Who are you?

 The following essay is an edited transcript of a podcast episode I released a few years ago. I have decided to publish the transcript in essay form because I want to refer to it in a subsequent essay. It is easier to find particular words and paragraphs in an essay than in a podcast. Besides, when I listened to that podcast episode again, I decided that the sound of my voice distracted from the ideas I was presenting. 

My main qualification for talking about personal identity is that I have been around for long enough to have thought quite a lot about my own identity. I hope that what I have to say will interest other people. In any case, writing this podcast script should also help me to remember what I have learned about myself.

Rather than meander through the circuitous history of my thinking, I will focus here on what I now consider to be a sensible approach to the topic. I will begin by discussing the most superficial aspects of personal identity and will end up considering whether your identity would be retained if your consciousness was uploaded into a machine. Along the way, I will touch upon a range of other issues that might be of interest:

·       Is your identity defined by personal information about you?

·       Does your life-story define who you are?

·       How can aspects of your identity change over time?

·       Is the essence of your identity located in your conscious mind?

·       Where did Descartes go wrong in asserting “I think, therefore I am”?

·       What kind of being are you?

·       How does self-direction fit in to your identity?

Let us begin.

Is your identity defined by personal information about you? 

Your passport has information about your name, nationality, date of birth and sex. It also shows a photo that looks something like you. Other government documents may include additional information such as your place of residence.

If you wanted to tell me who you are, you might provide further information such as your occupation, marital status, whether you have had children and how many, ethnicity, religion, political views, education level, schools attended, employment history, the places you have lived in the past, your hobbies, books you have read, sports you have played or enjoy watching, movies you liked, and other entertainment preferences.

A person with all that information would know a lot about you. They might be well placed to predict how a person like you might spend money or vote, but they would have only a superficial view of who you are as an individual.

Does your life-story define who you are?

Your own understanding of who you are probably includes a narrative covering important events in your life, a view about important things you have learned from life, your personal values, and how you came to hold those values.

So, if you were to write an autobiography covering all those aspects, would that encapsulate a comprehensive understanding of your identity? I doubt it. If you are anything like me, a few days after you finished writing the book you would think of something important that you wanted to add.

What I am suggesting is that even though we know more about ourselves than anyone else can possibly know about us, our self-knowledge is never perfect. As you go through life, you may discover more about who you are, and some aspects of your identity may change.

How can aspects of your identity change over time?

Let us assume for the moment that the concept of identity implies the existence of an unchangeable essence at the core of who you are. I will consider the validity of that assumption later, but I first want to discuss how some aspects of your identity can change.

It is obvious that there are various ways in which the information in your passport and other identity documents can be changed. I will focus on how more fundamental aspects of identity, such as character traits, may change over time.

It may be possible for your character to change as a consequence of changes in the social and economic environment in which you live. People do tend to respond to incentives. For example, if the social and economic environment rewards cooperation for mutual benefit, that provides an incentive for people to develop habits of trustworthy behavior that will enable them to participate more fully in those benefits. The opposite happens if the social and economic environment rewards predatory activity.

However, that does not mean that your identity is “socially constructed”. The social and economic environment affects the incentives you face, but you can still choose how to respond to those incentives. People often think carefully before responding to incentives. And they sometimes choose to respond differently than they have in the past. The behavioralist assumption that people respond automatically to stimuli is a distorted view of human nature.

Individuals can also choose to change their behavior in ways that change their identity. You may discover that you have an aptitude to do something – for example, to assist other people to learn – and some aspects of your identity may change as you acquire skill in doing that.

It is even possible for people to discover that they have potential to change their personality to some extent. Traits such as extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability tend to be fairly stable in adults, but some research suggests that people can even change such traits if they make active efforts to do so. We discover our potential as we actualize it. There is some discussion of that process in Chapter 8 of my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing.

If fundamental aspects of your personality can change over time, that raises the question of where we should look if we want to find an unchangeable essence at the core of your being.

Is the essence of your identity located in your conscious mind?

In his book Thinking Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, suggests that the system in the mind that makes judgements and choices is “who we think we are” (Kahneman 2011, loc. 7547/9800). He is probably correct that most people tend to identify themselves with that system.

However, I argue in Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, that people are making a cognitive error when they identify themselves in that way (Bates 2021, p.140).

In order to explain why, I need to explain the two systems in the mind that Kahneman employs in his discussion. System 1 engages in intuitive thinking (fast thinking) and tends to produce quick answers to complex questions. It operates with little effort and no sense of voluntary control. System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it. Kahneman suggests that System 2 is who we think we are (Kahneman 2011, loc. 7547-7556/9800).

When I first read about Kahneman’s System 1 and System 2 several years ago, I saw parallels with the concept of Self 1 and Self 2 developed by Timothy Gallwey, a sports and business coach and author of popular ‘inner game’ books (Gallwey 1986, pp. 18-19). Gallwey observed that when he was playing tennis, he seemed to have two identities: Self 2 was playing tennis and Self 1 was constantly interfering by telling him how to play. It struck me that Gallwey’s Self 1 might correspond to Kahneman’s System 2 and that Gallwey’s Self 2 might correspond to Kahneman’s System 1.

The point I want to make is that it is not possible to judge whether it is more appropriate to identify with System 1 or System 2 without considering the nature of the activity that you are engaged in at a particular time. If you are playing sport, it often pays to identify as a fast thinker, responding intuitively and ignoring the unhelpful advice of the inner coach who is warning you to think carefully to avoid making an error.

If you are making a career choice, it makes sense to identify yourself as a person who thinks carefully about important decisions.

Should we view the system that makes judgements and choices as some kind of inner philosopher who thinks dispassionately? There was a time when I thought that. However, I had to ditch that idea after I read Antonio Damasio’s book Descartes Error. Damasio, a neurologist, pointed out that when people suffer brain damage that causes loss of most of their emotional lives, they are unable to make simple decisions even if their reasoning and logical abilities are intact (Damasio 1994, p.78).

