Who should read "Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing"?

 

I have dedicated the book to those who reflect on what it means to be a flourishing human.

When individuals think about their own personal development, they are reflecting on what it means to be a flourishing human.  I believe that reflection on what it means to be a flourishing human also holds the key to understanding the importance of liberty, and its role in economic development.

What is the book about?

The book explains how freedom (liberty) enables individuals to flourish in different ways without colliding, how it fosters progress and enables growth of opportunities, and how it supports personal development by enabling individuals to exercise self-direction.

The importance of self-direction is a theme of the book. The introductory chapter explains that wise and well-informed self-direction is integral to flourishing because it helps individuals to attain health and longevity, positive human relationships, psychological well-being, and an ability to live in harmony with nature.

Part I discusses natural rights and the evolution of freedom since ancient times. It explains how most people living in the liberal democracies today came to enjoy greater freedom than their ancestors.

Part II discusses progress. It explains how cultural change made economic progress possible by supporting the rule of law, liberty, and interpersonal trust, as well as the advance of knowledge, respect for innovators and tolerance of diversity. It notes that progress has led to increasingly widespread opportunities for people to meet their aspirations. It also discusses reasons for apprehension about the continuation of progress.

Part III considers how it is possible for individuals to meet the challenges of self-direction and to enhance their potential to flourish by investing in personal development. It explains that while the exercise of practical wisdom has always been integral to the flourishing of individuals, it has become commonplace for people to aspire to exercise meaningful self-direction over their lives to a greater extent than has ever been possible in the past.

The main message of the book is that people who live in Western liberal democracies should count their blessings. They have many blessings to count!

What are reviewers saying about the book?

Doug Rasmussen, a philosopher, and joint author with Douglas Den Uyl of a trilogy of books about liberty and human flourishing writes:

“Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing is a highly informed, but not an unduly technical, account of human flourishing and the need for a political/legal order that has the primary goal of protecting individual rights. This work is informed by not only philosophical but also by psychological and economic studies. This work provides an excellent entry point for deeper discussions of these fundamental claims.”

Readers who are seeking deeper discussions will find much to think about in the books by Rasmussen and Den Uyl: Norms of Liberty, The Perfectionist Turn, and The Realist Turn: Repositioning Liberalism.

Ron Duncan, a distinguished Australian economist with particular expertise in the economics and governance of developing countries, writes:

“With so much attention on identifying issues we should be unhappy about, Winton Bates' book is a welcome relief, given its emphasis on how much the lot of most people—particularly those in western liberal societies—has improved, why the improvements have taken place, and why they should continue. Its historical coverage of the philosophical issues underpinning the role of liberty in western progress should delight all serious thinkers.”

Ed Younkins, author of Flourishing and Happiness in A Free Society and Capitalism and Commerce writes:

“This masterful feat of integration of a wide range of literature from philosophy, economics, political science, and the social sciences will inspire scholars to bring their disciplines together to advance the argument for a free society.”

What are my qualifications to write such a book?

I am an economist. I first became professionally involved in broad issues concerning human flourishing in the early 1990s. Before then, my career focused on public policy relating to economic development, international trade, productivity growth and technological progress. Whilst retaining my professional interest in such matters, I have become increasingly interested in economic history, happiness economics, behavioral economics, self-help psychology, politics, and Aristotelian philosophy. I have written extensively about freedom and flourishing and have been blogging on this site for about 12 years.

How do I perform when interviewed about my book?

Potential interviewers who need to make such an assessment should take a look at me being interviewed by Leah Goldrick. The interview entitled “Freedom Helps us Flourish” has been published on Leah’s Common Sense Ethics channel on YouTube. The interview is also a useful source of background information about the book and its author.

Where can the book be purchased?

The book has been published by Hamilton Books and can be purchased at the Rowman and Littlefield web site: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761872665/Freedom-Progress-and-Human-Flourishing

It is also available from Amazon and some other booksellers.

Does evolutionary psychology shed light on the source of human intuitions?

 

I have difficulty thinking of Aristotle as a blank slate theorist. The view that evolved psychological adaptations play no role in determining human behavior seems impossible to reconcile with Aristotle’s teleological view that living entities contain in themselves the principle of their own development. It is worth remembering, however, that Aristotle saw personal development as linked to formation of good habits – he saw roles for both nature and nurture in human flourishing. In order to make sense of the passage quoted above I need to allow myself to imagine a blank writing tablet that has functional specialization allowing information relevant to the flourishing of our pre-historic ancestors to be most readily written upon it. (Incidentally, the quote is from On the Soul, Book III, Part 4.)

Evolutionary psychology has promoted the view that evolved psychological adaptations play a role in determining human behavior. To consider the light it sheds on the source of human intuitions I will begin with Steven Pinker’s list of the cognitive intuitions (also referred to as modules, systems, stances, faculties, mental organs, multiple intelligences, and reasoning engines), and then move on to Jonathan Haidt’s list of ethical intuitions. I will then consider whether attacks on evolutionary psychology should cause us to be wary of the evolutionary reasoning associated with such lists.

