Jamesian\Deweyan pragmatism, is to jettison the worlds of both
"matter" (body) and "spirit" (soul) in favor of an ever-moving
constellation of distinct, interrelated, and overlapping "fields" of energy or
activity. In this framework, both materiality and spirituality are metaphysical metaphors
constructed for the purpose of orienting us within this "blooming, buzzing
confusion" which we refer to as the world or reality.
Having put my key metaphysical presupposition on the table, let me pose the bottom-line
pragmatic question: What boots it? What difference does it existentially make whether we
speak in terms of a world of continuous, interrelated, overlapping, interdependent,
transacting fields, or one in which we have ontologically different worlds of matter and
spirit, mysteriously joined? Of course, the most obvious difference is that my
presupposition dissolves (not solves) a problem that has bedeviled Western thinkers to
some extent from its earliest moments, but most acutely since the modern scientific
revolution and Descartes's radicalization of the mind\soul\body split. Due to
space limitations, I will be forgiven if I do not attempt a detailed description of the
variety and diversity of responses to this problem. Most of us, however, are aware, at
least at an impressionistic level, of what some of the most significant responses have
been. In the philosophical realm, both idealism and materialism claim solution by
dissolution - idealism gets rid of matter and materialism gets rid of spirit. In the religious\moral
realm, until quite recently, the two worlds were presupposed and the ultimate problem\task
was how to get out of one - the lower, material world - and into the other - the higher,
spiritual world. Evoking a moral-arena metaphor, the task was to live with the body and
material goods insofar as this was necessary but continually to struggle to keep our focus
upon the higher, spiritual world and the values associated with it. Needless to say, this
perspective gave rise to numerous articulations. In the world influenced by Christianity,
at least, they ranged from seeing the material world as evil, as the source of all
temptations, continuously to be opposed and struggled against, to viewing the body and the
material world as morally indifferent realities to be used by the soul for its spiritual
enhancement. The former view has, of course, been the dominant if not the exclusive view
until quite recently. There has been/is emerging, both from within and outside traditional
religious communities, numerous efforts to overcome the isolating and de-energizing
effects of hierarchical dualism, while not accepting the reductive materialisms which are
also taking on new life.
One of the most significant new perspectives, attracting both those within and outside
formal religious communities, is that which has been designated "ecotheology."
Let me simply - oversimply - state what I consider the minimal requirements for any
ecotheology that merits consideration and development. Negatively, it must not become
mired in the problems, touched upon above, which accompany metaphysical or ontological
dualism. Further, it must not lose a dimension of significant distinctness and difference
between those modes of activity metaphorically designated "material" and
"spiritual." Finally, it must not so identify the divine and the earth\universe
that it eventuates in or is indistinguishable from an unrefined, sentimental pantheism.
Positively, it must affirm a significant mode of continuity between the human, earthly,
and divine fields of activity. This continuity must make possible, indeed make necessary,
creative transactions not only between similar centers of activity but between diverse
centers, narrower and wider. More specifically, human centers of activity must have
possible consequences not only for human and earthly activities but perhaps also for
divine activities. Only in some such way, I would suggest, can those who locate their mode
of spirituality within a religious context and community avoid the charge independently
made by both Nietzsche and Dewey that religion is de-energizing in that it distracts
humans from the concrete, creative tasks which are related to the enrichment and
development not only of the human community but indeed of the world - and perhaps, I would
add, even of God.
My conditions for a viable ecotheology are the same as those for any viable philosophy of
spirituality - indeed for any morality or religion. My fundamental metaphysical
presupposition for any and all of these has already been touched upon: that what we refer
to as the world or reality is best and most fruitfully described as "an ever-moving
constellation of distinct, interrelated, and overlapping 'fields' of energy or
activity." A crucial character of this world, as indicated, is
"continuity," a continuity which allows for and indeed brings forth a rich and
diverse plurality, incorporating a significant but nonisolating distinctness among all
fields of activity while avoiding any smothering "identity" or individual
person-obliterating "absorption."
Given such a world, it must be asked whether spirituality is any longer a useful category,
even understood as a symbol or metaphor? Does it not carry too much negative baggage - its
abstractness, its contrast with the "active" life, its association with ghosts,
spirits, magic, bizarre claims? All the baggage, of course, is not negative, for it is
also used to designate dimensions of depth and vital enrichment in acts and works of art
as well as in a multiplicity of individual and communal activities ranging from the love
of others to heroic acts of self-sacrifice, whether expressed in religious or moral terms.
In any event, as Tillich noted years ago, we can neither will into nor out of existence
significant human symbols. Symbols\metaphors, however, may die but the richer
ones neither die nor remain static. Instead, they are reconstructed and this, I suggest,
is what is happening and hopefully will continue to happen with spirituality; not because
as a term or a metaphor it is particularly important, but rather because, however
haltingly and inadequately, it has served to keep humans open to and aware of dimensions
of reality and modes of life that, though elusive, have energized humans both individually
and communally, thereby avoiding the ever-present threat of vital impoverishment. It is
such a threat that James suggests cannot be met by materialism, which, he contends,
"will always fail of universal adoption, however well it may fuse things into an
atomistic unity, however clearly it may prophesy the future eternity. For materialism
denies reality to the objects of almost all the impulses which we most cherish" The
Will to Believe [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979, f.p. 1897], 71).
In conclusion, let me simply state that with the particular reconstruction I am
suggesting, one is more comfortable speaking in terms of spiritual life or spiritual
experience. These terms, I believe, keep the focus more on the concrete. Even here,
however, the pragmatist might not consider the term "spiritual" indispensable.