In his book, The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt argues that “Reason and emotion must both work together to create intelligent behavior, but emotion ... does most of the work”. He presents a useful metaphor - an elephant and its rider - to explain the relationship between the controlled and automatic systems that determine human behavior. Haidt writes:

“The controlled system ... is better seen as an advisor. It’s a rider placed on the elephant’s back to help the elephant make better choices. The rider can see further into the future, and the rider can learn valuable information by talking to other riders or by reading maps, but the rider cannot order the elephant around against its will. ... The elephant and the rider each have their own intelligence, and when they work together well they enable the unique brilliance of human beings” (Haidt 2006, p 160).

Haidt is inviting us to identify ourselves as both rider and elephant.

That seems to me to make more sense than to identify myself only with the rider, or the system in my mind that makes effortful judgements and choices. When I exercise my cognitive abilities in non-judgmental observation of bodily sensations and ideas floating past, I identify with a natural self that embodies instinct and emotion as well as reason, and all the inherent potential that individual humans are born with. I invite you to engage in similar meditative practices to see if you come to the same conclusion.

That might be a good point to end on. However, many of you will be reluctant to trust your meditative insights unless you can be persuaded that there is a philosophically respectable basis for them.

We should not even view the meditative insights of prominent philosophers as being beyond question. The philosopher I have in mind is René Descartes, who claimed “I think, therefore I am” in the 17^th century, after he had engaged in a meditative process.

Where did Descartes go wrong?

Descartes reached his conclusion, “I think therefore I am”, after going through a process of considering what sources of knowledge could not be doubted, and discovering that he could not doubt that he was thinking.

I have already mentioned Antonio Damasio’s book, Descartes Error. What does Damasio see as the source of Descartes’ error? Damasio makes the point that beings existed before long before the evolution of humans who are aware that they are thinking (Damasio 1994, pp. 248-9).

In his book, The Metaphysics of Emergence, Richard Campbell suggests that Descartes was on the right track in observing that he was unable to doubt that he was thinking. Campbell suggest that the error arose when Descartes asked himself, “What then am I?” That question “presupposes that he takes himself to be some sort of thing” (Campbell 2015, pp.282-3). Campbell suggests that Descartes question immediately entrapped him in the traditional metaphysics of entities.

At this point I must explain why Cambell considers it to be problematic to consider oneself as an entity rather than as a process.

What kind of being are you?

You observe that you are thinking, and conclude that you are a thinking being. You also observe that you are a being that has a body, and that you experience sensations and emotions.

It appears obvious that you are an entity that has all those qualities. But you are also the observer engaged in self-reflection. You can engage in radical reflexivity as you observe the thoughts passing through your own mind.

However, if you are an entity, how can you be both the observer and the being that you are observing? Could you be two entities? I don’t think so. The observer, who is you, does not exist independently of the being who is observed, who is also you.

Richard Campbell suggests a way out of this dilemma. Drop the assumption that you are a fixed, given entity. The alternative he suggests is to perceive yourself as a complex process system. That enables you to perceive of radical reflexivity as a process. He writes:

“If the assumption that there is a fixed, given entity called ‘the self’ …  is rejected, the way is open to understand consciousness as a flow: a complex, emergent and interactive process which is radically reflexive” (Campbell 2015, p.292).

Our observations of the world tell us that many other animals are also aware of their surroundings. We have no problem in understanding that their awareness emerged or evolved to help them to survive and reproduce. Our human consciousness is just another step in that evolutionary process. Radical reflexivity - awareness of our own awareness - has emerged to help us to flourish as individuals in the cultures in which we live.

Campbell suggests that the flow of consciousness is analogous to a river maintaining its identity as it flows though different places. Your understanding of who you are is informed by the flow of your consciousness through time. In other words, your sense of identity is informed by your autobiographical memories. Campbell explains that this sense of identity also involves an element of projection into the future:

“I am a complex process system continually projecting myself out of my past into my future, my sense of myself necessarily involves my ‘has been’ and my ‘not yet’ (Campbell 2015, p.292).

As you think about your “not yet”, you might imagine a future that is different than your past. Perhaps that is just wishful thinking. Or you might be considering options available to change your life in various ways, or how to achieve a vision that you have for your own future. That brings me to the concept of self-direction.

How does self-direction fit into your identity?

As explained in Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, I subscribe to the view that wise and well-informed self-direction is integral to the process of individual flourishing. The nature of humans is such that as individuals mature, they normally have the potential to exercise the practical wisdom and integrity required to direct their own flourishing in accordance with goals they choose and values they endorse.

However, wise and well-informed self-direction is not an attribute that is manifested by all adult humans. It is to some extent a product of the incentives in the social environment in which people live. When the social environment requires individuals to accept responsibility for the outcomes of the choices they make, they have a strong incentive to become wise and well-informed.

Acquisition of skills in self-direction is also a product of personal attitudes. Unfortunately, some people perceive that nothing they do will make any difference to their lives. Others, who have similar history, perceive the potential to improve their lives and often make inspiring efforts to so by investing in personal development.

In my personal experience, it is easier to avoid behaving like a grumpy old man when I remind myself to be the person that I have potential to become.

That brings me close to the end of what I have to say. However, before I sum up, I will keep my promise to talk about the question I said I would end on.

Would your identity be retained if your mind was uploaded into a machine?

Some neuroscientists think this might be feasible within a few decades. They point to scientific advances that suggest it might be possible, and say they are not aware of any laws of physics that would prevent it.

I am not qualified to have an informed view on the technical feasibility of mind uploading, so I will think of it merely as a thought experiment.

Imagine that your mind has been uploaded and you wake up with your memories intact in an environment that looks like the real world as you know it. Is this emulated mind actually you? As I see it, that is something that your emulated mind would have to decide for itself.

However, that does not prevent me from speculating how an emulated mind might perceive its own identity if separated from the body which it remembers as an integral component of the complex processing system from which it was derived. Perhaps the emulated mind might feel as though it is having a dream and is unable to wake up. It might feel more like a ghost than the natural self – the mind-body system – that it remembers as its former self.

It might identify as “the ghost in the machine”.