Pinker suggests that we are equipped with a range of different cognitive intuitions that evolved through psychological adaptations to keep our ancestors in touch with reality. These intuitions emerge early in life, and are present in every normal person. His list includes a basic intuitive grasp of physics, biology, engineering, psychology, and economic exchange. It includes a spatial sense, and senses of number and probability. It also includes language, and a mental data base and logic that are used to represent ideas and infer new ideas from old ones. These intuitions are suitable for the lifestyles of small groups of illiterate people living several thousands of years ago. They do not give people a spontaneous intuitive understanding of modern science, technology, or economics. (Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate, 2002, 219-21)

Haidt argues that moral intuitions evolved to meet various adaptive challenges faced by our ancestors. He suggests that moral intuitions relating to care and harm evolved to protect children; intuitions relating to fairness and cheating evolved to reap benefits of cooperation; intuitions relating to loyalty and betrayal evolved to protect groups from challenges; intuitions relating to authority and subversion evolved to obtain benefits from hierarchies; and intuitions about sanctity and degradation evolved to avoid contamination and disease. (Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind, 2012, 123-127)

The views of Pinker and Haidt seem to me to be plausible, but can this kind of reasoning withstand the criticism that evolutionary psychology consists of “just so” stories?  

In his book, Rethinking Evolutionary Psychology, Andrew Goldfinch, a philosopher, tells readers that critics view evolutionary psychology explanations “as shockingly naked in historic and scientific detail”. Massive modularity has been a particular focus of criticism. The strongest form of massive modularity claims that there are no systems or mechanisms that are not dedicated to particular problems.

I came to Goldfinch’s book with the idea that the concept of brain plasticity was opposed to modularity. I had thought that evidence that brains “rewire” themselves in response to experience as people transition from infancy to adulthood would tend to count against modularity. However, many cognitive psychologists stress that when they talk about modules what they have in mind is functional specialization which is consistent with overlap between processing areas of the brain. Plasticity enables brains to develop so that individuals normally have intuitions that are common among adult humans.

However, Goldfinch also makes it clear that the existence of innate knowledge does not require massive modularity. It is possible for domain-specific knowledge to be generated by domain-general processing. Both domain-specific and domain-general mechanisms are compatible with evolutionary theory. I think it follows that the issue of whether the lists of intuitions compiled by Pinker and Haidt are evolutionary adaptations does not depend on the validity of the theory of massive modularity.

The main point that Goldfinch makes is that leading evolutionary psychologists have brought their research program into disrepute by packaging it as a paradigm shift. The research program became identified with claims of a strong form of massive modularity as leading proponents argued that evolutionary adaptation implies the existence of strong massive modularity. Leading proponents used the concept of strong massive modularity to challenge conventional social science based on the foundation of domain-general knowledge and processes that are exclusively social. This prompted excessively critical responses that sought to discredit the entire research program as “just so” stories.

Goldfinch argues that strong massive modularity is not integral to evolutionary psychology. He suggests that evolutionary psychology should be viewed as an exploratory research program aimed at generating and testing hypotheses about psychological mechanisms. Viewed in that light, evolutionary psychology explores whether psychological traits that are observed across cultures could be adaptations, and has potential to guide researchers into identifying new behavioral patterns and mechanisms.

Goldfinch summarizes his view as follows:

“Initial evolutionary psychology hypotheses aim, or should aim, not for the last evolutionary word on a given phenomenon, but the first. They are in constant adjustment—both with the research programme’s own findings and findings from adjacent research programmes and disciplines. If this is done, this should generate sophisticated hypotheses, as well as generate progressive increments to our understanding of psychological and social phenomena.” (200)

I can see the wisdom in Goldfinch’s suggestion that evolutionary psychologists should not be aiming to have the last word. Should any scientist ever be aiming to have the last word? However, I think it is inevitable that a good number of the hypotheses advanced by evolutionary psychologists will challenge beliefs that human behavior is wholly attributable to simple mechanisms of learning and can be modified readily by changing social arrangements.  

Even if the views about human intuitions put forward by evolutionary psychologists only have the status of plausible speculations, they can still help us to comprehend aspects of the world we live in. For example, Pinker’s views provide a provisional understanding of why people tend to perceive the world they live in much the same way as their ancestors who knew nothing about the processes that modern physics describes. Haidt’s views provide a provisional understanding of why people hold ethical intuitions that cannot be readily explained in terms of current social circumstances. The paucity of historic detail supporting such speculations should not cause them to be dismissed unless more plausible explanations are offered. Those seeking truth should find plausible speculations more satisfying than implausible speculations and mysteries.    

How good is this image of self-actualization?

When you think about Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, what is the image that appears in your mind? I expect that most people who have some knowledge of the concept would think of a pyramid in which needs are layered one on top of the other, with physiological needs at the bottom and self-actualization needs at the top. If you have no idea what I am talking about, there is no need to worry. Andy Ogden’s sailboat illustration, provided above, is better. That image has been used effectively by Scott Barry Kaufman in Transcend, his recently published book which seeking to update Maslow’s hierarchy.

Kaufman points out that the pyramid image was created by a management consultant rather than by Maslow. He argues that the pyramid “had the unfortunate consequence of reducing Maslow’s rich and nuanced intellectual contributions to a parody and has betrayed the actual spirit of Maslow’s notion of self-actualization as realizing one’s creative potential for humanitarian ends”.

I have read many books aimed at the self-help market, but Transcend has more endorsements by psychologists than any I have previously read. Those praising the book include Martin Seligman, Steven Hayes and Steven Pinker. My inner economist tells me that there must be something wrong with a book preceded by five pages of praise, but I haven’t found much wrong with this one.

Kaufman’s sailboat image captures Maslow’s idea that all needs can be grouped into two main classes, deficiency needs and growth needs. The planks of the boat represent deficiency needs and the sails represents growth (or self-actualization). 

In explaining his metaphor, Kaufman suggests:

“Life isn’t a trek up a summit but a journey to travel through – a vast blue ocean, full of opportunities for new meaning and discovery but also danger and uncertainty”.

The deficiency needs that comprise the boat, safety, connection, and self-esteem work as a dynamic system. Under good conditions they work together toward greater security and stability. Under unfavourable conditions, they can lead toward insecurity and instability, causing people to focus attention on defending themselves.