What is indispensable are those fruits which emerge from both individual and communal
human activities. Do they enrich us, deepen us, open us to new possibilities, and offer
the hope of fulfilling our most profound yearnings? Do they extend and enrich our sense
and experience of that "more" which James insists characterizes all levels of
human experience. It is when humans are confronted with that widest and most encompassing
"more" that they are led to invoke such terms as "spirit" and
"spiritual." It is also here that humans have been and will likely continue to
be divided on the character of this "more," that widest reality and mode(s) of
activity within which we live and move and have our being-becoming. Hence, this
"more" has been diversely expressed as a personal God, a collectivity of gods or
spirits, nature, Gaia, the universe, Being, or Non-Being. The Good Samaritan as Bad Economist:
Self-Interest in Economics and Theology
by Donald E. Frey
Donald E. Frey is professor of economics at Wake Forest University in
Winston-Salem, N.C.
The moral legitimacy of economic systems has consistently received the attention of
religious thinkers. [1] The moral content of economics as an
intellectual discipline, however, may be as important. Beginning with Adam Smith, and
continuing through modern American Nobel laureates of the influential neoclassical school,
economists have insisted that self-interest is the key to human nature. Some claim that
the self-interest axiom merely serves the scientific purpose of generating verifiable
hypotheses. However, these economists' language and their nonscientific writings reveal
that self-interest fills the much greater role of defining human nature, and so implying a
moral system.
Following Smith's lead, neoclassical economics takes a benign view of self-interest,
holding that self-interested decisions, made within the structure of the market,
invariably produce an aggregate good --without anyone intending that end. To be fair to
this tradition, we note that there is a literature on "market failures'' (such as
externalities, monopoly, and public goods) that qualifies this claim somewhat; and, on
close inspection, the nature of the aggregate good seems highly attenuated. However, the
most orthodox of the neoclassical economists treat these as minor exceptions to the norm.
Thus economic morality is understood as an expression of self-interest, rather than a
necessary counter to self-interest. The first section of this essay delineates these
claims.
Christian doctrine and, perhaps more broadly, the biblical tradition make self-interest
a central feature of fallen human nature. Self-interest is understood to be at
least potentially disruptive of human community; social morality is required as a
counterweight to self-interest. This is true even for highly individualistic theologies
that emphasize grace apprehended by personal faith. The second section of this essay
relates how representative American theologians have reacted to the morality of economics.
The Tradition of the Economists
In his famous line Adam Smith proclaimed that "it is not from the benevolence of
the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to
their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self love.
…'' [2] (Of course, an earlier book of his had argued that
humans respond to more humane "moral sentiments.'') Smith was asserting here,
however, that, in an economic world defined by the division of labor, economic agents
inevitably would become morally isolated from each other. The social interrelatedness
necessary to develop these moral sentiments simply would be lacking. Thus, in economic
society characterized by division of labor and the social distance that it creates, only
the appeal to self-interest would be effective.
Over the years an influential number of economists have minimized these nuances of
Smith's thought and represented self-interest, almost pure and simple, as the key to human
behavior. The axiom of self-interest is embodied in the neoclassical utility-maximization
model that can be found as the core of virtually all microeconomics texts. An economic
agent, who possesses a set of tastes for certain goods and services must spend a given
income to buy goods and services in a mixture that maximizes personal "utility'' or
satisfaction. The agent is constrained by limited income and the prices that are charged
for the goods. Thus, if relative prices or income change, the agent recalibrates the
mixture of goods purchased. All behavior is described as the search for maximum utility
amid changing constraints. This model is almost infinitely expandable into other realms;
for example, one of the "goods'' may be defined as leisure, and one's "income''
may be defined as time, while the "price'' of leisure becomes an hour's wage
foregone. By clever extension this model is made to explain virtually all human decisions.
The self-interest orientation is evident in that the economic agent's sole concern is
maximizing its own "utility.''
Nobel laureate George Stigler insisted that the concept of self-interest provides a
universal explanation of human activity. "Man is eternally a utility-maximizer,'' he
wrote, and not just in economic activity but "… in his church, in his scientific
work, in short, everywhere.'' [3] Another Nobel laureate, Gary
Becker, has elaborated how self-interest could explain the most personal decisions,
including marriage, child-bearing, and so on.
Standard textbooks in economics make the same point, and often carry it a step further.
One text asserts, for example, that the "rational'' individual "always stands
ready to further her own interest.'' [4]As in this text,
economics often equates rationality with consistent utility maximization, thus
reducing rationality to a calculus of personal gain. The equation of self-interest with
rationality implies that self-interest is a basic human trait, and like reason, a positive
human attribute.
Even economist-critics of the neoclassical orthodoxy confirm its nature. While the
Harvard economist Amartya Sen exclaims that to limit rationality only to self-interested
behavior "seems altogether extraordinary,'' [5] few of
these critics claim that self-interest is irrelevant to human behavior, but only that
human behavior cannot be dismissed as "not rational'' if it cannot be reduced to
self-interest.
The authors of a widely used labor economics text dismiss the objection that people are
not really such personal-utility calculators. "[For] if people are not … then
most predictions suggested by economic theory will not be supported by real-world
evidence.'' [6] This text is devoted to showing how the
"real-world evidence'' is indeed consistent with the self-interest axiom. Although
these authors prefer the language of science --e.g., "assumptions,''
"predictions,'' "evidence'' --the broader message is that actual behavior can be
explained consistently only by predicating a human nature that is exclusively focused upon
maximizing its own utility.
Recently researchers have shown that the axiom of self-interest may become the basis of
a working morality for those who most believe it --namely economists. According to the
researchers, evidence shows that economists actually behave more self-interestedly than
noneconomists. [7] In short, the axiom of self-interest serves
as far more than the starting point for scientific hypothesizing --it becomes a moral
principle by which those who believe the axiom actually relate to others.
