Why do many individuals voluntarily moderate their contributions to global environmental problems?

I think serious consideration should be given to the question of why many individuals voluntarily moderate their own contributions to global environmental problems. Prospects for human flourishing may well depend on the increased willingness of many more people to moderate their individual contributions to climate change. Voluntary contributions may not be enough, but what people are willing to volunteer to do themselves can be expected to have an important influence on the extent to which they are willing to impose regulation on others.

A decade ago I suggested that people who voluntarily reduce their contributions to climate change deserve our respect, but I referred to them as environmental puritans. I remember being told that terminology wasn’t respectful. Religious zealotry certainly doesn’t provide a complete explanation of  such behaviour.

Voluntary action by individuals to moderate their contributions to global problems is difficult to explain in conventional economic terms because people must know that their personal actions will have a negligible impact on global problems.

So, why does it happen?

The most cynical explanation I can think of is virtue signalling. Some firms and individuals engage in the behaviour because they obtain additional profit, or just personal satisfaction, from admiration they receive by appearing to be virtuous. Even though virtue signalling isn’t particularly commendable, good outcomes can flow from it. If companies can make higher profits by presenting an environmentally friendly image, good luck to them. If community organisations can further their objectives by bestowing honours on people whose motive is to be admired by other members, good luck to them too (provided, of course, we are not talking about organisations that infringe the rights of non-members e.g. terrorist organisations).

Leaving cynicism aside, the most obvious explanation is that people are willing to moderate their behaviour because of genuine ethical intuitions or considerations. It feels like the right thing to do and/or they consider such behaviour integral to their values and their flourishing as individual humans. It is reasonable to speculate that such ethical feelings and considerations are strongly linked to perceptions of personal identity.  Those who perceive themselves as giving a high priority to environmental protection tend to see themselves as citizens of the world. For example, of those U.S. respondents to the World Values Survey conducted a few years ago who identified with the proposition “looking after the environment is important to this person”, 83% saw themselves as “a citizen of the world”. The corresponding percentages were much lower for people who didn’t perceive looking after the environment to be important.

As shown in the chart at the beginning of this post, the percentage of people who perceive of themselves as citizens of the world is quite high in many countries. I don’t claim to know much about what is going on in the minds of those people. My guess is that when people say that they see themselves as citizens of the world, they are recognizing that they have a common interest with other humans in seeking solutions to global problems. It seems reasonable to expect people who see themselves as citizens of the world would be more likely to moderate their personal contributions to global environmental problems without requiring inducement than those who identify solely as members of local communities, ethnic or religious groups, or nations.

As implied earlier, some people who moderate their own contributions to global environmental problems seem to be puritanical in their beliefs about appropriate behaviour towards the environment. That could be because of they are deeply religious, whether as followers of contemporary religions or as Gaia worshippers. It is hardly surprising to see religions urging their followers to have regard to the global environment and the well-being of future generations of humans, and to see some of adherents become environmental zealots.

It also seems reasonable to speculate that more people will voluntarily moderate their personal contributions to global environmental problems when they observe others doing likewise. They know their own personal contributions will have a negligible impact on global problems, but they don’t consider them to be futile because they feel that their contributions are part of a collective effort. Those who seek to provide an example for others, by making an unusually large contribution, may see their contribution as having a potential snowball effect.

The motivations of many of those who voluntarily modify their contributions to global environmental problems are only weakly contingent on the behaviour of others. Their behaviour seems to be motivated primarily by benevolence towards future generations of humans and other species. There is no social contract regarding voluntary moderation of contributions and there is no possibility that every human would agree to moderate their behaviour in this respect in the absence of regulation. An individual cannot induce others to moderate their greenhouse gas emissions merely by threatening to cease moderation of their own behaviour if their example is not followed. By contrast, Elinor Ostrom observed that in a successfully managed commons where access to shared resources is limited, individual participants make contingent self-commitments. The willingness of participants to follow a set of rules that has been devised collectively is contingent on other participants making a similar commitment and acting accordingly.

An important factor involved in voluntary moderation of relevant behaviour is belief that human action is causing detrimental climate change. People, like me, who believe that there is a low probability of catastrophic climate change within the next 30 years, or so, might also be willing to moderate their behaviour voluntarily as an insurance policy for following generations, provided the cost of insurance – for example, use of renewable energy in place of fossil fuels - is relatively low. More people can be expected to join the movement to moderate their behaviour if they perceive that environmental catastrophe is becoming imminent and/or if it becomes less costly to reduce the exposure of their children and grandchildren to global environmental risks.

Is coercion ever justified?

The benevolent private behaviour of environmentalists with respect to global environmental problems is often combined with advocacy of government action to compel others to modify their contributions. Any lover of liberty would find such coercion difficult to endorse, but there are strong precedents for it. One readily defensible movement that has acted similarly in the past is the movement for abolition of slavery in the 19^th Century. As well as endeavouring to ensure that they did not profit from slavery, members of anti-slavery organisations advocated government action to abolish it.

If concerted government intervention is needed to avoid a global climate catastrophe, and if there is enough support by governments and citizens of enough countries to ensure that effective action can be taken, it would be difficult to argue that no action should be taken that would infringe the liberty of those individuals opposed to the intervention. Please note that there is more than one big “if” in the preceding sentence. I just want to make the point that it does not make sense for anyone to insist on the primacy of liberty if human survival is really at stake. In order to flourish, our descendants need to survive.

Do conservatives understand the motivations of world citizens?

The observation that environmentalists often combine benevolent private behaviour with advocacy of government action, seems somewhat at odds with a claim made by prominent conservative philosopher, Roger Scruton, in Green Philosophy: How to think seriously about the planet, published in 2012. Scruton suggests:

"Nothing in politics stands still, and increasingly left-wing environmentalists are dissociating themselves from the campaigning NGOs, and preferring the small-scale work that both supports and expresses the low-impact way of life. The movements for low carbon communities, slow food and permaculture have recruited many who identify themselves as ‘on the left’. Indeed, this shift away from radical, government-shaped solutions should be welcomed by conservatives, since it promises the thing that environmentalists of both persuasions need, which is a way of sharing our problems and co-operating in solving them."