The growth needs comprising the sails are exploration, love, and purpose. Kaufman suggests that “the drive for exploration is the core motive underlying self-actualization”. It involves the desire to seek out and make sense of novel, challenging and uncertain events. Love and purpose can build on the fundamental need for exploration. Loving is noted to be a powerful force, linked to growth, compassion, coping and authenticity. Purpose is defined as “the need for an overarching aspiration that energizes one’s efforts and provides a central source of meaning and significance in one’s life”.

Kaufman sensibly emphasizes the hazards of attempting to fulfill a need for purpose without working on other areas of growth:

“It is entirely possible to choose a striving that brings out the worst in yourself and others because it is motivated by a desperate, never-ending quest to fill a deficiency in one of the security needs, whether it’s safety, belonging, or self-esteem”.

The need for transcendence is depicted as being in the sky above the sails. Kaufman suggests that transcendence “goes beyond individual growth (and even health and happiness) and allows for the highest levels of unity and harmony within oneself and with the world”. Some further explanation might be helpful for those who, like me, read that and think immediately that they don’t need mystical experiences. The transcending experiences written about are not all mystical. Kaufman notes that transcendence incorporates a “unitary continuum,” of experiences ranging from becoming engrossed in a book, sports performance, or creative activity (what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to as the flow experience), to experiencing awe at a beautiful sunset etc, all the way up to the great mystical illumination.

A particularly useful contribution of the book is to make a clear distinction between healthy self-esteem and narcissism. Kaufman points 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.

In writing the book, Kaufman has drawn on Maslow’s unpublished writings to illustrate the range and depth of his thinking. This passage, written by Maslow about 50 years ago, has contemporary relevance:

 “It is … vital to emphasize that a democratic society is rooted in a set of feelings toward other people—feelings like compassion and respect. …  If we did not trust other people, if we did not like them, if we did not pity them, if we did not have brotherly or sisterly feelings for them, then a democratic society would of course be out of the question. Obviously, human history provides many examples to prove this point.”

Readers may have guessed already that I am impressed by Kaufman’s book. In my view he does an excellent job in bringing together many findings of psychologists relating to personal development. I particularly like the imagery in his use of the sailboat metaphor because it recognizes that each individual has prime responsibility for his or her own journey through life.

How is behavioral economics relevant to human flourishing?

The practitioners of behavioral economics have tended to direct their research findings mainly at “choice architects”, including paternalistic governments. For example, in their book, Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein adopt the term “libertarian paternalism” to propose:

“Choice architects can preserve freedom of choice while also nudging people in directions that will improve their lives”.

An example might help to clarify what a nudge involves. If the government were to invest a certain proportion of your income in a superannuation fund on your behalf this would amount to a nudge, rather than a push or a shove, if you were allowed to withdraw the funds at any time to use as you wished. Because of a tendency for people to avoid choices, or to choose default options, such an arrangement would be likely to result in more investment in superannuation than one that relied solely on tax incentives. It would do this without the interference in personal choice that is involved in compulsory superannuation, such as exists in Australia. (That example is taken from my review of Nudge.)

However, if you view human flourishing as an essentially self-directed activity, as I do, you may be sceptical about claims that such nudging can improve your life. Even if the people doing the nudging have your interests at heart, their perception of what will improve your life will not necessarily accord with your own preferences.

In the example provided above, additional transactions costs may be imposed on the person being nudged. For example, investment in superannuation might not be the best option for a young person wanting to save for a deposit on a house. Over the longer term, the value of an investment in a superannuation fund could be expected to rise to a greater extent than cash in the bank, but short term fluctuations in equity prices make superannuation a less suitable vehicle for shorter term saving. Withdrawing funds for a house deposit could result in capital losses being incurred.

Robert Sugden suggests that “something is clearly wrong if economists think that their response to the discovery of mistakes in individual decision-making must take the form of a recommendation about public policy” (The Community of Advantage, p 44). If you want to help individuals to make better decisions it makes more sense to address the information to those individuals rather than to address it to autocrats.  (I have previously discussed The Community of Advantage here, here and here.)

Sugden makes the point that nudgees (people who are nudged) do not always explain their failure to follow expert advice in terms of self-control problems. For example, an obese person who fails to follow expert advice about choosing fruit rather than cake, could explain his choice in a range of different ways that do not involve a self-control problem. If he sees nothing wrong with his choices, he has no reason to want to be nudged by having the fruit placed in a more prominent position in the cafeteria relative to the cake (p 47).

However, if the obese person acknowledges that he has a self-control problem, research findings about the influence of placement of products on consumer purchases might help him to modify his behaviour. His trusted advisers might be able to suggest how he could nudge himself to make better choices. By coincidence, earlier today, I heard a news item indicating that there is a supermarket chain in Australia that refrains from placing confectionary near checkouts. That information could be relevant to a person with an acknowledged self-control problem, who was wanting to avoid impulse purchases of confectionary.

The fact that supermarkets often place confectionary near checkouts illustrates that choice architects may not always have paternalistic motives. It should not be assumed, however, that their motives are exploitive. Supermarkets want loyal customers, so it is not likely to be in their interests to have shoppers end up feeling that they have been manipulated to make unhealthy choices and/or to spend more money than they wanted to spend. It is possible that the placement of the confectionary helps give most shoppers good feelings about their shopping experience. The nudge that one person views as manipulative may be viewed by others as benign, or even as providing a helpful reminder.