Economists go out of their way to protect the hypothesis of self-interest from apparent
anomalies, such as altruistic behavior. (Altruism is an anomaly, since one gives up
something --seeming to leave the self worse off --in order that someone else be made
better off.) The introductory text quoted earlier argues that the "rationality'' of
altruism can be saved provided the altruist wants to serve others "just as he can
want to own a new car'' (emphasis added). [8] According to
this argument, the outer act may look like self-denial, but the inner intent remains
entirely the satisfaction of the self. One is serving others, not due to moral obligation,
nor because someone else displaces self in one's own regard, but only because such
activity happens to please oneself. Nor is even the outer act true self-denial. What one
gives up for the sake of others is no different from the money one gives up to obtain the
car one wants to own: in either case one is merely engaged in a transaction to obtain what
one wants.
Economics does not study the source of tastes or preferences --they are given. This
means that one's taste for cars as opposed to one's taste for serving others is
inexplicable, simply a datum. Since tastes are inexplicable they have no moral status; or,
more accurately, all tastes have the same moral status. The intent to obtain a car is
morally no better or worse than helping another human in need. Either way, one is simply
satisfying the self, based on given tastes and preferences. A thorough moral relativism is
implied.
The Moral Message of Economists
Adam Smith recognized that to consider self-interest the essence of human nature raised
a moral problem: namely, whether a society populated exclusively by self-seekers was
consistent with a general good. His answer was simply to deny that the problem existed.
Smith invoked an "invisible hand'' to harmonize individual egos: "… the
study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads [one] to prefer that
employment which is most advantageous to the society.'' And, "[by] pursuing his own
interest [one] frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really
intends to promote it.'' [9] The extravagant nature of the claim
made here is regularly overlooked: not only are self-centered intentions as good in their
social consequences as public-spirited intentions, but better. There need be no
moral constraints set upon the human ego because an invisible hand harmonizes the acts of
all.
The modern British economist Joan Robinson pointed out that with this invisible-hand
doctrine Smith "abolished the moral problem,'' that is, I take it, how humans are to
produce a common good out of purely individualistic motives. [10]
Given Smith's assurances, it is no wonder that the laissez-faire authors of the nineteenth
century, such as Jane Marcet, typically rationalized indifference to the plight of the
economically weak as serving the best interest of society.
The peculiar moral system embodied in nineteenth-century political economy was quite
evident to Charles Dickens, who devoted Hard Times to attacking it. In the novel,
the doctrines of classical political economy are taught in a proprietary school owned by
one Thomas Gradgrind. Dickens sarcastically dismisses the writings of his character
Gradgrind as "proving… that the Good Samaritan was a Bad Economist'' --or, as
the modern economics-text writers might say, irrational. [11]
Dickens thus warned that the moral precepts of the parable and of economics were poles
apart.
The Nobel laureate Stigler recognized that his view of human nature also implied a
value system. To Stigler ethics are largely rules to guarantee that self-interest take the
long-run view and not ignore market externalities. Ethical rules "in general prohibit
behavior which is only myopically self-serving…'' in order to advance long-term
interests. Stigler quickly added, however, that "some people will gain by violating
the rules.'' [12] This last observation, of course, would seem
to undermine the possibility of any ethic based on self-interest. (What argument can be
advanced against cheating on an ethic of self-interest if self-interest itself is the
motive for cheating?)
As noted, many economists equate self-interested behavior with rational
behavior, using the terms interchangeably. A truly self-sacrificing act, knowingly done on
behalf of a higher good, is thus irrational --as is any ethic based on duty or obligation
to others. Conversely, the most extremely self-interested behavior is equated with
rationality and thereby legitimated. This line of reasoning has even led some economists
to affirm that crime is rational behavior. In this view the only thing that would make
crime irrational is that the expected punishment outweighed the probable gains. According
to such reasoning, honest people are really motivated the same way criminals are: it is
just that "honest'' people don't calculate that the net payoff to crime is worth it.
The intentions of both the honest and the criminal are identical. Everyone is a criminal
at heart!
The morality implied by this line of reasoning has been understood, and protested, by
some economists --these protests once again confirming the nature of the neoclassical
orthodoxy. Arthur Okun observed that there is a duty to obey the law, and
"anyone who would merely balance the cost of risking a prison sentence against the
benefits obtainable from stealing a wallet is violating that duty.'' [13] Okun suggested that individuals have obligations to their
community --a notion utterly foreign to the self-interest doctrine.
Finally, the doctrine of self-interest makes personal freedom a central value of
economic morality. If one is to pursue one's interests, then one must be free so to do. It
is no accident that the strongest proponents of libertarianism are economists. However,
the personal freedom advocated is a freedom whose content is unspecified; the blanks are
to be filled in by the tastes and preferences of the individual self. Said Milton
Friedman, the ultimate social value, freedom, "has nothing to say about what an
individual does with his freedom. …'' [14] Nothing beyond
the individual self may legitimately define what is good and evil. The self is truly
unbounded.
Self-Interest in Theological Thought
Although it is rare that theologians venture onto the turf of economics as such,
American theology nevertheless has dealt with these very issues. Indeed, the American
Puritans and their British mentors, who preceded Adam Smith by almost two centuries, dealt
with the same questions. In contemporary times theologians have addressed these issues
because economic values constitute much of the values of the broader American culture.
Governor John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay colony summed up the Puritan
understanding of self-interest when he wrote that in the Fall, Adam not only alienated
himself from God, but "rent all his posterity allsoe one from another, whence it
comes that every man is borne with this principle in him, to love and seeke himselfe
onely. …'' [15] Self-interest was, therefore, as universal
for Winthrop as it was to be for Smith. But Winthrop traced the source to the Fall, and
did not see it as a benign manifestation of rationality. Winthrop found the consequence of
self-interest to be the destruction of human community, the rending of people "one
from another,'' not the advancement of the public good as Smith did.