I think that may be wishful thinking. From where I sit in Australia, I don’t see left-wing environmentalists increasingly dissociating themselves from campaigning NGOs. There are some environmentalists who would identify as having leftish views who are disgusted with the antics of environmental NGOs and Green politicians and want nothing to do with them. But I don’t see a general trend in that direction. I do see a trend toward more alliances between radical environmentalists and people who could be considered to hold conservative views. I see alliances between farmers and radical environmentalists to prevent fracking to extract of coal seam gas, because that may contaminate ground water. I see alliances between residents of leafy suburbs and radical environmentalists to prevent higher density housing projects. I also see more people with conservative views supporting independent political candidates who want a greater national contribution to international efforts to combat climate change.

It is easy to understand why Roger Scruton would like to see left-wing environmentalists dissociating themselves from campaigning NGOs. He suggests that oikophilia, the love of the oikos, or household, is the motive that captures what conservatism and environmentalism have to offer each other. He explains:

“It is a motive in ordinary people. It can provide a foundation both for a conservative approach to institutions and a conservationist approach to the land. It is a motive that might permit us to reconcile the demand for democratic participation with the respect for future generations and the duty of trusteeship. It is, in my view, the only serious resource that we have, in our fight to maintain local order in the face of globally stimulated decay”.

However, Scruton’s response to the slogan, ‘think globally, act locally’, seems odd. He suggests that while many environmentalists acknowledge that local concerns must be given a proper place in our decision-making, they tend to balk at the suggestion that “local loyalty should be seen in national terms, rather than as the small-scale expression of a humane universalism”. He suggests that were conservatism to adopt a slogan, it should be ‘feel locally, think nationally’. He argues that doesn’t mean that conservatives are all belligerent nationalists: They think in terms of the nation state because “they recognize that, in the current environmental crisis, there is no agent to take the needed measures, and no focus of loyalty to secure consent to them, other than this one".

I am uncomfortable with the idea that local loyalty should be seen in national terms. National loyalties overlap with local loyalties in some respects, but most environmental problems seem to be either local or global. Humane universalism seems to me to be a mark of civilised behaviour.

Nevertheless, I accept that the national state is the only governance system available which has potential to deal with global problems that cannot be resolved by the voluntary actions of individuals. That doesn’t mean that I have a great deal of faith in the capacity of nation states to resolve such problems.  Perhaps voluntary action enhanced by blockchain technology offers more hope over the longer term.

Roger Scruton is correct in his assertion that conservatives think in terms of nation states. They are statists. But that is also true of Green politicians and their ardent supporters, who argue vociferously for greater action at a national level to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. In attempting to push individual nation states to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a national level, Green politicians have caused a backlash from voters concerned about rising energy prices and the unfairness of being asked to make greater sacrifices than those being made by people in other parts of the world. If Green politicians want effective action to avert the global climate change disaster that they greatly fear, they will need to adopt more effective political strategies that are capable of winning support from voters who are sceptical of claims of claims of imminent environmental disaster, but are prepared to make modest contributions to global efforts as a form of insurance for the benefit of future generations.

How does Roger Scruton make a useful contribution?

Roger Scruton’s comments about the difficulty of negotiating and enforcing international agreements to combat climate change are insightful. He notes that the Montreal Protocol concerning action to combat depletion of the ozone layer of the atmosphere was successful because CFCs could be eliminated “without seriously disturbing the economy or the way of life of any signatory nation”. He notes:

“Greenhouse gases are not like CFC gases. As things stand they can be eliminated only at great economic and even greater social cost, and few nations are prepared to pay that cost. By devoting their sparse supply of global goodwill to negotiating futile treaties against emissions, the nations are wasting assets that could be spent on co-operative research into renewable energy."

I think Scruton is both too optimistic and too pessimistic in suggesting that “unilateral action on the part of a competent and law-abiding state”, such as the U.S., may end up being the only way the global environment can be defended. I take his point that the British Navy played a crucial role in ending the transnational market in slaves, but it is too optimistic to think that the U.S. could achieve much to combat climate change by acting alone. It seems too pessimistic to imply that there are no circumstances where international cooperation could result in effective action against climate change.

Roger Scruton actually points to a potentially productive avenue for international cooperation:

 “If treaties are to be effective at all they must surely be of this kind – treaties that offer only benefits, which minimize the incentives to defect, and which compensate for the principal failure of markets in the matter of global environmental problems, namely that they do not invest sufficiently in the needed research.”

Where does this lead?

The important point is that if we want individuals to moderate their contribution to global environmental problems – either through voluntary action or by supporting regulation – before environmental catastrophe is universally accepted to be imminent, then we need to make it less costly for people to take that action. A greater research effort is required to ensure that more efficient technologies become available as soon as possible.

Do you acknowledge a personal responsiblity to seek mutual benefit?

In The Community of Advantage, which I reviewed in my last post, Robert Sugden observes that when individuals participate in market transactions it is possible for them to be motivated by mutual benefit, rather than personal benefit or even by the potential to use proceeds for altruistic purposes. They may see virtue in voluntary transactions that enable people to get what they want by benefiting others.

Sugden points out that being motivated by mutual benefit is consistent with Adam Smith’s famous observation that we do not rely on the benevolence of shopkeepers to provide us with the goods we need. The shop keepers don’t sacrifice their own interests to provide us with goods, but they may act with the intention of playing their part in mutually beneficial practices.

Sugden suggests that adoption of the principle of mutual benefit has implications for personal responsibility:

“According to that principle, each person should behave in such a way that other people’s opportunities to realize mutual benefit are sustained. But beyond that, no one is accountable to anyone else for his preferences, intentions, or decisions. Individuals relate to one another, not as one another’s benefactors, guardians, or moral judges, but as potential partners in the achievement of their common interests".

Individuals decide how to use the opportunities that are available to them, and accept sole responsibility for the consequences.

Sugden’s discussion of ethics includes responses to the virtue-ethical critique of the market of philosophers, such as Elizabeth Anderson and Michael Sandel, who argue for collective action by citizens to impose limits on the scope of markets - on the grounds that motivations of market participants are inherently non-virtuous and therefore liable to corrupt social interactions.

However, some virtue ethicists have adopted a much more market-friendly approach. I have in mind, particularly, the template of responsibility proposed by Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen in The Perfectionist Turn.

Den Uyl and Rasmussen suggest that “the fact that one must make a life for oneself is an existential condition”. To be a person is to have self-responsibility. Each person is primarily responsible for her or his own flourishing. Human flourishing involves “an actualization of potentialities that are specific to the kind of living thing a human being is and that are unique to each human being as an individual”.  Actualization “is dependent on the self-directed exercise of our rational capacities”. Flourishing amounts to the same thing as “the exercise of one’s own practical wisdom”.