As a rule, it is good to be aware how you are being nudged in the choices you make. It is necessary to be aware that you are being nudged, as the first step in making a conscious choice to accept or reject the suggestion involved. Behavioural economics can make a useful contribution in helping to make us aware of how nudges may affect the choices we make.

Sugden suggests that behavioural economists who discover possible mistakes in individual decision-making are in an analogous situation to epidemiologists who discover an apparent causal relationship between some activity and the prevalence of an illness. The epidemiological findings are made available to the public in various ways and begin to influence behaviour prior to any public policy intervention being contemplated (p 43). 

Similarly, happiness researchers who discover that average life satisfaction of various groups is affected by factors such as leisure, or commute times, are providing information that individuals may wish to consider in the choices they make.  Individuals are likely to be affected differently, but rarely so differently that information about others is irrelevant.

Sugden acknowledges that normative economics has almost always been directed toward public decision-makers rather than private individuals, but suggests that “since economists often characterize their discipline as the science of rational choice one might expect them to recognize the potential value of helping individuals to make better decisions in their private lives” (p 43). He notes that Philip Wicksteed, one of the founders of neoclassical economics, presented economics as a study of the “general laws of the administration of resources” and insisted that these laws apply “from end to end of life”. He gave practical advice on how to avoid common mistakes in decision-making. The passage quoted above reflects the role he saw for economists in helping people to make better choices.

Sugden’s view that there is a role for economists in helping individuals to make better choices seems somewhat at variance with the view of James Buchanan. In his article “What should economists do?”, published in 1964, Buchanan argued that the theory of choice should be removed from “its position of eminence in the economist’s thought processes”. He suggested that economists should concentrate their attention on human behaviour in market relationships and other voluntaristic exchange processes, and upon the various institutional arrangements that can arise as a result of this form of activity.

I maintain the view, as previously expressed, that Buchanan is correct in identifying the heartland of economics to be concerned with voluntaristic exchange processes, but that does not rule out the potential for economists to make useful contributions in helping individuals to make better personal choices. It is in the latter context that behavioural economics is most relevant to human flourishing.

What did Yeats mean by "Horseman, pass by"?

In one of the most popular articles on my blog I speculated about the meaning of the epitaph on W B Yeats tombstone:

“Cast a cold Eye

On Life, on Death

Horseman, pass by”.

The article was posted in October 2013 and has attracted many comments since then.

A few hours ago, Beth Prescott sent me a comment by email, which I am reproducing below, with her permission.

However, before reading Beth’s comment, it would be helpful for you to read an anonymous comment that she refers to:

“In ancient China, there is a phrase said "Human life is just like a white horse pass by a tiny crevice, it's only a blink of time." This phrase comes from the philosopher Zhuangzi's book, "Zhuangzi: Knowledge travel to the North". And the story in the book is that, when Confucius asking Laozi what is "Zhi Dao(至道,the basic reason of everything)", and Laozi answered with this phrase, and told Confucius that either life or death is inevitable and common in life, it is just a change of matter, there's no need to happy or mourn. But "Dao" is the only eternity through a man's spirit. If Yeats did take this story in his mind, then perhaps he agreed Laozi by writing these lines.
This is just my thought, and sorry for my grammar mistakes, I'm not an English speaker.”  

I think the ancient saying referred to by my correspondent can be sourced to Chuangtse. I found something very similar in The Wisdom of Laotse, and have reproduced it above.

Beth Prescott writes: 

"Horseman, pass by”

“I've been hearing this phrase in my head for several days - entirely without knowing where it came from or whom it came from. So, of course, I Googled it and quickly came upon your blog post about it from several years ago. I don't know Yeats well. I've always been intrigued and curious, but life has so far never permitted a long perusal of him and his life.

In fact, I am so distracted by current events I couldn't even make myself read the entire poem. Usually I can settle to a task better than this, but not now.

I did read through all the comments to your blog and was arrested by the anonymous comment from, presumably, a Chinese person. His (or her) use of English was very familiar to me, since I have worked with and for Chinese American researchers here at the University of Oregon.

It was the image he evoked of a white horse striding past a crevice in a rock and that that tiny crevice was the whole of a human life, even perhaps, the whole of human history. It reminded me of something an older brother told me 60+ years ago: ‘maybe the entire universe and all of its seeming eternity of time is really nothing more than the air in somebody's tire, and someday the tire may have a flat’. I think my brother added in that last bit.

This image has stuck with me all of my life: that we are necessarily constrained by our worldview and cannot easily - or at all - look outside of it. The idea that even our vast universe is really part of something else, something unknowable, something much vaster and more sweeping, something with a different purpose, possibly utterly different.

That what we think is important is, yes, important to us and we must live our lives as if these things are important. They are important. To us. Workmen must continue to work. Cradles must continue to be filled.

But we should also live our lives with the understanding that there is ‘something else going on’ and that the forces that gave rise to us and to our universe are probably beyond our understanding. Our entire universe, our entire history of life is perhaps no more than the instant in time it takes for a white horse to stride past a small crack in a wall.

If Yeats absorbed the philosophies of other cultures and times, as it appears that he did, then I think in this poem he was striving to arrive at a different perspective, a different view of himself, of his own place in the grand scheme of things, of his entire life.

I think he is saying in those final lines, that he realizes that all of the Sturm und Drang of his own life is in reality nothing more than a sliver of an insignificant moment in some much larger scheme. I think he is affirming that teaching of Lao Tze. That when he says ‘Horseman, pass by’ I think he is affirming - in a very positive way - this view of life.  He is even content with it. A quite remarkable final thing to say to the world."

Thanks Beth!

How can the traditional virtues help people to have the basic goods of a flourishing human?