Summing up

I began by suggesting that personal information about you gives only a superficial view of who you are as an individual. Your life story might encapsulate all the important things that you know about yourself, but self-knowledge is never perfect. As you go through life, you may discover more about who you are.

Aspects of your identity may change over time. Your character might be influenced by changing incentives of the social and economic environment. And you may even change aspects of your personality to some extent, by choosing to develop new habits.

So, where is the essence of your being located? I argue that it is a mistake to think it is located solely in your conscious mind.

Descartes correctly observed that he was thinking, but in concluding “I think, therefore I am” he overlooked the fact that he had already assumed that he was some kind of being.

You are the kind of being that can observe itself. It is difficult to comprehend how you can be both an observer and the object of your observation if you think of yourself as an entity. Thinking of yourself as both observer and object poses no problem if you think of yourself as a complex processing system.

You cannot doubt that you think. You are aware of both the flow of inner experiences – thoughts and feelings – and of your experience of the world in which you live. Thinking about your experience of the world enables you to contemplate the goals you seek, to make choices in pursuit of those goals, and to learn from experience. Your sense of identity is informed both by autobiographical memories and by future projections.

If you accept that wise and well-informed self-direction is integral to your flourishing, you are likely to think of yourself as seeking to become the kind of person who has the practical wisdom and integrity to flourish in accordance with goals you choose and values you endorse.

I have speculated that if your mind was uploaded into a machine, the emulated mind would not perceive itself to be a real person with a body as well as a mind. It might remember you as its former self, but would see itself as being something like a ghost.

You understand who you are from the ongoing experience of your whole self, living in the real world. Walt Whitman captured that well in his poetry. I will leave you to contemplate a fragment from his poem, “A song of myself”:

“My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,

The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.”

 
References

Bates, Winton, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing (Hamilton Books, 2021).

Campbell, Richard, The Metaphysics of Emergence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

Gallwey, Timothy, The Inner Game of Tennis (Pan Books,1975).

Haidt, Jonathan, The Happiness Hypothesis (Basic Books, 2006).

 Kahneman, Daniel, Thinking Fast and Slow (Penguin, 2011).

 Whitman, Walt, Complete Works of Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Book III ‘Song of Myself’. (The poem, ‘Song of Myself’, was first published in 1855 in the collection Leaves of Grass.)

Does human perfectibility pose a problem?

 

This essay was prompted by my reading of John Passmore’s book, The Perfectibility of Man, which was first published in 1969. 

I read the book mainly because of James M. Buchanan’s suggestion that “it remains the most definitive work on the history of ideas” relating to the extent to which classical liberalism depends on some presumption that man is perfectible. Buchanan made that suggestion at the beginning of a chapter entitled “Classical liberalism and the perfectibility of man”, in his book Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative (2005). Buchanan argued that although classical liberalism does not depend on people being especially "good" in a conventional sense, there is nevertheless a presumption of human perfectibility in classical liberalism. He argued that classical liberalism requires that sufficient persons (i) prefer to govern themselves and not be dependent upon others; (ii) respect the person and property of others; (iii) eschew attempts to implement impractical visions of utopian perfectionism; and (iv) be willing to defend the political institutions of liberal society against its enemies.

I had another reason for reading The Perfectibility of Man. As an Australian interested in Aristotle’s view of human perfectibility, I felt that I should by now have read a book on this topic by a distinguished philosopher who was my compatriot.

The book was enjoyable to read and I learned a lot from it. However, I disagree with the author’s assessment of Aristotle’s application of teleology to individual flourishing. It seems to me that Passmore’s view that that “there is something more than a little strange” in “identifying perfection with the realization of potentialities” is not consistent with the view he expresses at the end of the book that humans “are capable of more than they have ever so far achieved”.

I will return to that point later in this essay. Meanwhile, I will briefly outline the scope and content of Passmore’s book.

Passmore’s history of ideas on perfectibility

Passmore discusses the long history of ideas about the perfectibility of humans from Ancient Greece and Rome to the 1960s. He discusses the differing views of Christians over the last 2000 years as well as views associated with the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the influence of social action, scientific progress and natural evolution.

The following paragraph, referring to the views of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), summarizes the themes of the book:

“To an extraordinary degree, then, Teilhard built into a single system almost all the main forms of perfectibilism which we have so far distinguished from one another. He was a mystic: perfection consists in union with God. He was a Christian: perfection depends on Christ’s working in man through evolution. He was a metaphysician: perfection consists in the development to its final form of that consciousness     which is present, according to Teilhard, even in elementary electrons. He believed in perfection through science: scientific research is, in his eyes, the prototype of “working with God.” He believed in perfection through social change: men are to be perfected through their participation in a society infused with love. He believed that Christianity shows us in what perfection consists: the New Testament, and especially Paul, reveal to us the nature of that final unity in which evolution must finally come to rest; the Incarnation, the sacrifice of the Mass, symbolize the unity of the material and the spiritual. He believed that science can demonstrate that humanity is moving towards such a perfection. He was Pelagian in his constant emphasis on human effort; he was anti-Pelagian in so far as he argued that God’s grace is essential if mankind is to achieve its final perfection. If Teilhard had not existed, it would almost have been necessary to invent him, in order to weave together our diverse themes.”

Towards the end of the book, it becomes obvious that Passmore is particularly concerned about the tyrannical outcomes of government attempts to implement utopian ideas relating to human perfectibility.

I will now turn to the point on which I disagree with Passmore.