Much has been made by interpreters like Max Weber and R. H. Tawney of Puritan
individualism, and of its tendency to promote self-interested economic behavior. Indeed,
Puritan theologians like William Perkins asserted that one's calling by God is to a
vocation that is best for oneself. And the secularized "Puritanism'' of figures like
Benjamin Franklin seems to have had much kinship with the doctrines of Adam Smith.
Perhaps it was because Puritan individualism, rooted in the doctrine of God's election
and calling of individuals, inescapably legitimated a certain degree of self-interest that
a major task undertaken by Puritan theological ethics was to define the moral limits of
self-interest. The Puritan ethic defined a legitimate individualism as one oriented
outward toward the common good. The theologian Perkins, who had argued that a vocation was
for the good of self, simultaneously argued without self-contradiction that "he
abuseth his calling, whosoever… imployes it for himselfe, seeking wholly his owne,
and not the common good.'' [16] The American John Cotton
defined the "carnall man'' as he "that never served any man but himself.'' [17]
This heritage did not easily disappear. Daniel Raymond, America's first systematic
economic thinker, rejected the extreme individualism of the classical political economy as
it had developed by the 1820s. He warned that self-interest endangers the common good,
baldly stating that the interests of a nation and of individuals "are often directly
opposed.'' [18] Raymond rejected individualism entirely to
suggest that the government should be the main agent of the common good, that it
"should be like a good shepherd, who supports and nourishes the weak and feeble ones
in his flock.'' [19]
Raymond also anticipated the branch of economics now called macroeconomics, which
provides the major alternative within economics to the largely neoclassical microeconomics
of self-interest. Raymond suggested that even the most rational decisions of individuals
could not prevent the economy from developing systemic ills. His primitive analysis
pointed beyond itself to a larger moral vision: that all humans share a common existence;
and that the common good required an agent, like government, capable of transcending
private interests. Raymond's suspicion --that individual self-interest could fail the
common good --is consistent with the Puritan vision.
Three Contemporary Theological Perspectives
Without explicitly addressing economics, some theologians have done so implicitly while
addressing the utilitarian morality of moderns. Abraham Heschel observed that the modern
person behaves "as if the sole purpose of the universe were to satisfy his needs.'' [20] But although self-interest is a human reality, wrote Heschel,
one ought not to cater to that reality but to transcend it, "to sacrifice [one's] own
interests for the sake of the holy.'' [21] Heschel was not here
directly addressing economic morality. However, he made clear that self-interest leads
humanity fundamentally astray.
Heschel noted that the corollary of self-interest is personal freedom to fulfill one's
desires. Yet he saw the emptiness of a freedom whose only content is that provided by the
human ego. He asked, "Is liberty an empty concept --the ability to do what we
please''? [22] And he suggested that liberty is meaningful only
when given the content of righteousness.
Finally, Heschel, like the Puritan writers, recognized that one might legitimately
serve oneself, provided one's primary orientation was outward toward a greater good, and
not inward toward self. Evil arises by "arrogating to the self what is not its due,''
and making self the "ultimate goal.'' [23]
A contemporary Protestant thinker who has done much sustained writing on the morality
of economics is Philip Wogaman. Wogaman examines the writings of modern free-market
polemicists rather than formal economists, yet the essential points emerge. Although
Wogaman gives credit to the individualist values of capitalism, he claims they conceal a
"faulty understanding of human nature.'' [24] The major
failing is the neglect of the "social nature'' of human beings. Economic
individualism is a half-truth, inviting "a kind of principled selfishness.'' [25] Wogaman takes it as axiomatic that individualism by itself
does not yield the common good. Like the Puritan thinkers, Wogaman warns of "the
destructive possibilities of self-centered behavior.'' [26] He
also suggests another dimension of a self-interest morality: moral callousness, wherein
the successful attribute their success to "their own goodness'' while seeing
"character deficiencies'' at the root of others' failures. [27]
Wogaman also hints at a fundamental paradox of self-interest values. Economic morality
insists that the self have the freedom to pursue its interests, yet defines those
interests relative to a framework of incentives, such as relative prices that are outside
the individual's control. Thus, the self's freedom is simply the "freedom'' to move
to an outcome dictated by external incentives impinging on one's preferences. Wogaman
hints at this unfreedom when he suggests that there are always those in a position to set
the incentives for others, who may "motivate people through their insecurities and
vulnerabilities.'' [28]
Like both Heschel and Wogaman, the American Catholic bishops in their pastoral letter
Economic Justice for All do not directly address the discipline of economics, but
rather the structure of the economy and its moral manifestations. Again, however, the
major issues are joined.
The bishops almost directly address Adam Smith's vision of the division of labor, and
come to the same conclusion as Smith --namely, that private interest will emerge as
dominant in such a world. But they view the prospect without Smith's complacency. The
bishops note that people will come to view "their work ever more narrowly…'' and
that the result will be "social fragmentation… and an increased emphasis on
personal goals and private interests.'' [29] And the bishops
understand that self-interest is dangerous not only to the common good, but also to the
individual. The utilitarian morality of our age produces "destructive notions of
responsibility and personal growth.'' [30]
The bishops also counter the invisible-hand notion that markets automatically produce
the social good. They note the free-market enthusiasts' proposition that out of
self-interested motives the market "provides the greatest possible liberty, material
welfare, and equity.'' [31] Against this view, which has the
effect of placing the economy beyond moral scrutiny, the bishops note that "the
economy has been created by human beings and can be changed by them….'' [32]
In sum, theologians perceive that the economists' understanding of human nature, and
its corresponding value system, have many adherents in contemporary American culture. More
important, theologians representing several traditions find the central premises of the
economic morality to be lacking. This consensus, furthermore, extends back in time to the
very first American theologians, whose writings anticipated the central problem of
self-interest. The soundness of the theological critique is attested to by the findings of
social scientists themselves. The sociologist Robert Bellah and his colleagues have
documented the prevalence of the utilitarian ethic in all aspects of American life, and
commented on its negative results for the greater community; they have explicitly
juxtaposed this with the moral strengths of the biblical tradition. In addition, as we
have noted, the economic morality is not without critics among economists themselves.