After setting out a few days ago to write about the origins of the concept of progress, I was re-reading portion of The Enlightened Economy, by Joel Mokyr, when my attention was diverted to the relationship between goodness and happiness. In discussing the meaning of the Enlightenment, Mokyr mentions Roy Porter’s characterisation of it as a gradual switch from asking ‘how can I be good?’ to ‘how can I be happy?’.  Mokyr suggests that pithy summary “captures perhaps something essential” (p 33). (Porter’s discussion is in The Enlightenment in England, 1981.)

I agree both with Mokyr’s endorsement and his equivocation. Darrin McMahon, in his book Happiness: A History (2006) noted the role of St Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) in drawing renewed attention to the works of Aristotle and opening up a space in which some partial happiness can be achieved in this life.  Aquinas helped open the way for the subsequent attention given to betterment of material conditions of humanity by Enlightenment thinkers but, like Aristotle before him, he saw virtuous activity as providing the answer to human aspirations for both goodness and happiness. Many Enlightenment thinkers and, more recently, Neo Aristotelians, also see a strong link between virtuous activity and happiness.

The series of posts I have just completed about the basic goods of a flourishing human have obvious relevance to the question, ‘how can I be happy?’, but those posts don’t mention virtue explicitly. I could explain that in terms of the focus of those posts on societal institutions rather than personal development. However, my time could be better spent considering the role of virtue in helping individuals to attain the basic goods.

Ed Younkins comes to mind as a scholar who emphasises that human flourishing “comprises and requires a number of generic goods and virtues” whose proper application is unique to each person.

The role of the virtues in individual flourishing has been discussed at greater length by Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen in The Perfectionist Turn (2016). Those authors argue that the fundamental problem of ethics is taking responsibility for figuring out how to fashion one’s own life. Within the context of their template of responsibility, human flourishing is viewed as “the exercise of one’s own practical wisdom”. Integrity is the central virtue of that framework. The authors explain:

“Integrity expresses itself interpersonally in honor; 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”.

Integrity explains how the basic goods, as I have identified them, are linked together as an integrated whole when a human is flourishing. Integrity is necessary for exercise of the wise and well-informed self-direction that, in turn, helps individuals to live long and healthy lives, maintain positive relationships, manage their emotional health, and live in harmony with nature.

Neera Badhwar, in Wellbeing: Happiness in a Worthwhile Life" (2014), offers a somewhat different perspective to that of Den Uyl and Rasmussen, but she reaches similar conclusions.  The central propositions Badhwar advances are that the highest prudential good (HPG) consists of happiness in an objectively worthwhile life, and that a person who leads such a life must be characteristically autonomous and reality-orientated.  

Although Badhwar’s view of happiness focuses on positive emotions, thoughts and evaluations, she emphasizes that the HPG also requires an objectively worthwhile life. She explains that an objectively worthwhile life must be “worthwhile for creatures with our needs interests and capacities – including the capacity for asking what sort of life counts as worthwhile”. Her view of an objectively worthwhile life incorporates external goods, such as wealth, to the extent that such goods are compatible with the ability of a person to use them virtuously and happily. It must therefore also incorporate the basic goods I have identified: physical health, positive relationships and living in harmony with nature, as well as psychological well-being and wise and well-informed self-direction.

Badhwar argues that virtue is of primary importance because it ensures the attitudes and actions that are necessary for happiness in a worthwhile life. She suggests that the integration of emotional dispositions with the practical wisdom required by virtue, “makes virtue highly conducive to happiness, since a common source of unhappiness is conflict between our emotions and our evaluations” (p 152). In other words, we can make ourselves unhappy by allowing transient emotions to distract us from acting in accordance with our values.

That brings us back to the importance of integrity to individual flourishing.

How does integrity relate to the traditional virtues of western society as they are understood in the modern world?

In considering that question I have consulted Deirdre McCloskey’s book The Bourgeois Virtues (2007).

Integrity isn’t listed specifically among either the four ancient cardinal virtues - prudence, courage, temperance and justice – or the three Christian virtues – faith, hope and love. McCloskey lists integrity as a sub-virtue of faith and, by listing honesty as a sub-virtue of justice, implicitly recognizes its connection to justice. However, integrity may be required for a person to acquire any of the virtues in a manner that is likely to enable her (or him) to do the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way, and to take pleasure in so doing.

In order to explore that possibility, let us take a quick excursion to consider McCloskey’s perception of the virtues and what integrity involves in the context of each virtue.

Prudence (or practical wisdom):

McCloskey recognizes its importance, but is highly critical of the “prudence only” approach of schools of economic thought that have sought to equate individual flourishing with utility maximization.

In the context of practical wisdom, integrity implies reality-orientation, or a disposition to seek truth and understanding.

Courage:

McCloskey argues that courage needs to be balanced with temperance. She is somewhat critical of those who hold up the courage of ancient warriors as a relevant model for the modern world, but is also uneasy about the apparently lack of courage displayed by those in charge of a peace-keeping mission in Srebrenica in July 1995. She admires the courage of those who undertake new ventures and overcome fear of change.

Integrity helps people to act with the courage of their convictions.

Temperance:

McCloskey points out, for the benefit of confused psychologists, that it is temperance, not prudence, that is the virtue of controlling impulses. She notes that temperance is required to listen to customers and avoid temptations to cheat, as well as to save and accumulate wealth.

It is relatively easy for a person to decide to become more temperate in some contexts, but integrity is required to stay on course.

Justice:

McCloskey notes that just conduct involves, among other things, respect for property honestly acquired, paying willingly for good work and breaking down privilege.

Integrity is closely connected with justice, because both integrity and justice require individuals to be honourable and trustworthy in their dealings with others.