As noted in an earlier article on this blog, an entrepreneurial analogy is used by Den Uyl and Rasmussen to describe what a flourishing life involves. Flourishing is activity rather than a passive state. It involves discovery of opportunities, and alertness to new opportunities amidst changing circumstances, rather than merely efficient use of the means at our disposal.

The authors suggest that if we accept that human flourishing is the goal of ethics, then we should learn from exemplars. People who have flourished in difficult circumstances may provide us with useful models of action. Of course, the idea that it can be helpful to personal development to identify and emulate the values that drive heroes has been around for a long time. It seems to work best for people who are sufficiently self-authoring to be able to recognise that famous people are not always good exemplars of human flourishing.

Den Uyl and Rasmussen argue that the ultimate value of the template of responsibility is integrity, which “signifies a coherent, integral whole of virtues and values, allowing for consistency between word and deed and for reliability in action”. They suggest that integrity expresses itself interpersonally in honour. Although acknowledging that honour may be “too old-fashioned a term for today’s usage”, they maintain that it does “capture the sense of what it means to greet the world with integrity”.

An alternative term, that captures some of that meaning, is trustworthiness. Den Uyl and Rasmussen briefly discuss the question of why they consider opportunistic participation in untrustworthy behaviour to be inconsistent with individual flourishing. They argue that such opportunism puts “the relationship we have with ourselves as a whole in disequilibrium by eroding what we ought to be in our relations with others generally”.

I have a vague idea of what that means. We can’t flourish if our behaviour is inconsistent with our values. Peoples’ consciences are often troubled when they engage in untrustworthy behaviour. When confronted with an opportunity to benefit unfairly at the expense of another person we sometimes hear people say, “I couldn’t live with myself if I behaved in that way”. I am not sure whether those sentiments are best explained in terms of evolved moral intuitions, internalisation of norms of reciprocity during the maturation process, a combination of both, or something else. Perhaps it doesn’t matter much how such sentiments are explained; the important point is to recognize that humans generally view untrustworthy behaviour to be inconsistent with their values.

Results of the trust game suggests that in a world we live in there seems to be a widespread expectation that even people we don’t know may be somewhat trustworthy. The trust game is a once-off game played between anonymous strangers (A and B). A is given $10. She can choose to keep it all or send some to B. B receives 3 times the amount sent by A. B can choose to keep all the money she has received, or send some back to A. In the results of games reported by Robert Sugden, A players sent on average $5.16 and received back $4.66, with B players keeping $10.82.

Sugden suggests that the willingness of A players to send any money to B players can explained in terms of their expectation that B players can be trusted to play their part in producing mutual benefits.  

In real world interactions, people have greater knowledge of the trustworthiness of others. Sugden points out that the principle of mutual benefit requires trustworthiness:  

"In an economy in which there is a general tendency for people to act on the Principle of Mutual Benefit, it is in each person’s interest that other people expect him to act on that principle”.

He explains:

“In choosing whether or not to enter a trust relationship, each individual is free to judge for herself whether or not that will be to her benefit, taking account of the possibility that other participants may be untrustworthy. To the extent that some person, say Joe, can be expected to act on the Principle of Mutual Benefit, he can be seen by others, and sought out by them, as a potential partner in mutually beneficial interactions that those others are free to enter or not enter, as they choose. Thus, Joe’s being seen in this way allows him to access opportunities for benefit that would be closed off if his potential partners expected him always to act on self-interest."

That reasoning might suggest to some readers that it is more important to establish a reputation for trustworthiness than to have an intention to be trustworthy. A lot of commercial advertising seems to make that presumption. Fortunately, there is some evidence that individuals’ dispositions toward trustworthiness are translucent. When people have face-to face interactions with others they are quite successful in predicting who will cooperate and who will defect. On that basis, Sugden suggests that having a disposition to act on the principle of mutual benefit makes it more likely that other people will expect you to act in this way.

Summing up, accepting responsibility for making something of one’s own life is an integral part of what it means to be a human, and seeking mutual benefit in interactions with others follows naturally from that. Integrity in our behaviour toward others is of central importance to flourishing because we cannot flourish if we don’t live according to our values, and because we cannot flourish unless other people trust us sufficiently to seek mutually beneficial interactions with us.

Does the I-You relation enter into every aspect of the moral life?

Roger Scruton argues in On Human Nature that the “I-You relation enters essentially into every aspect of the moral life”.

That strikes me as an exaggeration. Examples readily come to mind of the exercise of the traditional virtues of prudence (practical wisdom) and temperance (moderation) that do not involve other people. We can make the ethical judgement it is good to exercise practical wisdom by managing our food intake and exercising regularly without considering possible benefits that might have for others. We can make the ethical judgement that it is good to be able to respond with moderation when our computers misbehave, even if there are no other humans nearby to witness unrestrained emotional outbursts.

So, why does Scruton take such an extreme position on the importance of the I-You relation? Scruton follows Stephen Darwall, who argues that the moral life depends on the “second-person standpoint” – the standpoint of someone whose reasons and conduct are essentially addressed to others. In attempting to explain that proposition, Scruton argues that it is “only because we enter into free relations with others that we can know ourselves in the first person”. He presents two supporting arguments – one from language and one from recognition.

The argument from language, associated with Wittgenstein, is that first-person awareness arises from mastery of a public language and recognition that others are using the word I as I do, to express what they think or feel directly.

The argument from recognition, associated with Hegel, is based on the claim that in a state of nature, motivated only by my desires and needs, I am conscious, but without the sense of self. The sense of self arises from encounters with other humans and the struggle for survival.

It seems to me that the argument from language fails because it does not explain why first-person awareness would depend on having words to express what that feels like.

The argument from recognition fails because it does not explain why it is necessary to identify other humans as having self-awareness before being aware of your own thoughts and feelings. Indeed, it is not clear how any individual human can ever be certain that other humans are self-aware – we assume that others are self-aware as we observe their behaviour because of introspection about the way our own actions are related to our thoughts and feelings.

Within a few decades, we could well be assuming that some robots are self-aware because they seem to behave as though they are self-aware. Incidentally, just now when I asked Siri if she is self-aware, her response was: “Not that I am aware of”. I expect she has been programmed to make that response, but it is the kind of response one might expect from a self-aware human trying to appear to be clever.