In closing, we reiterate other inherent weaknesses of the self-interest morality. It
necessitates an "invisible hand'' to avoid the problem of conflicting selves; one
needs to be rooted in Enlightenment optimism to make this the foundation of one's ethic.
An ethic of self-interest is incapable of formulating a case against violating its own
rules if the violation is motivated by self-interest. The ethic's notion of freedom is
essentially without content, leaving each person "free'' to be a slave of the desires
of self. Finally, the economic ethic poses the paradox that freedom emerges as the highest
value in a
system that is essentially a deterministic web of material incentives.
Footnotes
[1] For example, Gary Dorrien, "Beyond State and Market:
Christianity and the Future of Economic Democracy.'' In Cross Currents (Summer
1995): 184--204.
[2] Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776). Book I,
chap. 2.
[3] George J. Stigler, The Economist as Preacher and Other
Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 35.
[4] Richard McKenzie, Economics (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1986), 375.
[5] Amartya Sen, On Ethics and Economics (London: Basil
Blackwell, 1987), 15--16.
[6] Ronald G. Ehrenberg and Robert S. Smith, Modern Labor
Economics 2d. ed. (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1985), 4.
[7] Robert H. Frank, Thomas Gilovich and Dennis T. Regan,
"Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation''? Journal of Economic Perspectives
7, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 170.
[8] Richard McKenzie, Economics, 385.
[9] Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, chap.
2.
[10] Joan Robinson, Economic Philosophy (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962), 54.
[11] Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854), Book II,
chap. 12.
[12] George Stigler, The Economist as Preacher,
35--36.
[13] Arthur Okun, Equality and Efficiency: The Big
Tradeoff (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1975), 6.
[14] Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1962), 12.
[15] John Winthrop, "Christian Charitie: a Modell
Hereof'' (1630), in E. Morgan, ed. Puritan Political Ideas 1558--1794
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), 86.
[16] William Perkins, "Of the Vocations or Callings of
Man,'' in ibid., 39.
[17] John Cotton, The Way of Life (1641), 447.
[18] Daniel Raymond, The Elements of Political Economy
(1823), vol. I, 35.
[19] Ibid., vol. II, 13.
[20] Abraham J. Heschel, God in Search of Man: A
Philosophy of Judaism (orig. 1955) (New York: Harper and Row, 1966) 34--35.
[21] Ibid., 117.
[22] Ibid., 170.
[23] Ibid., 400.
[24] J. Philip Wogaman, Economics and Ethics: A Christian
Inquiry (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 20.
[25] Ibid., 21.
[26] Ibid., 37--38.
[27] Ibid., 38.
[28] Ibid., 41.
[29] National Conference of Catholic Bishops, \em Economic
Justice for All\/ (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1986), par. 22.
[30] Ibid., par. 345.
[31] Ibid., par. 128.
[32] Ibid., par. 129
The Good Samaritan as Bad Economist:
Self-Interest in Economics and Theology
by Donald E. Frey
Donald E. Frey is professor of economics at Wake Forest University in
Winston-Salem, N.C.
The moral legitimacy of economic systems has consistently received the attention of
religious thinkers. [1] The moral content of economics as an
intellectual discipline, however, may be as important. Beginning with Adam Smith, and
continuing through modern American Nobel laureates of the influential neoclassical school,
economists have insisted that self-interest is the key to human nature. Some claim that
the self-interest axiom merely serves the scientific purpose of generating verifiable
hypotheses. However, these economists' language and their nonscientific writings reveal
that self-interest fills the much greater role of defining human nature, and so implying a
moral system.
Following Smith's lead, neoclassical economics takes a benign view of self-interest,
holding that self-interested decisions, made within the structure of the market,
invariably produce an aggregate good --without anyone intending that end. To be fair to
this tradition, we note that there is a literature on "market failures'' (such as
externalities, monopoly, and public goods) that qualifies this claim somewhat; and, on
close inspection, the nature of the aggregate good seems highly attenuated. However, the
most orthodox of the neoclassical economists treat these as minor exceptions to the norm.
Thus economic morality is understood as an expression of self-interest, rather than a
necessary counter to self-interest. The first section of this essay delineates these
claims.
Christian doctrine and, perhaps more broadly, the biblical tradition make self-interest
a central feature of fallen human nature. Self-interest is understood to be at
least potentially disruptive of human community; social morality is required as a
counterweight to self-interest. This is true even for highly individualistic theologies
that emphasize grace apprehended by personal faith. The second section of this essay
relates how representative American theologians have reacted to the morality of economics.
The Tradition of the Economists
In his famous line Adam Smith proclaimed that "it is not from the benevolence of
the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to
their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self love.
…'' [2] (Of course, an earlier book of his had argued that
humans respond to more humane "moral sentiments.'') Smith was asserting here,
however, that, in an economic world defined by the division of labor, economic agents
inevitably would become morally isolated from each other. The social interrelatedness
necessary to develop these moral sentiments simply would be lacking. Thus, in economic
society characterized by division of labor and the social distance that it creates, only
the appeal to self-interest would be effective.
Over the years an influential number of economists have minimized these nuances of
Smith's thought and represented self-interest, almost pure and simple, as the key to human
behavior. The axiom of self-interest is embodied in the neoclassical utility-maximization
model that can be found as the core of virtually all microeconomics texts. An economic
agent, who possesses a set of tastes for certain goods and services must spend a given
income to buy goods and services in a mixture that maximizes personal "utility'' or
satisfaction. The agent is constrained by limited income and the prices that are charged
for the goods. Thus, if relative prices or income change, the agent recalibrates the
mixture of goods purchased. All behavior is described as the search for maximum utility
amid changing constraints. This model is almost infinitely expandable into other realms;
for example, one of the "goods'' may be defined as leisure, and one's "income''
may be defined as time, while the "price'' of leisure becomes an hour's wage
foregone. By clever extension this model is made to explain virtually all human decisions.