Faith:

McCloskey suggests that the relevance of faith is not confined to people who have religious beliefs. In support, she quotes Stephen Barr, a physicist, who suggests that when we ask questions about the real world, we have faith that those questions have answers. She also explains the connection between faithfulness and integrity, in the context of adhering to one’s commitments. She notes the Aristotelian tradition of ethics as a matter of habit and character, and Adam Smith’s account of the role of the impartial spectator, as a behaviourally instilled internal voice of conscience.  

It seems to me that integrity is also required as mature individuals exercise their personal responsibility to decide whether an annoying spectator, that was installed within as a default setting during their childhood, is consistent with their own values.

Hope:

McCloskey writes: “Hope is of course essential for eternal life, and for humdrum life, too, as one can see from the lethargy that comes over a human who, as we say, ‘has nothing to look forward to’.” Hope involves expectation as well as a wish for something good to happen.

Integrity helps steer us toward realistic optimism and away from the hazards of wishful thinking.

Love:

McCloskey is critical of major schools of thought within economics that have viewed love in the same way as other goods, by putting the beloved’s utility into the lover’s utility function, along with ice cream etc. She points out that this implies prudence only, and is contrary to the approach of Adam Smith, the founder of economics, who recognized that people seek a balanced set of virtues, including love. Smith wrote approvingly about benevolence and of “the great law of Christianity” requiring us “to love our neighbour as we love ourselves” Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759, 25 (5).

Integrity is required to ensure that love offerings are made with a pure heart and not subsequently confused with obligations for provision of reciprocal benefits.

Bottom line

Traditional virtues can help us to be both good and happy, but we require integrity if we are to do the right thing, at the right time, and for the right reasons.

What determines opportunities for humans to flourish?

A series of recent articles on this blog has shown that some societies offer better opportunities than others for individuals to have the basic goods of a flourishing human. My aim in this post is to draw threads together to provide an overview of the links between the basic goods and determinants of opportunities to have those goods.

First, I will recap how the basic goods were identified.

Criteria

As explained in the first article in the series, I have adopted the criteria for the basic goods of “the good life” used by Robert and Edward Skidelsky: 

• Universality: not specific to eras or cultures;
• Finality: not just serving as a means to a more basic good;
• Sui generis: not incorporated in some other good;
• Indispensability: lack of the good leads to loss or harm.

Those criteria were developed by Skidelsky and Skidelsky in their book How Much is Enough (2012). Those authors also presented a list of basic goods that I used as a starting point for thinking about the items that should be regarded as basic goods.

The basic goods that I think a flourishing human could be expected to have are:

1. The prospect of a long and healthy life.
2. Wise and well-informed self-direction.
3. Positive relationships with family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances and trading partners.
4. Psychological well-being: emotional stability, positive emotion, satisfaction with material living standards, engagement in doing things for their own sake and learning new things, perception of life as meaningful, a sense of accomplishment, optimism, resilience, vitality, integrity, and self-respect.
5. Living in harmony with nature.

I think my list is comprehensive and have given reasons why I think the items included on it are basic goods. Nevertheless, my perceptions of what it means to be a flourishing human are not incontrovertible.

Some items on this list could be grouped together. Longevity and psychological well-being are both aspects of health. Positive relations with other humans and living in harmony with nature are both aspects of relationships with other living things. However, I think the differences between the items concerned are large enough to warrant separate listing.

Links between the basic goods

The chart shown at the beginning of this post suggests that the basic goods are linked together as an integrated whole when a human is flourishing.

Wise and well-informed self-direction is of central importance. As discussed in the post on that topic, self-direction helps individuals to maintain other basic goods that are necessary to their pursuit of chosen goals.  The exercise of practical wisdom helps individuals to live long and healthy lives, maintain positive relationships, manage their emotional health, and live in harmony with nature.

Psychological well-being depends heavily on other basic goods. As noted in the post on psychological well-being, much of the international variation in life satisfaction scores can be explained by factors that are closely related to other basic goods that a flourishing human could be expected to have. 

The causal link between psychological well-being and self-direction runs in both directions. Sanity is necessary for wise self-direction.

The prospects for people to live long and healthy lives have always depended on living in harmony with nature. That is true even in the modern world. For example, the severity of damage resulting from bushfires recently experienced in Australia may be attributed to failure to have enough regard to living in harmony with nature. In addition to the immediate threat to life posed by the fires, may people have been adversely affected by smoke, which includes particulates that can be detrimental to long term health.

Determinants of opportunities to have the basic goods

Conclusions of the posts relating to each of the basic goods are outlined below.

• Wise and well-informed self-direction: Individuals have strong incentives to learn how to make wise and well-informed choices in societies where there is a great deal of economic and personal freedom. They are likely to have easier access to relevant information in countries with relatively high skill levels.
• The prospect of a long and healthy life: Health spending, income growth and education have contributed substantially to increased longevity. The more fundamental determinants are the cultural and institutional factors that have contributed to economic development, including economic freedom. Long healthy life expectancy is associated with high levels of economic and personal freedom.
• Positive relationships with other humans: The extent to which others can be trusted has an important impact on the opportunities for positive human relationships because it improves incentives for trade and other mutually beneficial activities. Trust levels tend to be higher in countries with relatively low crime rates and adherence to rule of law. Generalized trust, which gives greatest weight to trust of people who have just met and people from different religions and nationalities, tends to be greatest where people hold emancipative values, involving greater tolerance of diversity. Networks of individuals who can rely on each other for social support tend to be strongest in high-income countries.
• Psychological well-being: Countries with the highest average life satisfaction are characterised by relatively high income levels and life expectancy, accompanied by perceptions of strong social support, freedom and low corruption. The percentage of the population who are dissatisfied with life tends to be relatively low in such countries.
• Living in harmony with nature: The sense of kinship that people feel toward some animals living in the wild is similar to their feelings toward household pets. Human reasoning seems likely to continue to expand this sense of kinship to encompass more living things. Rising incomes make people more willing and able to afford more humane treatment of animals.