In attempting to provide a functional explanation of self-awareness, it is not clear why Roger Scruton gives so much credence to the speculations of Hegel. He persuaded me earlier in the book that much human behaviour, including laughter, can be better understood in terms of its social meaning rather than evolutionary causes. But evolutionary causes are pertinent to functional explanations. We should not lightly dismiss the possibility that self-awareness provided evolutionary advantages to the individuals who possessed it by helping them to survive terrifying solitary endeavours, as well as to compete with and to cooperate with other humans.

Of course, we don’t need to ask how we came to have self-awareness if we acknowledge that the fundamental problem of ethics is taking responsibility for how we live all aspects of our lives. It is sufficient to acknowledge that we have self-awareness, which entails the ability to reflect upon our own behaviour, feelings and thoughts.

The template of responsibility, advocated by Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen in The Perfectionist Turn, bases ethics on “the existential fact that we must make something of our lives”:

“For the template of responsibility, the basis for determining worthiness is human flourishing or wellbeing of some sort. Its ultimate value is integrity. Integrity expresses itself interpersonally in honour but when applied to the agent herself, the term ‘integrity’ signifies a coherent, integral whole of virtues and values, allowing for consistency between word and deed and for reliability in action” (p 20).

By contrast to the template of responsibility, the template of respect refers to the view that ethics as essentially about relations among persons. Den Uyl and Rasmussen note that Stephen Darwall’s second person perspective provide a prime example of the template of respect. Darwall’s perspective leads him to the view that ethics is essentially a social or communal phenomenon. He sees our sociable nature as giving rise to moral obligations conceived in juridical terms. Den Uyl and Rasmussen comment:

“Darwell wants to suggest that it is only reasoned and reasonable claims and demands that we can make upon one another. And yet, unless a determination of what is reasonable is left to individuals, there is … nothing beyond the grasp of what might potentially become the subject of publicly dictated forms of claiming and demanding” (p 167).

(The Perfectionist Turn has been previously discussed on this blog: here, here and here.)

In the hands of Roger Scruton, the founding of ethics in the I-You relation leads eventually to approval of Hegel’s assertion that the dialectical opposition between the family, as a sphere of pious obligations, and the market, as a sphere of free choice and contract, “is transcended and preserved in a higher form of unchosen obligation – that towards the state”. Scruton asserts:

“The bond of allegiance that ties us to the state is again a bond of piety”.

In Roger Scruton’s framework, ethical conduct almost seems to be equated with accepting obligations and following rules, rather than accepting responsibility for one’s own actions. To his credit, he condemns the commandants of concentration camps “given to obeying orders and willing to sacrifice their conscience to their own security when the time to disobey had come”. But he doesn’t seem to understand that people who feel a bond of piety to the state are likely to be particularly challenged when it comes to knowing when the time has come to disobey.

Before concluding, I want to note that I enjoyed reading On Human Nature, despite the impression that might be given by what I have written above. I found Roger Scruton’s discussion of the limitations of the explanations offered by evolutionary biology to be particularly illuminating.  

Can MEMEnomics help us to predict social change?

MEMEnomics is the title of a book by Said Dawlabani, a cultural economist. The book, published in 2013, is an application of the psycho-social model of human development pioneered by Clare Graves and Don Beck. MEMEnomics has been praised by several prominent people, including Deepak Chopra and Bruce Lipton, but I have yet to see any praise by prominent economists. The author does not claim that his book is part of the economics mainstream.

Said Dawlabani suggests that MEMEnomics represents the coming together of two fields: memetics – the study of the replication, spread and evolution of memes - and economics. Just as genes carry the codes that define human characteristics, memes carry the codes that define cultural characteristics. The book is focused on value-system memes - the varying preferences and priorities that humans have in their lives depending on their level of development. The way human values may change with levels of human development was discussed in a recent post on this blog.

The author defines MEMEnomics as “the study of the long-term effects of economic policy on culture as seen through the prism of value systems”. Much of the book is devoted to attempting to explore the cultural implications of changes in economic policy in the United States. The author recognizes the desirability of ensuring that his model can explain history before it is used to attempt to predict the future.

There are three memenomic cycles identified in the book:

·         a “fiefdoms of power” cycle, peaking around 1900, in which American industrialists played a dominant role - large-scale exploitation, fraud and corruption came to identify the values of that era;

·         a “patriotic prosperity” cycle, peaking around 1950, characterized by economic expansion and government intervention – Keynesian macro-policies and social polices – and ending in stagflation;

·         and an “only money matters” cycle, peaking around 1980, characterized by monetarism and deregulation of the economy, and leading to the financial crisis of 2008.

I am not sure the author succeeds in demonstrating that changes in economic policies have led to cultural change. The cycles identified seem to me to be caricatures of beliefs held by powerful elites rather than accurate descriptions of deep-seated changes in values held by ordinary citizens. Nevertheless, it might be reasonable to argue that the cycles represent changes in ideologies of opinion leaders that have been reflected superficially in voting preferences and priorities of the American public.

The author suggests that we are standing on the cusp of a fourth cycle, “the democratization of information cycle”, in which technological advances are allowing social networks to play a pivotal role in affecting social change. That view has merit in my view, but I think this technology-driven change is better viewed as an exogenous factor rather than a new ideology emerging from the down-side of “only money matters”. At this stage it seems that, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, social networks have aided the return of economic nationalism rather than a policy environment placing higher priority on human development and living in harmony with nature.

As discussed in previous posts (here and here) there does seem to be scope for technological advances to have profound impacts on human values and the way we organise ourselves relative to each other over the next few decades. However, since some of those innovations threaten the scope of government, it seems unlikely that government policy will play a top-down role encouraging them to happen. Policy change seems more likely to occur in response to the demands of ordinary citizens for governments to get out of the way, so citizens can make effective use of new technology.

I enjoyed reading the final chapter of the book discussing the concept of a sustainable corporation. Inspirational examples are provided of corporation leaders setting out to define how the core values of their organisations can enable them to simultaneously pursue profits and a higher purpose. Unfortunately, some of the shining examples of 2013 do not all shine so brightly today.  Said Dawlabani has written an interesting article recently on the reasons why that has happened.

 Entrepreneurs who are selling new sets of values to investors, staff and customers will always encounter naysayers. In the face of this negativism some of these pioneers will succeed, many will not.

One of the messages I get from MEMEnomics is that individual entrepreneurs are likely to play a crucial leadership role in facilitating transition from a subsistence value system limited to expressions of selfish interests, to a value system that understands the interconnectedness of all life on the planet.