The self-interest orientation is evident in that the economic agent's sole concern is
maximizing its own "utility.''
Nobel laureate George Stigler insisted that the concept of self-interest provides a
universal explanation of human activity. "Man is eternally a utility-maximizer,'' he
wrote, and not just in economic activity but "… in his church, in his scientific
work, in short, everywhere.'' [3] Another Nobel laureate, Gary
Becker, has elaborated how self-interest could explain the most personal decisions,
including marriage, child-bearing, and so on.
Standard textbooks in economics make the same point, and often carry it a step further.
One text asserts, for example, that the "rational'' individual "always stands
ready to further her own interest.'' [4]As in this text,
economics often equates rationality with consistent utility maximization, thus
reducing rationality to a calculus of personal gain. The equation of self-interest with
rationality implies that self-interest is a basic human trait, and like reason, a positive
human attribute.
Even economist-critics of the neoclassical orthodoxy confirm its nature. While the
Harvard economist Amartya Sen exclaims that to limit rationality only to self-interested
behavior "seems altogether extraordinary,'' [5] few of
these critics claim that self-interest is irrelevant to human behavior, but only that
human behavior cannot be dismissed as "not rational'' if it cannot be reduced to
self-interest.
The authors of a widely used labor economics text dismiss the objection that people are
not really such personal-utility calculators. "[For] if people are not … then
most predictions suggested by economic theory will not be supported by real-world
evidence.'' [6] This text is devoted to showing how the
"real-world evidence'' is indeed consistent with the self-interest axiom. Although
these authors prefer the language of science --e.g., "assumptions,''
"predictions,'' "evidence'' --the broader message is that actual behavior can be
explained consistently only by predicating a human nature that is exclusively focused upon
maximizing its own utility.
Recently researchers have shown that the axiom of self-interest may become the basis of
a working morality for those who most believe it --namely economists. According to the
researchers, evidence shows that economists actually behave more self-interestedly than
noneconomists. [7] In short, the axiom of self-interest serves
as far more than the starting point for scientific hypothesizing --it becomes a moral
principle by which those who believe the axiom actually relate to others.
Economists go out of their way to protect the hypothesis of self-interest from apparent
anomalies, such as altruistic behavior. (Altruism is an anomaly, since one gives up
something --seeming to leave the self worse off --in order that someone else be made
better off.) The introductory text quoted earlier argues that the "rationality'' of
altruism can be saved provided the altruist wants to serve others "just as he can
want to own a new car'' (emphasis added). [8] According to
this argument, the outer act may look like self-denial, but the inner intent remains
entirely the satisfaction of the self. One is serving others, not due to moral obligation,
nor because someone else displaces self in one's own regard, but only because such
activity happens to please oneself. Nor is even the outer act true self-denial. What one
gives up for the sake of others is no different from the money one gives up to obtain the
car one wants to own: in either case one is merely engaged in a transaction to obtain what
one wants.
Economics does not study the source of tastes or preferences --they are given. This
means that one's taste for cars as opposed to one's taste for serving others is
inexplicable, simply a datum. Since tastes are inexplicable they have no moral status; or,
more accurately, all tastes have the same moral status. The intent to obtain a car is
morally no better or worse than helping another human in need. Either way, one is simply
satisfying the self, based on given tastes and preferences. A thorough moral relativism is
implied.
The Moral Message of Economists
Adam Smith recognized that to consider self-interest the essence of human nature raised
a moral problem: namely, whether a society populated exclusively by self-seekers was
consistent with a general good. His answer was simply to deny that the problem existed.
Smith invoked an "invisible hand'' to harmonize individual egos: "… the
study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads [one] to prefer that
employment which is most advantageous to the society.'' And, "[by] pursuing his own
interest [one] frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really
intends to promote it.'' [9] The extravagant nature of the claim
made here is regularly overlooked: not only are self-centered intentions as good in their
social consequences as public-spirited intentions, but better. There need be no
moral constraints set upon the human ego because an invisible hand harmonizes the acts of
all.
The modern British economist Joan Robinson pointed out that with this invisible-hand
doctrine Smith "abolished the moral problem,'' that is, I take it, how humans are to
produce a common good out of purely individualistic motives. [10]
Given Smith's assurances, it is no wonder that the laissez-faire authors of the nineteenth
century, such as Jane Marcet, typically rationalized indifference to the plight of the
economically weak as serving the best interest of society.
The peculiar moral system embodied in nineteenth-century political economy was quite
evident to Charles Dickens, who devoted Hard Times to attacking it. In the novel,
the doctrines of classical political economy are taught in a proprietary school owned by
one Thomas Gradgrind. Dickens sarcastically dismisses the writings of his character
Gradgrind as "proving… that the Good Samaritan was a Bad Economist'' --or, as
the modern economics-text writers might say, irrational. [11]
Dickens thus warned that the moral precepts of the parable and of economics were poles
apart.
The Nobel laureate Stigler recognized that his view of human nature also implied a
value system. To Stigler ethics are largely rules to guarantee that self-interest take the
long-run view and not ignore market externalities. Ethical rules "in general prohibit
behavior which is only myopically self-serving…'' in order to advance long-term
interests. Stigler quickly added, however, that "some people will gain by violating
the rules.'' [12] This last observation, of course, would seem
to undermine the possibility of any ethic based on self-interest. (What argument can be
advanced against cheating on an ethic of self-interest if self-interest itself is the
motive for cheating?)
