Development as Freedom (45 page)

In some of the literature in economics and politics (but less often in philosophy), the term “rational choice” is used, with breathtaking simplicity, for the discipline of systematic choice based exclusively on personal advantage. If personal advantage is narrowly defined, then this type of “rational” modeling would make it hard to expect that considerations of ethics, or justice, or the interest of future generations will have much role in our choices and actions.

Should rationality be so narrowly characterized? If rational behavior includes canny advancement of our objectives, there is no reason why the canny pursuit of sympathy, or canny promotion of justice, cannot be seen as exercises in rational choice. In departing from narrowly self-interested behavior, it is convenient to distinguish between two different routes of departure, viz., “sympathy” and “commitment.”
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First, our conception of self-interest may itself include our concern for others, and sympathy may thus be incorporated within the notion of the person’s own well-being, broadly defined. Second, going beyond our broadly defined well-being or self-interest, we may be willing to make sacrifices in pursuit of other values, such as social justice or nationalism or communal welfare (even at some personal cost). This kind of departure, involving
commitment
(rather than just
sympathy
), invokes values other than personal well-being or self-interest (including the self-interest involved in promoting the interests of those with whom we sympathize).

The distinction can be illustrated with an example. If you help a destitute person because his destitution makes you very unhappy, that would be a sympathy-based action. If, however, the presence of the destitute does not make you particularly unhappy, but does fill you with the determination to change a system that you think is unjust (or more generally, your determination is not fully explainable by the unhappiness that the presence of the destitute creates), then this would be a commitment-based action.

There is, in an important sense, no sacrifice of self-interest, or of well-being, involved in being responsive to our sympathies. Helping a destitute may make you better off if you suffer at his suffering. Committed behavior may, however, involve self-sacrifice, since the reason for your attempt to help is your sense of injustice, rather than
your desire to relieve your own sympathetic suffering. Nevertheless, there is still an element of one’s “self” involved in the pursuit of one’s commitments, since the commitments are one’s own. More important, even though committed behavior may or may not be conducive to the promotion of one’s personal advantage (or well-being), such a pursuit need not involve any denial of the person’s rational will.
³⁶

Adam Smith discussed the need for both kinds of departures. “The most humane actions,” he argued, “require no self-denial, no self-command, no great exertion of the sense of propriety,” since they follow what our “sympathy would of its own accord prompt us to do.”
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“But it is otherwise with generosity.” And so it is with broader values such as justice, which require the person to restrain his self-interest and “make the impartial spectator enter into the principles of his conduct” and may call for “greater exertions of public spirit.”
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Crucial to Smith’s view of “propriety of humanity and justice” is “the concord between the affections of the agent and those of the spectators.”
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Smith’s conception of the rational person places this person firmly in the company of others—right in the middle of a society to which he belongs. The person’s evaluations as well as actions invoke the presence of others, and the individual is not dissociated from “the public.”

In this context it is important to dispute the common description of Adam Smith—the father of modern economics—as the single-minded prophet of self-interest. There is quite a well-established tradition in economics (and indeed in general public discussion) of taking Smith to have seen only self-interest in the rational world (and to have been happy with what he had allegedly seen). This is done by choosing some passages—usually one (the baker-brewer-butcher statement, quoted earlier)—from his vast writings. This has given currency to a very distorted view of Smith, which is summarized by George Stigler (otherwise a fine author and economist) as: “self-interest dominates the majority of men.”
⁴⁰

It is certainly true that Smith did argue in that particular passage, which has been quoted incredibly often (sometimes quite out of context), that we do not need to invoke “benevolence” to explain why the butcher, the brewer or the baker
wants
to sell his products to us, and why we
want
to buy his products.
⁴¹
Smith was clearly right to point out that the
motivation
for mutually beneficial exchange certainly does not need anything more than what Smith called “self-love,”
and this is decidedly important to note, since exchange is so central to economic analysis. But in dealing with other problems—those of distribution and equity and of rule-following for generating productive efficiency—Smith emphasized broader motivations. In these broader contexts, while prudence remained “of all virtues that which is most helpful to the individual,” he explained why “humanity, generosity, and public spirit, are the qualities most useful to others.”
⁴²
The variety of motivations that we have reason to accommodate is, in fact, quite central to Smith’s remarkably rich analysis of human behavior. This is very distant from George Stigler’s Smith, and far from the caricature of Smith as the big guru of self-interest. We can say by twisting Shakespeare a little, that while some men are born small and some achieve smallness, Adam Smith has had much smallness thrust upon him.
⁴³

What is at issue here is what our great contemporary philosopher John Rawls has called the “moral powers” shared by us: “a capacity for a sense of justice and for a conception of the good.” Rawls sees the presumption of these shared powers as central to “the tradition of democratic thought,” along with “powers of reason (of judgment, thought, and inference connected with these powers).”
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In fact, the role of values is extensive in human behavior, and to deny this would amount not only to a departure from the tradition of democratic thought, but also to the limiting of our rationality. It is the power of reason that allows us to consider our obligations and ideals as well as our interests and advantages. To deny this freedom of thought would amount to a severe constraint on the reach of our rationality.