Common elements among determinants

The most pervasive common elements among the determinants of opportunities to have the basic goods are high incomes and high levels of economic and personal freedom.

The pervasiveness of high incomes as a determinant of opportunities for human flourishing points to the importance of economic growth. I have recently argued that it seems likely that for the foreseeable future the aggregate outcome of choices freely made by individuals as consumers and producers of goods and services will continue to involve further economic growth, even in high income countries.

However, it is possible that, over the longer term, increasing numbers of individuals will choose a lifestyle involving stable incomes and more leisure to one with rising incomes. Such an outcome would be consistent with ongoing growth of opportunities for individuals to live the lives that they aspire to have.

Once we recognize that economic growth is only one possible outcome of personal choices in the context of expanding production and consumption possibilities, that opens the way for us to focus on the determinants of productivity growth, rather than GDP growth outcomes. The cultural and institutional factors that have led to economic growth in the past have potential to continue to raise productivity levels, and thus enable opportunities for human flourishing to continue to expand, even if aggregate demand for goods and services does not continue to grow.

Cultural and institutional factors that support individual self-direction and opportunities for mutually beneficial exchange and cooperation are important not only in enabling people to make effective use of known technology, but also in bringing about improvements in skills, innovation, technological progress and advance of knowledge that enable productivity growth to occur.

Important institutions supporting the ongoing growth of productivity include liberty and rule of law. Individuals need liberty in order to exercise self-direction, and they need trustworthy trading partners and collaborators to engage with for mutual benefit. The perception that others can be trusted is enhanced by widespread adherence to rule of law. Culture is directly important in supporting the advance of knowledge, respect for innovators, and tolerance of diversity. Culture also underpins the values supporting liberty and the rule of law.

 Conclusions

Wise and well-informed self-direction is of central importance among the basic goods of a flourishing human because it helps individuals to maintain the other basic goods. The exercise of practical wisdom helps individuals to live long and healthy lives, maintain positive relationships, manage their emotional health, and to live in harmony with nature.

At a societal level, liberty and rule of law are among the most important determinants of opportunities for individuals to have the basic goods of a flourishing human. That poses the question of why there is greater liberty and adherence to rule of law in some societies than in others.  In order to understand the determinants of opportunities for human flourishing we need to understand the evolution of cultures supporting liberty and the rule of law.

What determines the opportunities for individuals to develop a capacity for self-direction?

A capacity for wise and well-informed self-direction was identified in a recent post on this blog as one of five basic goods that a flourishing human could be expected to have. A flourishing human could be expected to have developed that capability because it is integral to the process of human flourishing. The nature of humans is such that as individuals mature, they have a unique potential to direct their own flourishing in accordance with values they endorse and goals they choose.

Wise and well-informed self-direction helps individuals to maintain other basic goods of human flourishing that are necessary to their pursuit of chosen goals.  The exercise of practical wisdom helps individuals to live long and healthy lives, maintain positive relationships, manage their emotional health, and live in harmony with nature.

How do individuals develop a capacity for wise and well-informed self-direction? It is possible to teach people about the virtue of practical wisdom, but it doubtful whether anyone has ever learned to exercise much practical wisdom without having responsibility to make choices in the real world. Individuals have the strongest incentive to learn how to make wise and well-informed choices in an environment that provides both great scope for freedom of choice and an obligation to accept responsibility for the consequences of the choices they make.

However, the opportunities for individuals to be well-informed also vary among countries depending on the knowledge that is readily available to them. Some of that knowledge is obtained through formal education, some is obtained on-the-job and some is absorbed through less formal interactions with family and friends. Individuals could be expected to have better opportunities to make well-informed choices if they live in countries where workforce skill levels are relatively high. That increases the chances that individuals will have easy access to relevant information for the important decisions they must make.

In what follows I consider how individual opportunities vary among countries, first in respect of freedom to choose, and then skill levels.

Freedom to choose

The accompany graph shows scores for perceived freedom and the Human Freedom Index for 126 countries for which matching data are available. Perceived freedom is the national average of positive responses to the Gallup World Poll (GWP) question: “Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your freedom to choose what you do with your life?” The Human Freedom Index (HFI), developed by the Fraser Institute, incorporates 79 indicators of personal, civil and economic freedom to provide an objective measure of the state of freedom in each of the countries covered.

The graph shows that the countries ranked most highly using the HFI are also ranked highly in terms of perceived freedom. (Matching perceived freedom data is not available for Hong Kong, which was still one of the most highly ranked countries in the most recent HFI.) Switzerland, New Zealand, Ireland, Australia, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, U.K. and Canada are presented as relatively free according to both indicators. However, perceived freedom also appears relatively high in some countries that more objective measures suggest are relatively unfree e.g. China. This may be a consequence of the binary nature of the GWP question. It would be more difficult for a survey respondent living under an authoritarian regime to tell a questioner that they are unsatisfied with their freedom to choose, than to give a moderately low score if asked to rate how much freedom they enjoy on a numerical scale. China’s score was close to the average in the 2010-14 World Values Survey (WVS) which asked respondents to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 “how much freedom of choice and control you feel you have over the way your life turns out”.