As noted, many economists equate self-interested behavior with rational
behavior, using the terms interchangeably. A truly self-sacrificing act, knowingly done on
behalf of a higher good, is thus irrational --as is any ethic based on duty or obligation
to others. Conversely, the most extremely self-interested behavior is equated with
rationality and thereby legitimated. This line of reasoning has even led some economists
to affirm that crime is rational behavior. In this view the only thing that would make
crime irrational is that the expected punishment outweighed the probable gains. According
to such reasoning, honest people are really motivated the same way criminals are: it is
just that "honest'' people don't calculate that the net payoff to crime is worth it.
The intentions of both the honest and the criminal are identical. Everyone is a criminal
at heart!
The morality implied by this line of reasoning has been understood, and protested, by
some economists --these protests once again confirming the nature of the neoclassical
orthodoxy. Arthur Okun observed that there is a duty to obey the law, and
"anyone who would merely balance the cost of risking a prison sentence against the
benefits obtainable from stealing a wallet is violating that duty.'' [13] Okun suggested that individuals have obligations to their
community --a notion utterly foreign to the self-interest doctrine.
Finally, the doctrine of self-interest makes personal freedom a central value of
economic morality. If one is to pursue one's interests, then one must be free so to do. It
is no accident that the strongest proponents of libertarianism are economists. However,
the personal freedom advocated is a freedom whose content is unspecified; the blanks are
to be filled in by the tastes and preferences of the individual self. Said Milton
Friedman, the ultimate social value, freedom, "has nothing to say about what an
individual does with his freedom. …'' [14] Nothing beyond
the individual self may legitimately define what is good and evil. The self is truly
unbounded.
Self-Interest in Theological Thought
Although it is rare that theologians venture onto the turf of economics as such,
American theology nevertheless has dealt with these very issues. Indeed, the American
Puritans and their British mentors, who preceded Adam Smith by almost two centuries, dealt
with the same questions. In contemporary times theologians have addressed these issues
because economic values constitute much of the values of the broader American culture.
Governor John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay colony summed up the Puritan
understanding of self-interest when he wrote that in the Fall, Adam not only alienated
himself from God, but "rent all his posterity allsoe one from another, whence it
comes that every man is borne with this principle in him, to love and seeke himselfe
onely. …'' [15] Self-interest was, therefore, as universal
for Winthrop as it was to be for Smith. But Winthrop traced the source to the Fall, and
did not see it as a benign manifestation of rationality. Winthrop found the consequence of
self-interest to be the destruction of human community, the rending of people "one
from another,'' not the advancement of the public good as Smith did.
Much has been made by interpreters like Max Weber and R. H. Tawney of Puritan
individualism, and of its tendency to promote self-interested economic behavior. Indeed,
Puritan theologians like William Perkins asserted that one's calling by God is to a
vocation that is best for oneself. And the secularized "Puritanism'' of figures like
Benjamin Franklin seems to have had much kinship with the doctrines of Adam Smith.
Perhaps it was because Puritan individualism, rooted in the doctrine of God's election
and calling of individuals, inescapably legitimated a certain degree of self-interest that
a major task undertaken by Puritan theological ethics was to define the moral limits of
self-interest. The Puritan ethic defined a legitimate individualism as one oriented
outward toward the common good. The theologian Perkins, who had argued that a vocation was
for the good of self, simultaneously argued without self-contradiction that "he
abuseth his calling, whosoever… imployes it for himselfe, seeking wholly his owne,
and not the common good.'' [16] The American John Cotton
defined the "carnall man'' as he "that never served any man but himself.'' [17]
This heritage did not easily disappear. Daniel Raymond, America's first systematic
economic thinker, rejected the extreme individualism of the classical political economy as
it had developed by the 1820s. He warned that self-interest endangers the common good,
baldly stating that the interests of a nation and of individuals "are often directly
opposed.'' [18] Raymond rejected individualism entirely to
suggest that the government should be the main agent of the common good, that it
"should be like a good shepherd, who supports and nourishes the weak and feeble ones
in his flock.'' [19]
Raymond also anticipated the branch of economics now called macroeconomics, which
provides the major alternative within economics to the largely neoclassical microeconomics
of self-interest. Raymond suggested that even the most rational decisions of individuals
could not prevent the economy from developing systemic ills. His primitive analysis
pointed beyond itself to a larger moral vision: that all humans share a common existence;
and that the common good required an agent, like government, capable of transcending
private interests. Raymond's suspicion --that individual self-interest could fail the
common good --is consistent with the Puritan vision.
Three Contemporary Theological Perspectives
Without explicitly addressing economics, some theologians have done so implicitly while
addressing the utilitarian morality of moderns. Abraham Heschel observed that the modern
person behaves "as if the sole purpose of the universe were to satisfy his needs.'' [20] But although self-interest is a human reality, wrote Heschel,
one ought not to cater to that reality but to transcend it, "to sacrifice [one's] own
interests for the sake of the holy.'' [21] Heschel was not here
directly addressing economic morality. However, he made clear that self-interest leads
humanity fundamentally astray.
Heschel noted that the corollary of self-interest is personal freedom to fulfill one's
desires. Yet he saw the emptiness of a freedom whose only content is that provided by the
human ego. He asked, "Is liberty an empty concept --the ability to do what we
please''? [22] And he suggested that liberty is meaningful only
when given the content of righteousness.