Aristotle’s teleology

Passmore notes that, according to Aristotle, “potential is incomplete, formless, imperfect”. That implies “the actual is ‘perfect,’ then, in so far as it is the realization of, or the giving form to, a potentiality”. He then comments:

“But there is something more than a little strange in thus identifying perfection with the realization of potentialities. Suppose a man is potentially a liar. When he actualizes that potentiality, has he thereby perfected himself? At this point, it is important to recall that the general concept of perfection does not have written into it any suggestion of moral excellence. A man can be a perfect scoundrel or a perfect idiot just as he can be a perfect saint; he can commit a perfect crime, be a perfect forger, or have a “perfectly rotten time of it.” But, as we have already pointed out, when we speak of “perfectibility,” as distinct from perfection simpliciter, the situation is different; to assert that man is perfectible is to assert that he can become, in some sense taken to be absolute, a better person. To the extent to which an analysis of perfection is directed towards helping us to answer the question whether human beings are, or are not, perfectible, it must not allow the response: “they are perfectible all right: there are plenty of men who are potential villains and who actualize that potentiality perfectly.” (p.14)

It seems to me that Aristotle’s perception of individual human perfectibility does have a suggestion of moral excellence written into it. As Passmore acknowledges, Aristotle saw the good for man, as “an activity of soul in accordance with goodness”. In that context he notes that Aristotle argues that the human good consists in a life of contemplation.

However, Aristotle suggests in Book I of the Ethics that the good of man consists in our living in accordance with practical wisdom. In his book Rational Man - in which the passage quoted in the epigraph appears - Henry Veatch comes out strongly in support of the latter view.

Veatch explains that from an Aristotelian viewpoint, a person who is honest, courageous or temperate “will not be one who has merely been conditioned to follow unthinkingly certain approved patterns of behavior. He will be one who has learned to let his choices and preferences be determined by such knowledge and understanding as he may have, rather than to proceed simply from chance feelings and impulses of the moment or from long established but mechanical habits of response.” (p. 74-5)  

In his Preface to the 2003 edition of Rational Man, Douglas Rasmussen makes the point that “when Veatch spoke of how to “perfect” oneself, he did not mean that one should become Godlike, immune to degeneration, or incapable of harm. Rather it is to fulfil those potentialities and capacities that makes one fully human.”

Passmore’s bottom line

Passmore concludes that “perfectibilism is dehumanizing”:

“To achieve perfection in any of its classical senses, as so many perfectibilists have admitted, it would first be necessary to cease to be human, to become godlike, to rise above the human condition.”

However, the concept of perfectibility endorsed by Neo-Aristotelians such as Veatch and Rasmussen certainly doesn’t require humans to become godlike.

And Passmore’s final paragraph suggests to me that there is little difference between his views on perfectibility and those of the Neo-Aristotelians mentioned above:

“In spite of these reflections, which might lead us to reject perfectibilism in any of its forms, it is very hard to shake off the feeling that man is capable of becoming something much superior to what he now is. This feeling, if it is interpreted in the manner of the more commonsensical Enlighteners, is not in itself irrational. There is certainly no guarantee that men will ever be any better than they now are; their future is not, as it were, underwritten by Nature. Nor is there any device, whether skilful government, or education, which is certain to ensure the improvement of man’s condition. To that extent the hopes of the developmentalists or the governmentalists or the educators must certainly be abandoned. There is not the slightest ground for believing, either, with the anarchist, that if only the State could be destroyed and men could start afresh, all would be well. But we know from our own experience, as teachers or parents, that individual human beings can come to be better than they once were, given care, and that wholly to despair of a child or a pupil is to abdicate what is one’s proper responsibility. We know, too, that in the past men have made advances, in science, in art, in affection. Men, almost certainly, are capable of more than they have ever so far achieved. But what they achieve, or so I have suggested, will be a consequence of their remaining anxious, passionate, discontented human beings.” (p. 258)

Conclusion

This essay was prompted by my reading of John Passmore’s book, The Perfectibility of Man.

Passmore makes a strong case that government attempts to implement utopian ideas about human perfectibility result in tyrannical outcomes.

In my view, he also offers a persuasive argument that perfectibilism is dehumanizing when it is approached from the perspective of attempting to rise above the human condition - to become godlike.

However, I disagree with Passmore’s view of Aristotle’s application of teleology to individual flourishing. Passmore suggests that because the general concept of perfection does not have written into it any suggestion of moral excellence, it is possible for some people to actualize their potential perfectly by becoming villains. My response is that Aristotle’s understanding of human perfectibility does have a suggestion of moral excellence written into it. In support, I also refer to Henry Veatch’s view of the link between virtuous behaviour and the exercise of practical wisdom.

Nevertheless, after considering Passmore’s bottom line about the possibility for greater human achievement, I conclude that his view that perfectibilism is dehumanizing does not necessarily apply to Neo-Aristotelian perfectibilists. It certainly doesn’t apply to those of us who maintain that seeking to perfect oneself is about becoming “fully human”, rather than godlike.

Why is a sensible person like you driving a car like that?

 

No-one has asked me that question yet, but I thought I should have a speech ready just in case it happens.

The car is a BYD Atto 3. It is an electric vehicle, made in China.

A sensible person? Why would anyone say I was a “sensible person”? Some people might think I would be sensible enough not to choose a car which takes more than half an hour to power up at a charging station, when I could have a car which could be filled with petrol in less than 5 minutes.

My wife and I don’t anticipate spending much time at charging stations. We have decided that at our age the time has come to stop driving on long trips. We expect to be able to charge our new car at home nearly all the time.

Our choice of car has more to do with saving money than saving the planet. I am not going to attempt to justify the government incentives that made this a good decision for us. I will just try to explain why our decision makes sense from our perspective.

The main reason why our decision makes sense can be illustrated from this graph which shows our production and consumption of solar power one day a few weeks ago. The horizontal axis shows the time of day and the vertical access shows power production and consumption in kWh.

 

• The orange area shows what we purchase from the grid at a cost of 42 cents per kWh. 
• The green area shows what we export to the grid. Before we bought the car, we received about 10 cents per kWh for about half of that and only 4 cents per kWh for the rest.
• The blue area shows the amount of our solar energy that we consume ourselves. You can see the point at which I plugged in the car around noon and the point at which I unplugged the car at about 5 pm.

It costs us about 64 cents in foregone revenue to have the car plugged into the power for 10 hours. In that time, we would have added 112 km to the distance we could drive. The cost of petrol to drive that distance in our previous car (Subaru forester) would have been about $20.