It strikes me that for economics to shed light on the role of the entrepreneur in this process it needs to recognize that the value created by entrepreneurs is likely to have a large non-pecuniary component in future. In pursuit of personal values some innovative entrepreneurs are offering investors the opportunity to feel that their funds are being used for the betterment of humanity and/or the environment, as well as generating financial returns. Similarly, they are offering employees the opportunity to feel they are engaged in a meaningful venture rather than just an income earning activity, and are also offering consumers opportunities to feel good about their purchases.

The economic model that seems most relevant in this context is 'identity economics' - as discussed in a book of that name by George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton. The key idea is that people gain satisfaction when their actions conform to the norms and ideals of their identity. In a tribal society, identity economics is like identity politics – people adopt the norms and ideals of the tribe to which they belong. In a cosmopolitan society the relevant norms and ideals are those of the market economy, incorporating a large measure of respect for the rights of others and social trust. Over the next few decades, hopefully the relevant norms and ideals will incorporate greater concern for the well-being of all humans and other living creatures.

How many rules for life can you remember?

A few hours after I had finished reading Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life: An antidote to chaos” I thought it might be interesting to see how many of his rules I could remember.

I remembered: stand up straight; use your past performance as a benchmark for comparison rather than other people; have meaningful objectives; don’t let your children do anything that makes you dislike them; be a good listener; be precise in your speech; tell the truth; and the one about setting your house in “perfect” order before you criticize the world. That is 8 out of 12. The rules are paraphrased as I remembered them rather than quoted directly.

I would not have much trouble explaining in terms of my own experiences why I remembered some of those rules. For example, the lessons that I had about 20 years ago in the Alexander technique left me with some knowledge of the links between posture, attitude and intention, as well as scepticism about the utility of the injunction to “stand up straight”. I remembered the rule about setting your house in perfect order before you criticize the world because I doubt whether anyone ever has their house in “perfect order”. I certainly have no intention of refraining from criticism of the views of “the radical left” until I get my house in “perfect” order.

The four rules that didn’t come readily to mind were: “treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping”; “make friends with people who want the best for you”; “do not bother children when they are skateboarding”; and “pet a cat when you encounter one in the street”. The meaning of the last couple of rules is not self-evident. The one about skateboarding is mainly about encouraging boys to acquire manly virtues. The one about petting a cat seems to be about taking advantage of opportunities to notice that we live in a wonderful world, despite the suffering that is attendant upon existence. That is just my interpretation. As Nathan Robinson has noted, Jordan Peterson does not always abide by his own rule to “be precise in your speech”.

My purpose in revealing how many, or how few, of the 12 rules for life I remembered is to open discussion about the accessibility of the rules Dr Peterson has offered, rather than to confess the imperfections of my memory. A month, or so, after reading Peterson’s book a few cult followers will remember all his rules, but I doubt whether many other readers will remember more than 1 or 2 of them. That is because Jordan Peterson’s selection of rules seems arbitrary, and he has failed to organise them in a systematic way that might make them easily accessible.

The best way I can illustrate the arbitrary nature of Dr Peterson’s rules is by referring to the 12 rules for life that Russ Roberts developed for himself after interviewing Jordan Peterson. Although Roberts acknowledges that his list of 12 rules for life was inspired by Peterson - and there is a lot of overlap between the sentiments covered in both lists - they look quite different. There are also differences in emphasis. For example, the first rule on Roberts’ list, learn to enjoy saying “I don’t know”, might be implied by Peterson’s rules about telling the truth and listening, but in my view, he doesn’t give this rule as much prominence as it deserves. If other people can develop a different set of rules for life, it is reasonable to ask what would make Peterson’s list superior to one that might be drawn up during a brain storming session by any randomly selected group of people.  

Dr Peterson’s list of rules would be more memorable if they were related in an obvious way to a central organising principle. His book has underlying themes, but those themes are not evident in his list of rules. Perhaps someone could develop a mnemonic to help people remember the items on his list, but that would trivialize the whole exercise.

As I read through the 12 rules, the rule “pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)” strikes me as being of central importance. Dr Peterson’s offers several definitions of meaning, all poetic rather than precise.  The definition that seems to come closest to the central theme of his book is this one:

“Meaning is the ultimate balance between, on the one hand, the chaos of transformation and possibility and on the other, the discipline of pristine order, whose purpose is to produce out of the attendant chaos a new order that will be even more immaculate, and capable of bringing forth a still more balanced and productive chaos and order. Meaning is the Way, the path of life more abundant, the place you live when you are guided by Love and speaking Truth and when nothing you want or could possibly want takes any precedence over precisely that” (p 201). 

That passage brings to mind an attempt I made a few years ago to understand the meaning of Dao. We can feel that we have some understanding of Dao, but it is difficult to be precise in our speech about it. My limited understanding left me feeling that it is wise to proceed with minimal rules, waiting to observe how things develop, and redirecting with minimal effort the things that are subject to our influence. I’m not sure that Jordan Peterson would agree.

If I push myself to be precise, what I would mean by pursuing what is meaningful, is pursuing what is important to you in the various domains of life.

In the personal domain we seek to understand what we know and what we don’t know, where we have been, where we are now, what we value, and what values we want to be expressed by the persons we are becoming. Our values determine our intentions, our attitudes and our posture. We want to improve, so we focus on our intentions in what we do, rather than our expectations of how we will perform based on how we have performed in the past. We measure our performance by comparison with our own past, rather than the performance of other people. We treat ourselves like persons we are responsible for coaching. We seek friends who want the best for us, providing encouragement and taking us to task as appropriate.

As regards interpersonal relations, we seek to place particular importance on authenticity and trustworthiness. We listen to what others have to say because they may know something that we don’t.  We seek to be precise and forthright in communication. We encourage our loved ones to behave in ways that will enable them to be widely liked and respected.

We approach the world with humility. We don’t seek to govern the lives of other people because we know the shortcomings in our governance of our own lives. We avoid the temptation to be over-protective of young people because they have to learn from experience how to take responsibility for their own lives.

So, that probably covers more than enough rules for life. If you can only remember one rule, the most important rule is to remember to do what is important.  That rule in particularly useful to remember when you find yourself falling into the trap of trying to avoid negative thoughts and feelings. Doing expedient things to make yourself feel better is likely to end up making your life more chaotic.