In assessing the demands of rational behavior, it is also important to go beyond the immediate choice of isolated objectives to the emergence and endurance of objectives through their effectiveness and survival. Recent works on the formation of preferences, and the role of evolution in that formation, have tended to broaden very substantially the scope and coverage of rational choice theory.
⁴⁵
Even if
ultimately
no individual has a direct reason to be concerned with justice and ethics, these considerations may be instrumentally important for
economic success, and may, through that advantage, survive better than their rivals, in social rules of behavior.

This type of “derived” reasoning can be contrasted with behavioral rules being deliberately chosen by an individual through an ethical examination of how one “should” act (as was famously explored, for example, by Immanuel Kant and Adam Smith).
⁴⁶
The ethical reasons for a “direct”—rather than derived—concern for justice and altruism have been pursued in different forms in modern ethical writings as well. Practical ethics of behavior incorporate, in addition to purely moral concerns, various influences of a social and psychological nature, including norms and mores of some complexity.
⁴⁷

Considerations of justice can be accommodated in our deliberations
both
for “direct” and for “derived” reasons, and they need not necessarily be seen as “alternatives.” Even if behavioral norms and concerns emerge on ethical or social or psychological grounds, their long-run survival can scarcely be independent of their consequences and of the evolutionary processes that may come into play. On the other side, in studying evolutionary selection within a broad framework, there is no need to confine the admission of non-self-interested behavior
only
to evolutionary selection, with no independent role of rational deliberation. It is possible to combine deliberative and evolutionary selection of committed behavior within one integrated framework.
⁴⁸

The values that influence us may emerge in quite different ways. First, they may come from
reflection and analysis
. The reflections may relate directly with our concerns and responsibilities (as Kant and Smith both emphasized), or indirectly with the effects of good behavior (for example, the advantages of having a good reputation and of encouraging trust).

Second, they may arise from our willingness to
follow convention
, and to think and act in ways that the established mores suggest we do.
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This type of “concordant behavior” can extend the reach of reasoning beyond the limits of the individual’s own critical assessment, since we can emulate what others have found reasons to do.
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Third,
public discussion
can have a strong influence on value formation. As Frank Knight—the great Chicago economist—noted, values “are established or validated and recognized through discussion, an activity which is at once social, intellectual, and creative.”
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In the context of public choice, James Buchanan has pointed out: “The definition
of democracy as ‘government by discussion’ implies that individual values can and do change in the process of decision-making.”
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Fourth, a crucial role may be played by
evolutionary selection
. Behavior patterns can survive and flourish because of their consequential role. Each of these categories of behavioral choice (reflective choice, concordant behavior, public discussion, and evolutionary selection) demands attention, and in conceptualizing human behavior there is a case for treating them jointly as well as severally. The role of values in social behavior fits into this broad network.

I turn now from the discussion of the ethics and norms of people in general to the values relevant in the making of public policy. Policy makers have two distinct, though interrelated, sets of reasons for taking an interest in the values of social justice. The first—and the more immediate—reason is that justice is a central concept in identifying the aims and objectives of public policy and also in deciding on the instruments that are appropriate in pursuing the chosen ends. Ideas of justice, and in particular the informational bases of particular approaches to justice (discussed in
chapter 3
), can be particularly crucial for the cogency and reach of public policy.

The second—more indirect—reason is that all public policies are dependent on how individuals and groups in the society behave. These behaviors are influenced, inter alia, by the understanding and interpretation of the demands of social ethics. For the making of public policy it is important not only to assess the demands of justice and the reach of values in choosing the objectives and priorities of public policy, but also to understand the values of the public at large, including their sense of justice.

Since the latter (more indirect) role of juridical concepts is probably more complex (and certainly less often analyzed), it may be useful to illustrate the role that norms and ideas of justice play in the determination of behavior and conduct, and how that can influence the direction of public policy. In discussing the influence of norms of fertility behavior (in
chapter 8
and
9
), the connection was already illustrated earlier, but I consider now another important example: the prevalence of corruption.

The prevalence of corruption is rightly regarded as one of the major stumbling blocks in the path to successful economic progress, for example in many Asian and African countries. A high level of corruption can make public policies ineffective and can also draw investment and economic activities away from productive pursuits toward the towering rewards of underhanded activities. It can also lead—as was discussed earlier—to the fostering of violent organizations such as the Mafia.

Corruption is not, however, a new phenomenon, nor are proposals for dealing with it. Ancient civilizations provide evidence of widespread illegality and corruption. Some produced considerable literature on ways of reducing corruption, especially of public officials. Indeed, we can get from this historical literature some insight on ways of preventing corruption today.

What, then,
is
“corrupt” behavior? Corruption involves the violation of established rules for personal gain and profit. Obviously it cannot be eradicated by inducing people to be
more
self-interested. Nor would it make sense to try to reduce corruption simply by asking people to be
less
self-interested in general—there has to be a specific reason to sacrifice personal gain.

It is, to some extent, possible to alter the balance of gains and losses from corrupt behavior through organizational reform. First, systems of inspection and penalty have figured prominently, through the ages, in the proposed rules for preventing corruption. For example, the Indian political analyst Kautilya, in the fourth century
B.C
., carefully distinguished between forty different ways in which a public servant can be tempted to be financially corrupt and described how a system of spot checks followed by penalties and rewards could prevent these activities.
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Clear systems of rules and penalties, along with rigorous enforcement, can make a difference to behavior patterns.