Before we bought the new car, we usually spent about $100 per month on petrol. I assumed that home charging might cost us $20 per month, allowing for some charging on cloudy days. So, I estimated that we could have a potential saving in total power bills (difference between saving in cost of petrol and additional cost of electricity) of about $80 per month or $960 per annum. There are also savings in the cost of servicing which have been estimated at around $350 per annum.

So, that means a total saving of about $1,300 per annum.

However, at this point, I needed to take account of the additional cost of EVs (electric vehicles) by comparison with ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles. I used a KIA Seltos GT-Line FWD as the basis for comparison. At the time I was doing my calculations that was priced at around $47,000. That was about $3,900 less than the BYD Atto 3.

Since we are saving about $1,300 a year in running costs, the additional purchase price of the BYD Atto 3 would be recovered in about three years. That is much less than the expected life of the BYD's battery, which comprises a high percentage of the cost of the car. BYD offer an 8-year warranty on the car's battery.

We also looked at other electric cars. The comparable Tesla, VW and KIA cars were a lot more expensive at that time. The MG was cheaper, but we chose the Atto 3 because we liked its shape, color, and battery technology. Unlike the batteries in some other electric vehicles, the lithium iron phosphate battery in the Atto 3 can be fully charged frequently without degradation.

The Atto 3 has everything we were looking for. It has a range of over 400 km on a full battery. It fits our garage; has adequate boot capacity; it can be configured in a way that makes it fun to drive; and it has comfortable seats. It also has lots of safety features which can be switched on and off as required.

The car is naturally silent, but it can be made to emit sound so that blind people are able to hear that it is in their vicinity. I understand that for a few hundred dollars I might be able to make the car sound like an Aston Martin. However, my wife doesn’t think it is worth paying that price.

One thing that concerns me a little about buying a Chinese car is that it might be difficult to get spare parts if Australia goes to war with China. In that event, however, getting spare parts for the car might be the least of our worries.

Summing up

We have bought an electric vehicle because it suits our circumstances. We no longer drive long distances, and we have been exporting a lot of solar power to the grid.

The main point I would like to leave with you is that buying an electric vehicle can sometimes be a sensible choice, irrespective of any feel-good considerations about reducing CO2 emissions. At the same time, I admit that it does feel good to own a solar-powered car.

Addendum 1

This post was prepared for a speech delivered a couple of weeks ago at Charlestown Toastmasters. 

My wife and I purchased the car about 7 weeks ago. We have not yet visited a charging station.

I noted in my speech that I would not attempt to justify the government incentives that influenced our car purchase. I will now outline briefly the main impacts of government policies on the prices we faced.

It is possible that policies of the Chinese government provide an implicit subsidy to foreign consumers of Chinese-made electric vehicles. If so, I am grateful to the people of China for their assistance.

The cost of installing solar panels is subsidized by the Australian government. I expect we would still have installed solar panels if the Australian government had adopted a more rational approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with a modest carbon tax rather than the mishmash of policies that currently apply. Even so, it may well be that a free market in energy without any carbon tax or other interventions would produce better outcomes for the people who live in this country, since our government's interventions have a negligible impact on the global climate.

The existence of fuel excise, which comprises a substantial proportion of the retail price of petrol, favours EVs relative to ICE vehicles. This excise is sometimes viewed as a road user charge. If that is appropriate, the absence of a similar charge on users of EVs is a price distortion favouring EVs relative to ICE vehicles.

However, in my view the fuel excise lacks the desirable characteristics of a road user charge – it doesn’t accurately reflect marginal costs of road usage, which are associated with congestion costs and road damage. It seems to me that there may be a stronger case for the fuel excise to be viewed as a carbon tax than as a road user charge. Purchase of fuel for use in ICEs is directly related to carbon emissions.  

That brings us back to the question of whether there is a case for Australia to have a carbon tax, given that Australian interventions have negligible impact on the global climate. If fuel excise cannot be justified as a carbon tax, it seems to me that a strong case can be made to eliminate this discriminatory tax, accompanied, if necessary, by an increase in a more broadly based tax such as the GST.

That leaves me doubting whether it would be possible to justify the government interventions that affect the prices on which our purchase decision was made. 

Nevertheless, from the perspective of individual consumers, distorted prices are a feature of the real world that they must accept. There is no prospect that relevant price distortions will be removed in the near future.

I will end on a personal note about the process I went through in contemplating purchase of an electric vehicle. There was an initial psychological barrier associated with the fact that I didn’t see myself as the kind of person who would own an electric vehicle, and particularly not one made in China. I had to acknowledge (to myself) that it didn’t make sense to see car choice as making an ideological statement - except insofar as basing the choice on utilitarian considerations could be said to be making an ideological statement.

I also needed to consider how I might feel if other people assumed that our choice of car involved some kind of virtue signaling about saving the planet from CO2 emissions. I decided that I would probably feel bemused rather than offended if that happened.

Addendum 2

In response to one of the comments below, I estimated the additional cost of electricity for a person in my circumstances who did not have solar panels. Assuming an off-peak rate of 22 cents per kWh, I estimated that the additional cost of electricity from ownerships of a BEV would be about $15 per month. That is still lower than the $20 per month I allowed in my calculation.

Addendum 3

John Freebairn has sent me the following comment relating to the suitability of the fuel excise as a road user charge.

"I offer some contrary arguments to your statement that the fuel excise is not a useful road user fee. Primarily, the fuel excise applies only to fuel purchased for use by on-road vehicles. The excise is exempt for all off-road vehicle uses, including mining, agriculture and shipping. The exemption does not make sense as a CO-2 pollution tax.

While one can agree that the correlation between  fuel consumption by on-road vehicles and social costs of road construction and maintenance, and of congestion, are not equal to unity, I'm sure they are positive. And fuel excise is a relatively simple and low cost tax or vehicle user fee. Modern technology may support more highly correlated and direct road user fees.

To exempt EVs from any form of road user fee means a subsidy and too much investment in and consumption of government supplied road services.