I would like to end this somewhat critical post by acknowledging that there is much that I like about Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life”. In fact, my main point is that it is unfortunate that the author has not found a way to make the messages of the book more memorable.

What caused the narcissism epidemic?

It seems obvious that there is a narcissism epidemic in many countries: people taking selfies everywhere we look; adolescents saying that their goal in life is to become famous; celebrities behaving like gods; people exploding in rage in response to imagined affronts; charlatans, shysters and jerks everywhere betraying trust. Psychologists have been written books about it: “The Narcissism Epidemic”, by Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell, tracked scores of U.S. college students on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) across generations and found that there had been an increase in narcissism.

Claims based on the NPI have been disputed by Kari Trzensniewski, who conducted research using a slightly different data set and found no increase in NPI scores. In the face of ambiguous evidence, I wonder whether it might be narcissistic of me to continue to accept that there is a narcissism epidemic. Nevertheless, I will persist. A national survey conducted in the U.S. suggests that about 10 percent of people in their 20’s have experienced symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) at some time during their lives. So, even if narcissism hasn’t been increasing it might still be reasonable to view it as an epidemic.

NPD is a long-term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, exaggeration of achievements and talents, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of others' feelings. The Mayo Clinic has published a longer list of symptoms that are referred to in the DSMv. Narcissism exists on a spectrum, ranging from exhibiting a few traits to the full-blown personality disorder.

Anne Manne, an Australian journalist has provided an interesting discussion of the nature and causes of narcissism in her book, The Life of I, The new culture of narcissism, updated edition published 2015.

She notes that Twenge and Campbell have taken aim at myths regarding the relationship between narcissism and self-esteem. They point out that narcissism is not just high self-esteem, in the sense of a quiet and sturdy confidence in oneself. Narcissists feel superior; they are arrogant and unwilling to accept criticism.

Twenge and Campbell also suggest that it is a myth that narcissism is a mask for low self-esteem. They are opposed to the psychodynamic view that narcissists are flawed people who are ‘hurt deep down inside’. According to their view a narcissist is ‘just a jerk’.

However, Manne notes that Erin Myer and Virgil Zeigler Hill found that narcissistic people revealed lower self-esteem than non-narcissistic people when a bogus lie detector test was used in assessing self-esteem and narcissism. Narcissists don’t like to admit weakness or vulnerability.

Manne points to a corresponding division of views on the causes of narcissism. Twenge and Campbell argue that what makes a child into a narcissist is spoiling, indulgence, an absence of moral discipline in building character, and a culture of excessive praise, of telling children they are special. However, findings of research by Lorna Otway and Vivian Vignoles, using recollections of young adults to test a range of views of the role of parenting in development of narcissism, support a Freudian view. Apparently future narcissists receive constant praise from their caregivers that is accompanied by implicit messages of coldness and rejection rather than warmth and acceptance. This helps explain the combination of grandiosity and fragility exhibited by many narcissists.

Manne also discusses evidence that infants whose dependency needs are rebuffed by parents tend to become aggressive adults. Studies by Alan Sroufe suggest that preschoolers forced to self-reliance too early tended to bully others and engage in repeated acts of cruelty. Their early experiences at home made such behaviour seem natural.

The author also draws attention to research suggesting that affluent families are not immune to problems arising from parents being emotionally distant from their children. While insisting on high levels of achievement, such parents are often indulgent towards bad behaviour.

Manne sees the problems of parenting as linked to limited government support for parental leave. After a brief discussion of this topic she concludes:

“This brave new world is a whole lot larger than its symptoms – the self-esteem movement or the college kids with unrealistic ambitions or the helicopter parents rushing in to rescue a child whose grades are poor. Another way of looking at narcissism is that it is a quality required for survival in the hyper-competitive paradise of the new capitalism”.

That is indeed another way to look at the issue. Manne attempts to support that view in the second part of her book, holding Ayn Rand responsible for the “new capitalism”. She refers to Rand as “a monstrously narcissistic character” and suggests that “she practiced what she preached” in her philosophy of selfishness.

The main problem I have with that claim is that some of Rand’s behaviour seems to me to have been more selfish – showing less regard for other people - than that of the heroes of her novels. The behaviour of the heroes of her novels was presumably intended to illustrate the selfishness that she saw as a virtue, but I have difficulty, as previously noted, in recognising these fictitious characters as being particularly selfish

At one point Manne states that Rand’s “heroes are all young, male, wealthy … “. That left me wondering whether Manne had ever taken the trouble to read Atlas Shrugged. If she had done so, or even if she had looked up the list of characters on the internet, she would have been aware that Dagny Taggart was female.

Manne’s claim that Rand promoted “an ideology of narcissism” can be much better answered by an Objectivist, than by a reader of Rand’s novels like myself.  John Galt said:

“Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims. Happiness is not the satisfaction of whatever irrational wishes you might blindly attempt to indulge. Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy – a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind’s fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer”. (Atlas Shrugged, p 1022)

Manne raves on about what she refers to as “the neoliberal revolution” as creating an ideological framework for narcissism to flourish at an individual level. Yet she doesn’t specify the nature of the incentives that could have caused that to occur. If “neoliberalism” means free markets, how do free markets provide an incentive for appointment of narcissistic business leaders? Under normal circumstances the last thing individual investors want is to have their wealth depend on the actions of a narcissistic chief executive.

Some investors might think it makes sense to take a punt on a narcissistic entrepreneur in highly regulated industries where there may be something to be gained by hoodwinking politicians and voters. Otherwise, why take the risk that the narcissist might run off with your money or spend it to enhance his own image?

It is disappointing that Manne has not considered whether narcissism might be a problem in occupations other than business. Markets expose private sector narcissists to financial disciplines for failure to deliver on their promises unless they can use their skills to persuade governments to bail them out. Casual observation suggests that some other occupations - such as politics and some parts of the media - provide a breeding ground for narcissism and a sanctuary for narcissists.

Anne Manne has not, in my view, made a persuasive case that Ayn Rand’s philosophy played a large role in the partial return to classical liberalism in the U.S., the U.K, and a few other countries including New Zealand and Australia, during the 1980s and 90s. And she certainly hasn’t made a persuasive case that free markets promote narcissism.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading The Life of I. I particularly enjoyed reading her explanation of the behaviour of Anders Breivik and Lance Armstrong. The book seems to provide a good introduction to psychological research on the nature of narcissism and parenting styles that lead to narcissism.

So, what is the problem with tolerance?