Finally, Heschel, like the Puritan writers, recognized that one might legitimately
serve oneself, provided one's primary orientation was outward toward a greater good, and
not inward toward self. Evil arises by "arrogating to the self what is not its due,''
and making self the "ultimate goal.'' [23]
A contemporary Protestant thinker who has done much sustained writing on the morality
of economics is Philip Wogaman. Wogaman examines the writings of modern free-market
polemicists rather than formal economists, yet the essential points emerge. Although
Wogaman gives credit to the individualist values of capitalism, he claims they conceal a
"faulty understanding of human nature.'' [24] The major
failing is the neglect of the "social nature'' of human beings. Economic
individualism is a half-truth, inviting "a kind of principled selfishness.'' [25] Wogaman takes it as axiomatic that individualism by itself
does not yield the common good. Like the Puritan thinkers, Wogaman warns of "the
destructive possibilities of self-centered behavior.'' [26] He
also suggests another dimension of a self-interest morality: moral callousness, wherein
the successful attribute their success to "their own goodness'' while seeing
"character deficiencies'' at the root of others' failures. [27]
Wogaman also hints at a fundamental paradox of self-interest values. Economic morality
insists that the self have the freedom to pursue its interests, yet defines those
interests relative to a framework of incentives, such as relative prices that are outside
the individual's control. Thus, the self's freedom is simply the "freedom'' to move
to an outcome dictated by external incentives impinging on one's preferences. Wogaman
hints at this unfreedom when he suggests that there are always those in a position to set
the incentives for others, who may "motivate people through their insecurities and
vulnerabilities.'' [28]
Like both Heschel and Wogaman, the American Catholic bishops in their pastoral letter
Economic Justice for All do not directly address the discipline of economics, but
rather the structure of the economy and its moral manifestations. Again, however, the
major issues are joined.
The bishops almost directly address Adam Smith's vision of the division of labor, and
come to the same conclusion as Smith --namely, that private interest will emerge as
dominant in such a world. But they view the prospect without Smith's complacency. The
bishops note that people will come to view "their work ever more narrowly…'' and
that the result will be "social fragmentation… and an increased emphasis on
personal goals and private interests.'' [29] And the bishops
understand that self-interest is dangerous not only to the common good, but also to the
individual. The utilitarian morality of our age produces "destructive notions of
responsibility and personal growth.'' [30]
The bishops also counter the invisible-hand notion that markets automatically produce
the social good. They note the free-market enthusiasts' proposition that out of
self-interested motives the market "provides the greatest possible liberty, material
welfare, and equity.'' [31] Against this view, which has the
effect of placing the economy beyond moral scrutiny, the bishops note that "the
economy has been created by human beings and can be changed by them….'' [32]
In sum, theologians perceive that the economists' understanding of human nature, and
its corresponding value system, have many adherents in contemporary American culture. More
important, theologians representing several traditions find the central premises of the
economic morality to be lacking. This consensus, furthermore, extends back in time to the
very first American theologians, whose writings anticipated the central problem of
self-interest. The soundness of the theological critique is attested to by the findings of
social scientists themselves. The sociologist Robert Bellah and his colleagues have
documented the prevalence of the utilitarian ethic in all aspects of American life, and
commented on its negative results for the greater community; they have explicitly
juxtaposed this with the moral strengths of the biblical tradition. In addition, as we
have noted, the economic morality is not without critics among economists themselves.
In closing, we reiterate other inherent weaknesses of the self-interest morality. It
necessitates an "invisible hand'' to avoid the problem of conflicting selves; one
needs to be rooted in Enlightenment optimism to make this the foundation of one's ethic.
An ethic of self-interest is incapable of formulating a case against violating its own
rules if the violation is motivated by self-interest. The ethic's notion of freedom is
essentially without content, leaving each person "free'' to be a slave of the desires
of self. Finally, the economic ethic poses the paradox that freedom emerges as the highest
value in a
system that is essentially a deterministic web of material incentives.
Footnotes
[1] For example, Gary Dorrien, "Beyond State and Market:
Christianity and the Future of Economic Democracy.'' In Cross Currents (Summer
1995): 184--204.
[2] Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776). Book I,
chap. 2.
[3] George J. Stigler, The Economist as Preacher and Other
Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 35.
[4] Richard McKenzie, Economics (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1986), 375.
[5] Amartya Sen, On Ethics and Economics (London: Basil
Blackwell, 1987), 15--16.
[6] Ronald G. Ehrenberg and Robert S. Smith, Modern Labor
Economics 2d. ed. (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1985), 4.
[7] Robert H. Frank, Thomas Gilovich and Dennis T. Regan,
"Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation''? Journal of Economic Perspectives
7, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 170.
[8] Richard McKenzie, Economics, 385.
[9] Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, chap.
2.
[10] Joan Robinson, Economic Philosophy (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962), 54.
[11] Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854), Book II,
chap. 12.
[12] George Stigler, The Economist as Preacher,
35--36.
[13] Arthur Okun, Equality and Efficiency: The Big
Tradeoff (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1975), 6.
[14] Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1962), 12.
[15] John Winthrop, "Christian Charitie: a Modell
Hereof'' (1630), in E. Morgan, ed. Puritan Political Ideas 1558--1794
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), 86.
[16] William Perkins, "Of the Vocations or Callings of
Man,'' in ibid., 39.
[17] John Cotton, The Way of Life (1641), 447.
[18] Daniel Raymond, The Elements of Political Economy
(1823), vol. I, 35.
[19] Ibid., vol. II, 13.
[20] Abraham J. Heschel, God in Search of Man: A
Philosophy of Judaism (orig. 1955) (New York: Harper and Row, 1966) 34--35.
[21] Ibid., 117.
[22] Ibid., 170.
[23] Ibid., 400.
[24] J. Philip Wogaman, Economics and Ethics: A Christian
Inquiry (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 20.
[25] Ibid., 21.
[26] Ibid., 37--38.
[27] Ibid., 38.
[28] Ibid., 41.
[29] National Conference of Catholic Bishops, \em Economic
Justice for All\/ (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1986), par. 22.
[30] Ibid., par. 345.
[31] Ibid., par. 128.
[32] Ibid., par. 129
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