Another issue is that the fuel excise is not a hypothecated road user fee. In fact, the revenue is collected by the Commonwealth, and most road construction and maintenance is paid by the states and local governments. Yet, the Commonwealth in making its revenue grants to the states with advice from the Commonwealth Grants Commission includes consideration of relative costs across the states to provide comparable levels of road services per capita.

Reform of fuel excise as part of a pollution tax, and the introduction of a road user charge for all vehicles to reflect the social costs of investment and maintenance of roads and other transport infrastructure, policing, ambulances and other operating costs, should be on the tax reform agenda."

Can Polarized Moral Politics be Bridged by a Neo-Aristotelian Philosophy of Freedom and Flourishing?

 

This is a guest essay by Dr Edward W. Younkins, Professor of Accountancy and Business at Wheeling University, and Executive Director of its Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality. Ed is author of a trilogy of important books on freedom and flourishing: “Capitalism and Commerce”, “Champions of a Free Society”, and “Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society”. He also has numerous other publications, including an essay reviewing books by David L. Norton, which was published here in January, a review of Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s book “Total Freedom” published  here in July, and an essay entitled, “How can Austrian Economics be reconciled with the Neo-Aristotelian philosophy of Freedom and Flourishing?”, published here in October.

I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to publish Ed’s latest essay at this time. I recently concluded a series of essays on political entrepreneurship by suggesting:

“If we want institutions that are more supportive of freedom and flourishing to become entrenched, we will need more supportive citizens engaged in discursive processes at all levels of society …”. 

It is difficult to have useful discourse with people expressing opposing views if we focus exclusively on categorizing their positions according to the political groupings or ideological tribes that seem to provide their talking points. It can be more interesting, and is sometimes more productive, to seek to understand the motivational systems, parenting models, and moral foundations underlying the positions they adopt.

Ed Younkins writes:

 The intense polarization characterizing contemporary political discourse has prompted several influential scholars to explore the deeper psychological and moral foundations underpinning our ideological divisions. Three particularly significant contributions to this understanding include Ronnie Janoff-Bulman's The Two Moralities: Conservatives, Liberals, and the Roots of Our Political Divide, George Lakoff's Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, and Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Each of these works approaches the political divide through different disciplinary lenses—social psychology, cognitive linguistics, and moral psychology respectively—yet arrives at a similar fundamental conclusion: that political differences reflect much deeper differences in moral intuitions and conceptual frameworks rather than merely calculated disagreements about specific policies. Together, these works provide complementary frameworks for understanding why political arguments often seem so intractable and why each side frequently views the other as not merely mistaken but morally deficient. This essay will first provide a short summary and review of each of these three influential works before exploring how libertarian thinking, particularly through the lens of neo-Aristotelian flourishing and the "Individualistic Perfectionism" of Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl, might provide a compelling framework for appealing to both liberal and conservative moral concerns while protecting the space necessary for human flourishing.

 

The Two Moralities by Ronnie Janoff-Bulman

In her 2023 work The Two Moralities, social psychologist Ronnie Janoff-Bulman presents a framework for understanding political differences rooted in the most fundamental motivational distinction in psychology: approach and avoidance. She argues that these basic motivational systems give rise to two distinct moralities: a proscriptive morality that defends against negative outcomes and focuses on what we should not do, and a prescriptive morality that moves us toward positive outcomes and focuses on what we should do. The former can be viewed as a morality of justice that emphasizes rules, impartiality, law, order, universal principles, retributive justice, and equality of opportunity whereas the latter can be viewed as a morality of care that is rooted in empathy, connection, compassion, responsiveness, safety nets, and equality of outcomes.

At the individual and interpersonal levels, Janoff-Bulman notes that both liberals and conservatives value both moral dimensions—not harming others (proscriptive) and helping others (prescriptive). The critical divergence occurs at the collective level, where these moralities translate into distinct political worldviews. Conservatism is rooted in a proscriptive "Social Order" morality focused on protecting against threats—both external and internal—and maintaining societal stability. Liberalism, conversely, is founded on a prescriptive "Social Justice" morality focused on providing for the well-being of the nation's constituents.

The book also develops a distinction between moral mandates (absolutes rooted in moral identity) and moral preferences (values open to negotiation). She notes that moral mandates, typical of proscriptive morality, tend to produce rigid moral judgments, resistance to compromise, and belief that moral transgressors deserve blame or punishment. Prescriptive morality, however, tends to moralize less about violations and more about failures to promote positive ends.

This framework leads to predictable differences in policy preferences. Liberals, with their Social Justice morality, focus on the economic domain where resource distribution is managed, supporting regulation of markets, entitlements, and expenditures for health, education, and social safety nets. Conservatives, with their Social Order morality, focus primarily on the social domain (e.g., abortion and same-sex marriage), where traditional roles and strict norms are regarded as bulwarks against personal gratification believed to threaten societal stability. Importantly, each side favors limited government in precisely the domain where the other favors intervention—liberals support freedom in the social domain while conservatives support liberty in the economic domain.

 

Moral Politics by George Lakoff 

First published in 1996, cognitive linguist George Lakoff's Moral Politics introduces perhaps the most famous metaphorical framework for understanding political differences. Lakoff argues that people's political reasoning is determined to a large extent by unconscious metaphors, with the central metaphor being the nation as a family. According to Lakoff, the political views of Americans on both ends of the political spectrum derive from this foundational metaphor, but they are informed by two very different conceptual models of the ideal family.

The conservative worldview centers on what Lakoff terms the "strict father" model. This model emphasizes the traditional nuclear family with the father having primary responsibility for supporting and protecting the family as well as the authority to set and enforce strict rules for children's behavior. In this worldview, self-discipline, self-reliance, personal responsibility, hard work, and respect for legitimate authority are crucial qualities children must learn, typically through a system of reward and punishment. This model assumes the world is dangerous and competitive, and that children need strict moral guidance to develop the discipline necessary to succeed. This worldview supports a strong military, low taxes, free markets, and strict law-and-order.