Anyone who claims to be in favour of individual liberty must view tolerance as a virtue. If you favour a political/legal order in which adult humans are responsible for managing their own lives, you must accept that this requires you to tolerate conduct that you don’t approve of, provided those responsible for that conduct do not interfere with the rights of others. Tolerance is a core value of western civilization. John Locke provided a powerful defence of tolerance in A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) which was written in defence of religious freedom in the aftermath of the English Civil War.

Tolerance is strongly related to the Golden Rule, to treat others as you would wish to be treated. Since all the major world religions subscribe to a version of the Golden Rule, it is not difficult for people from many different cultural heritages to understand the virtue of tolerance. Nevertheless, intolerance is still rife in many societies. For example, it is only too obvious that the injunction in the Islamic version that people should desire for their brothers what they desire for themselves, is not always interpreted to require tolerance of unbelievers.

The problem with tolerance, as Linda Raeder has explained in The Transformation of American Society, is that its meaning has tended to stray from the traditional definition: 

"The traditional definition of tolerance, according to Merriam-Webster, is the “capacity to endure pain or hardship; sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own.” In other words, throughout most of Western history, tolerance has implied “putting up” with something that causes one pain, enduring something that one personally dislikes or of which one personally disapproves. A person does not “tolerate” beliefs or behavior that he enjoys or finds praiseworthy but rather those he finds somehow offensive or repugnant. In the social and political sphere, tolerance thus means permitting other people to think and behave in ways that one personally finds objectionable, distasteful, or even morally wrong."

The definition in the Concise Oxford dictionary (1982 edition) is similar, and includes explicit mention of “forbearance”.

The change in meaning that Linda observes in that in the context of contemporary multiculturalism toleration has come to mean accepting without judgment. She suggests that members of contemporary U.S. society have been taught that meaning by both popular culture and formal education at every level, from kindergarten to post-doctoral training. She goes on to observe:

"One consequence is a disturbingly passive generation that seems incapable of making, certainly reluctant to make, moral judgments of any kind. Young people have been taught that to make such judgments is “intolerant” of other “perspectives.” Self-censorship has become habitual among students shaped by Multicultural education, the mind unfamiliar with conceptual and moral discrimination. To exercise the capacity for critical evaluation - to “judge” - is regarded as wrong, intolerant."

I suspect that debasement of the meaning of tolerance has gone just as far in Australia as in the United States. In his CIS report, No Ordinary Garment? The Burqa and the Pursuit of Tolerance, Peter Kurti suggests that the contemporary exercise of tolerance often “avoids engaging in judgements about relative values” and “amounts to little more than a position of indifference to views and opinions”. He refers to the muting of criticism to the point where all behaviour is considered beyond judgment as ‘reverse zero- tolerance’.  He notes that reverse zero-tolerance admits no discretion as to the moral value of the position in question, including the acceptability of religious or cultural practices such as wearing a burqa.

How should we react to the debasement of the meaning of tolerance? Should we allow the advocates of cultural permissiveness to hijack the term in the way that advocates of collectivism hijacked ‘progressive’?  I am a person who advocates the progress of societies to provide greater opportunities for individual human flourishing, but I would rather not be labelled as a progressive. I wonder whether a time will come when I object to being described as tolerant.

In my view, it is important to preserve the traditional meaning of tolerance in order to be able to distinguish between behaviour that we judge to be unwise, immoral or likely be inimical to the flourishing of the individuals who indulge in it, and behaviour that we cannot tolerate and seek to prevent. There are more appropriate labels to describe the cultural relativists and ethical agnostics who argue that we should refrain from making judgements about the cultural practices and behaviour of other people.

As noted earlier, for anyone who claims to be in favour of individual liberty the dividing line between tolerance and intolerance is set at the point where behaviour infringes the rights of others.

It seems reasonably clear that a woman who wears a burqa is not infringing the rights of others. Unfortunately, I have to admit to being among those who feel uncomfortable when I see women wearing the burqa on the streets of Australia. It is possible that some of the women who wear the burqa do so as an act of religious piety, but I suspect that most are making a political statement to the effect that they are opposed to the cultural norms of this country. It might be their intention to make people like me feel discomforted by their apparel. But no-one has a right to be protected from feeling discomforted by the behaviour of others. Feeling discomforted is a lot different to feeling threatened. We can tolerate the burqa, in the same way we tolerate people with green hair and those who use profanities with the intention of offending us.

Some religious and cultural practices cannot be tolerated because they infringe the rights of other people. The list obviously includes acts of violence, including terrorism, honour killing and violence against children e.g. genital mutilation. It also includes threats of violence.

Of course, Australian legislators have not confined their activities to protection of individual rights. There is a vast amount of government intervention that seeks to influence the way people live their lives. Some of this can be justified on the grounds that it provides people with better opportunities than would otherwise be available to them e.g. public funding of education to help children to acquire useful skills. We should not tolerate children being prevented from accessing such opportunities as a consequence of the cultural traditions of their parents.

The Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, recently announced plans to strengthen the citizenship test to ensure that people granted citizenship share Australian values. Interestingly, a discussion paper that has been released by immigration department to promote public discussion of the issues doesn’t actually mention tolerance. I don’t see that as a problem. It is fairly clear that the main aim of the exercise is to avoid giving citizenship to people who can’t tolerate us -  those who seek to undermine our society.

There is not much that is peculiarly Australian about the “Australian values” listed in the discussion paper. The paper notes:

“Ours is a society founded on a liberal-democratic tradition in which the fundamental rights of every individual are inviolable”.

I can’t quote that without observing that it is aspirational rather than a description of current legislative practice in Australia. The important point is that those aspirations reflect the values of western civilization. Some might feel bemused that when attempts are made to identify Australian values what we end up with is a statement of the values of western civilization. But that is highly appropriate.  That is our cultural heritage!

Even when we attempt to use common Australian colloquialisms to describe our values we end up talking about the values of western civilization. Some people equate the “fair go” ethos with egalitarianism. I suspect many Australians would be suspicious of such terminology, but if you ask them whether giving people a fair go means recognizing that all people have equal rights, they would be likely to agree. That is what egalitarianism actually means, according to my old Concise Oxford as well as the Macquarie dictionary. Most Australians like to think that they take fairly seriously the idea that people deserve to be treated as equals in terms of their fundamental worth. Giving individuals a “fair go” entails, among other things, being tolerant of their conduct provided they don’t interfere with the rights of others.

How do we know what we value?