The liberal worldview centers on the "nurturant parent" model, which stresses empathy, nurturance, fair distribution, and restitution. The primal experience behind this model is one of being cared for and cared about, with children's obedience coming from love and respect for their parents rather than fear of punishment. This model views the world as potentially cooperative and believes children develop best through explanation and mutual understanding rather than strict punishment. This worldview stresses empathy, social responsibility, cooperation, equality of outcome, protection of the vulnerable, safety nets, environmental protection, government regulation, and progressive taxation. 

Lakoff uses these models to explain why certain political positions cluster together. For instance, he explains how conservatives can be "pro-life" when it comes to abortion yet support the death penalty—both positions reflect the strict father emphasis on reward and punishment for moral behavior. Similarly, he explains why liberals might support economic regulation but oppose social regulation, as this reflects the nurturant parent's emphasis on protection and care without authoritarian control.

An important aspect of Lakoff's analysis is his contention that conservatives have been more effective than liberals at understanding and leveraging these deep moral metaphors in political discourse. He notes that while he personally favors the nurturant parent model, recognizing the metaphorical nature of our political thinking is crucial for productive political dialogue.

 

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt's 2012 work The Righteous Mind represents perhaps the most comprehensive empirical investigation into the moral foundations of political differences. Haidt's work is structured around three central principles: (1) Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second; (2) There's more to morality than harm and fairness; and (3) Morality binds and blinds. 

Haidt's first principle challenges the traditional view of human beings as rational actors who deliberate carefully about moral questions. Instead, he proposes the analogy of the rider (conscious reasoning) and the elephant (intuitive emotions), suggesting that moral reasoning is largely a post-hoc process used to justify intuitive moral judgments. This insight explains why simply presenting facts in political arguments rarely changes minds—the elephant of intuition largely determines where we end up, with the rider mainly serving as a public relations agent. 

Haidt's second principle introduces his influential Moral Foundations Theory, which initially identified five (later six) foundational, innate, and psychological moral systems that combine to form human moral matrices. These foundations are:

• Care/harm: Sensitivity to suffering and need
• Fairness/cheating: Concerns about unfair treatment and cheating
• Loyalty/betrayal: Group cohesion and tribal identity.                                                       
• Authority/subversion: Respect for hierarchy and tradition
• Sanctity/degradation: Concepts of purity and the sacred
• Liberty/oppression: Reactance to domination and tyranny (added later). 

Haidt's research indicates that political differences reflect different weightings of these moral foundations. Liberals tend to prioritize care, fairness, and liberty almost exclusively, while conservatives value all six foundations more evenly. This difference, Haidt argues, gives conservatives a rhetorical advantage because they can appeal to a broader range of moral intuitions.

Haidt's third principle—that "morality binds and blinds"—explains how moral matrices help form cohesive groups while simultaneously making it difficult to understand those outside our moral communities. This insight helps explain the intense polarization in contemporary politics—as moral groups form, they naturally create boundaries that heighten distinction from others.

A Libertarian Synthesis: Neo-Aristotelian Flourishing

Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen

The philosophical framework developed by Douglas J. Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen —termed Individualistic Perfectionism —provides a promising foundation for bridging the moral divide between liberal and conservative worldviews. This approach integrates Aristotelian ethical foundations with a political commitment to individual liberty, arguing that a society that protects individual rights through what they call "metanormative principles" creates the essential conditions for diverse forms of human flourishing to be pursued without social conflict.

Rasmussen and Den Uyl's central insight recognizes that human flourishing is individually realized yet socially contextual—that while we achieve our good through our own actions and choices, we do so within communities and relationships that provide the necessary context for that flourishing. This nuanced understanding respects the conservative emphasis on tradition, community, and moral order while simultaneously upholding the liberal commitment to personal autonomy, social progress, and individual rights. 

A libertarian framework grounded in neo-Aristotelian flourishing possesses unique potential to resonate with foundational moral concerns across the political spectrum. By examining this potential through the moral frameworks identified by Janoff-Bulman, Lakoff, and Haidt, we can see how such an approach might bridge seemingly irreconcilable moral divides:

Addressing Both Approach and Avoidance Moralities: Janoff-Bulman's distinction between prescriptive and proscriptive moralities finds synthesis in the concept of individual flourishing. The protection of negative rights (the right not to be aggressed against) addresses the conservative proscriptive concern with protection from harm, while the positive pursuit of excellence through self-direction addresses the liberal prescriptive concern with providing for human well-being. A society that protects liberty creates the conditions for both freedom from interference and freedom to pursue excellence.

Transcending the Family Metaphor: Lakoff's strict father and nurturant parent models both find accommodation within a framework that allows different conceptions of the good to coexist. Rather than imposing a single vision of the good life (whether strict or nurturant), the libertarian framework provides the metanormative space for both approaches—and countless others—to be pursued without social conflict. This respects the conservative emphasis on parental authority in raising children according to their values while upholding the liberal commitment to diverse lifestyles and family structures.

Engaging Multiple Moral Foundations: Haidt's moral foundations theory reveals why libertarianism has struggled politically—by focusing predominantly on the liberty/oppression foundation—but also suggests its potential for broader appeal. A neo-Aristotelian libertarianism naturally engages:

(1) the care/harm foundation by minimizing state violence and allowing voluntary compassion flourish;

(2) the fairness/cheating foundation through consistent application of rules and opposition to cronyism;

(3) the loyalty/betrayal foundation by allowing authentic communities to form voluntarily;

(4) the authority/subversion foundation through respect for legitimate authority in appropriate spheres;

(5 the sanctity/degradation foundation by protecting the inviolability of the person; and

(6) the liberty/oppression foundation as its central political commitment.

A neo-Aristotelian libertarian framework provides a compelling account of moral development that incorporates insights from both traditional conservatism and progressivism. The concept of self-directedness—central to Rasmussen and Den Uyl's conception of flourishing—acknowledges the conservative insight that discipline and character are essential for human excellence while simultaneously affirming the liberal commitment to personal autonomy and self-determination. 

This approach recognizes that virtue cannot be coerced but must be chosen—that moral responsibility emerges from the opportunity to make genuine choices and experience their consequences. The conservative emphasis on moral order is respected not through state enforcement but through the recognition that certain virtues (honesty, integrity, courage, temperance) are naturally conducive to flourishing across most conceptions of the good life. Meanwhile, the liberal emphasis on social progress is honored through the understanding that different individuals and communities may discover different aspects of human excellence through experimentation and learning.

Contrary to the caricature of libertarianism as atomistic individualism, a neo-Aristotelian framework recognizes that human flourishing is inherently relational. Rasmussen and Den Uyl's work emphasizes that self-direction—the capacity to shape one's life according to one's values—necessarily occurs within social contexts and depends on relationships with others for its full actualization. 

This understanding allows a libertarian framework to honor the conservative emphasis on family, community, and tradition as essential contexts for moral development while simultaneously protecting the liberal commitment to diverse forms of relationship and association. By creating a framework of rights that allows multiple forms of community to flourish, this approach enables what Rasmussen and Den Uyl term "the possibility of diversity in human flourishing"—recognizing that different individuals may require different social contexts and relationships to achieve their particular forms of excellence.

A crucial psychological insight connecting moral foundations to political structures involves the relationship between threat sensitivity and political preferences. Research noted by Janoff-Bulman indicates that conservatives generally demonstrate higher sensitivity to threats—a finding consistent with their emphasis on social order and protection. A libertarian approach addresses this concern not through state control but through the protective functions of just institutions—what classical liberals called "the constitution of liberty." 

Similarly, the liberal emphasis on openness to experience and social progress finds expression in the innovative potential of free societies. A framework that protects individual liberty creates space for both the cautious and the bold, the traditional and the innovative, to coexist and learn from one another through voluntary exchange and cooperation rather than political imposition.

The bipolar frameworks explored by Janoff-Bulman, Lakoff, and Haidt show why liberals and conservatives misunderstand each other. Yet Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s Individualistic Perfectionism offers a framework that resonates with both moral cultures. Their neo-Aristotelian ethics argues that human flourishing (eudaimonia) is the proper moral standard: an objective but individualized ideal grounded in rational self-direction, virtue, and meaningful activity. 

Their key innovation is distinguishing personal moral norms (virtues) from political norms (rights). Rights are metanormative principles that secure the social space for individuals to pursue flourishing without coercion. Government’s purpose is not to impose virtue but to protect the conditions under which virtue can be chosen.

This appeals to liberals by protecting autonomy, diversity, and opportunities for self-development. It appeals to conservatives by emphasizing responsibility, character, and self-reliance. Both gain a coherent justification for a free society grounded in human nature and moral psychology.

A free (libertarian) society that protects rights is therefore the best context for human flourishing. It avoids paternalism, respects individuality, and encourages voluntary cooperation. It offers a unified moral language that transcends ideological tribes and affirms the dignity of rational, self-directing persons.

Neo-Aristotelian flourishing is social at its core: friendship, love, family, and associational ties are essential for living well, but these cannot be legislated from above. Voluntariness and consent ensure relationships are authentic, nurturing the liberal desire for care and the conservative requirement for loyalty and order.

Moreover, the psychological diversity identified by Janoff-Bulman, Lakoff, and Haidt becomes an asset, not a threat, in a libertarian context—each person is free to pursue the forms of life and virtue most suited to their traits, goals, and allegiances.

Conclusion: Toward a Moral Politics of Liberty

The works of Janoff-Bulman, Lakoff, and Haidt collectively demonstrate that our political differences run deep—to the very foundations of how we conceptualize morality, family, and society. Yet within their frameworks we can also discern the possibility of a politics that honors the legitimate moral concerns of both left and right while transcending the limitations of each.

A libertarian approach grounded in neo-Aristotelian flourishing and informed by the Individualistic Perfectionism of Rasmussen and Den Uyl offers the promise of such a politics. By creating the metanormative conditions for diverse forms of human excellence to be pursued without social conflict, such a framework respects the conservative emphasis on moral order while upholding the liberal commitment to social progress. It acknowledges the importance of both reason and emotion in moral motivation, recognizes the social nature of human flourishing, and provides the institutional framework for both stability and innovation to coexist. Such an approach provides a common vocabulary for both sides to agree that a free society that protects the necessary moral space for self-directedness and self-determination is the best system for individuals to potentially fulfill their highest human potential.

Such an approach will not satisfy those who seek political victory for their particular moral vision. However, for those who seek a society in which different moral visions can coexist peacefully—where both the strict father and nurturant parent, both the social order and social justice advocate, can live according to their values without imposing them on others—it offers the most promising path forward. In recognizing that human flourishing is inherently pluralistic—that there are many forms of excellence and no single template for the good life—we can begin to build a politics that protects the space for that diversity rather than attempting to eliminate it through political power.

The promise of a free society is not that it will produce uniform agreement on moral questions, but that it will allow people with different moral intuitions to live together in peace, learning from one another through voluntary interaction rather than coercive imposition. In this respect, a thoughtfully articulated libertarianism may represent not just another political position, but the necessary framework for moving beyond our current political impasse toward a more inclusive and morally sophisticated politics.

Ultimately, society best enables flourishing not by dictating the good life but by protecting the conditions that make countless good lives possible. This vision honors the depth, dignity, and complexity of persons, uniting liberals’ and conservatives’ highest aspirations under the banner of freedom and flourishing.

Recommended Reading

 Den Uyl, Douglas J. and Rasmussen, Douglas B. (2016). The Perfectionist Turn: From Metanorms to Metaethics. Edinburgh University Press.

Haidt, Jonathan. (2012).  The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by politics and Religion. Vintage.

Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie. (2023). The Two Moralities: Conservatives, Liberals, and the roots of the Political Divide.

Lakoff, George (1996 and 2002).  Moral Politics: How liberals and Conservatives Think.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Rasmussen, Douglas B.  and Den Uyl, Douglas J. (2005). Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics. Penn State University Press.

Rasmussen, Douglas B.  and Den Uyl, Douglas J. (2020). The Realist Turn: Repositioning Liberalism. Palgrave Macmillan.