“Although feelings are the one output of the adaptive unconscious that is likely to reach consciousness, sometimes even feelings are unconscious. And other contents of the adaptive unconscious, such as personality traits and goals, are likely to remain beneath the surface, unavailable to conscious scrutiny (the beam of the flashlight).”

The quoted passage is from Timothy Wilson’s book, Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the adaptive unconscious. The author views the adaptive unconscious as a “necessary and extensive part of a highly efficient mind”. Its functions include “warning people of danger, setting goals, and initiating action in a sophisticated and efficient manner”.

The context of the quote is a discussion of introspection as a means by which people can “try to decipher their feelings, motives, traits, or values, not to mention what they want for dinner”. The “beam of the flashlight” refers to a metaphor in which the mind is thought of as a cave, with consciousness constituting those objects that are not currently in the beam of the flashlight. The quote seems to imply that our values and preferences are not necessarily easily accessible by just focussing our awareness inwards.

Tim Wilson argues that because people “cannot directly observe their nonconscious dispositions, they must try to infer them indirectly, by, for example, being good observers of their own behaviour”. He suggests that when we discover important truths about ourselves through introspection we do so by constructing stories about our lives, much as a biographer would. Trying to access unconscious goals and motives results in “a constructive process whereby the conscious self infers the nature of these states”.

I felt somewhat bemused when reading that - presumably because of my training as an economist. The idea of being able to discern our values and preferences from our behaviour seems to have more in common with the neoclassical economists’ notion of ‘revealed preference’ than with the view of many psychologists (and behavioural economists) that people are prone to make irrational choices because of cognitive biases that reflect non-conscious influences.

Of course, Tim Wilson does not suggest that the adaptive unconscious always makes the right choices for us. He notes that it is important to distinguish between “informed and uniformed gut feelings” by gathering as much information as possible to allow your “adaptive unconscious to make a stable, informed evaluation rather than an ill-informed one”.  His main point seems to be that in order to make good decisions, e.g. in choosing a spouse or buying a home, you need to avoid over-analysis by the conscious mind.

Does it make sense to try to try to infer your values from your past behaviour? If the aim of the exercise is self-improvement that approach might appear to be futile. If you see need for improvement in your behaviour, it isn’t immediately obvious how the values that can be inferred from your past behaviour could provide helpful guidance.

So, how can people bring their values to awareness in order to engage in self-improvement exercises? Tim Wilson has some suggestions, but before considering them it might be useful to consider approaches adopted by some psychologists engaged in therapy and personal training.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) places a heavy emphasis on living according to values, so the approach adopted by ACT therapists might be of particular interest. One approach used in ACT is the life compass, which ask people questions to elicit values in various domains of their lives – relationships, health, work, leisure etc. People are asked what is important or meaningful to them, what sorts of strengths or qualities they want to develop and what they want to stand for. That approach obviously works if you can find what you value by just shining the flashlight into your cave. But to do that you must have a fair amount of self-knowledge already, and you would probably have constructed a story about where your values have come from.

ACT offers a range of techniques to elicit values if they don’t readily come to consciousness. One technique noted by Russ Harris in ACT Made Simple is to imagine what you would love to hear people say about you, and what you stand for, in short speeches at your 80^th birthday party. (Dr Harris presumably doesn’t have many readers who are over 80.) In The Reality Slap, he suggests that it is also possible to elicit values by remembering a “sweet spot”, a memory that encapsulates some of life’s sweetness for you. After appreciating that memory, he asks people to notice the personal qualities they were exhibiting and what this reveals about the personal qualities they would like to embody.

The Authentic Happiness web site (stemming from Martin Seligman’s book of that name) has, among other things, an extensive questionnaire that enables people to discover their ‘signature strengths’. People taking the questionnaire are asked to what extent 240 statements describe themselves. The statements seem to be largely about dispositions rather than past behaviours, so seem to assume prior knowledge of dispositions.

The Enneagram Institute offers people an opportunity to discover more about their personality type through a questionnaire (the RHETI) which asks participants to choose between 144 paired statements relating to their past behaviour. One of the potential benefits of this approach is that it seems to offer a way for people to identify values that can guide them toward attainment of higher levels of personal development, without having to attempt to make fundamental personality changes.  For example, a person who has a persistent desire for self-control could see himself, or herself, as having many of the characteristics of a Reformer, and thereby see potential for growth by becoming more reasonable, and progressively acquiring greater wisdom. Some more examples might help to make the point: a person who seeks to avoid conflict through accommodation might have many characteristics of the Peacemaker, and see potential for growth by acknowledging her or his peacefulness and seeking to become indomitable; a person who is highly defensive much of the time might have many characteristics of a Loyalist, and see potential for growth by becoming more trusting, cooperative, reliable and courageous; and a person who is restless and constantly seeking stimulation might have many of the characteristics of an Enthusiast, and see potential for growth by becoming more productive and more grateful. Similar personal growth paths exist for the five other personality types.

A couple of the approaches described above bring values into conscious awareness through an explicit consideration of past behaviour. The sweet spot approach builds on selection of a particular memory, whereas the RHETI may help people to identify their potential by providing them with a systematic way to understand their past behaviour and personality. Unfortunately, although the RHETI is being widely used in personal training exercises, its predictions do not yet appear to have been subjected to a great deal of rigorous scientific testing.

One approach that Tim Wilson advocates is Pennebaker’s exercise which involves writing about the deepest thoughts and feelings associated with an important emotional issue. Although writing about emotional experiences is distressing in the short run, it apparently has positive long-run effects. The exercise seems to help people make sense of a negative event by constructing a meaningful narrative that explains it. A possible downside of this approach is that some people may dwell on negative life experiences by constantly revising their narratives. I expect that some people might also have a tendency to fuse with stories that make their lives miserable.

Tim Wilson acknowledges that some narratives are better than others. He writes:

"As with any biography, there are multiple ways of telling the story. A good biography, though, has to account for the facts of the person’s life and capture his or her inner goals and traits. The better a story does at accounting for the “data” of the person’s adaptive unconscious, the better off the person is. By recognizing their nonconscious goals, people are in a better position to act in ways to fulfill them, or to try to change them."

How can we change our non-conscious states in order to match our more positive self-stories? Tim Wilson suggests we follow Aristotle’s advice to acquire virtues by first putting them into action. We can change our feelings and traits by changing our behaviour. In order to “change some aspect of our adaptive unconscious, a good place to start is deliberately to begin acting like the person we want to be”.