If you want a reliable indication of differences in human freedom among different countries it makes sense to use objective indicators, where possible. However, perceptions can sometimes provide useful information. For example, if women and men have different perceptions about the amount of freedom in their lives, that might reflect a gender equality issue. In fact, WVS data indicate that in most countries women and men have similar perceptions of the amount of freedom of choice in their lives. The few jurisdictions in which women rate the amount of freedom in their lives substantially lower than do men include Pakistan, Palestine and India.

Skill levels

The indicator of skill levels constructed for the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) provides an appropriate basis for international comparisons of the knowledge that people are likely to be able to access readily in making important decisions. The GCI skills indicator incorporates perceptions of participants in a survey of executives coving questions relating to staff training, skillsets of graduates, digital skills of the population, ease of finding skilled employees and critical thinking in teaching, as well as education statistics such as years of schooling.

The top 10 ranked countries in terms of skill levels (for a data set of 118 countries) were Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Sweden, U.S., N.Z. and U.K. If that list looks familiar it might be because it overlaps strongly with the list provided earlier of the countries ranked most highly in the Human Freedom Index. A simple regression shows a strong association between skills and human freedom (R2 = 0.50).

It seems unlikely that much of that association can be explained by direct causal links between freedom and skill acquisition. The most likely causal linkage is via the link between economic freedom and economic development. Economic development increases the demand for skilled labour.

Conclusion

Individuals have strong incentives to learn how to make wise and well-informed choices in countries where there is a great deal of economic and personal freedom. They are likely to have easier access to relevant information in countries with relatively high skill levels.

There is a strong overlap between the countries ranked most highly in the Human Freedom Index and the skill levels indicator of the Global Competitiveness Index. Both measures rank Switzerland, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands and U.K. among the top 10 countries. 

Can any of the positive rights listed in the UDHR be considered natural rights?

A statement made last year by Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, marking the 70^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) prompted me to take another look at it  In her statement, Ms Bachelet suggested that the UDHR has “withstood the tests of the passing years” and “has passed from being an aspirational treatise into a set of standards that has permeated virtually every area of international law”.

The UDHR is not a document that I look at often. My reason for largely neglecting the document has been the perception that it is aspirational, and involves a large element of wishful thinking. Ms Bachelet’s suggestion to the contrary reminded that Friedrich Hayek had asserted that by proclaiming social and economic aspirations to be rights, the UDHR was playing “an irresponsible game with the concept of ‘right’ which could result only in destroying the respect for it” (Law, Legislation and Liberty, p 105).

After re-reading the UDHR, there are a couple of points I would like to make about it.

First, Hayek was right!

Hayek’s warning about the confusion of the concept of right in the UDHR was appropriate. For example, consider Article 15:

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

Article 15 seems to tell everyone that the world owes them a living. But who will pay? Nature has different imperatives. Human flourishing depends on what people can do individually and collectively to help themselves and each other. Governments may help by defending the natural rights that enable people to better their own condition and help others. Although they often promise to ensure that everyone has an adequate standard of living, governments can’t themselves generate the wealth needed to keep such promises.

Governments can redistribute wealth, but their redistribution efforts tend to discourage wealth creation. What happens when redistribution is pushed too far is obvious from the recent experience of Venezuela. The policies followed by the Venezuelan government were presumably intended to contribute to the human flourishing aspirations underlying Article 15, but they have had the opposite effect of impoverishing many people in that country. The incoming Venezuelan representative on the UN human rights council would do us all a favour if he or she could acknowledge the consequences of the Venezuelan government’s efforts to comply with Article 15.

The UDHR would have provided a more coherent defence of human rights if its framers had given more attention to the insights of Frédéric Bastiat about natural rights and the role of law. In The Law, published in 1850, Bastiat makes the point that everyone has a natural right to defend their person, their liberty and their property, and asserts that the law should be viewed as “the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense”:

“When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only to abstain from harming others. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property. They safeguard all of these. They are defensive; they defend equally the rights of all”.

Second, some of the positive rights in the UDHR are worth supporting.

I am referring to various legal rights relating to natural justice, or procedural fairness, and the right of political participation in Article 21:

“Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives”.

People who live in liberal democracies tend to take that right that for granted, and many are even disillusioned about it, but it is a right that people seek persistently when it is denied to them. Tyrants understand that well; although they often claim to be adored by citizens, they are rarely willing to allow their popularity to be fairly tested in fair elections. The recent protests in Hong Kong show that the right to political participation is keenly sought even when people live under a regime that, for the time being, provides individuals with greater economic freedom than is enjoyed in most liberal democracies.

Friedrich Hayek argued in favour of recognition of such political rights in the following terms:

“Since we are all made to support the organization of government, we have by the principles determining that organization certain rights which are commonly called political rights. The existence of the compulsory organization of government and its rules of organization does create a claim in justice to shares in the services of government, and may even justify a claim for an equal share in determining what government shall do” (LLL, p 102).

Is political participation a natural right?

It seems to me that the right to political participation should be viewed as a natural right for much the same reasons as I have argued that humans have a natural right to exercise the self-direction that is central to their flourishing. It is part of human nature to seek mutual benefit by participating actively with others in decisions relating to provision of collective goods because provision of such goods is, and has always been, necessary to human flourishing. As Aristotle said, “man is by nature a political animal”.

The context in which Aristotle made that observation is worth quoting because what he described seems to an essentially voluntary process of people coming together for mutual benefit:

“When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.

Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal” (Politics, Book 1, Part 2).

The political participation of a citizen in a liberal democracy, which usually doesn’t involve much more than voting, has little in common with the participation of citizens in the functioning of the city states that Aristotle wrote about. Perhaps that helps to explain the disillusionment that many currently feel about the exercise of their democratic rights. Responses to surveys suggest that many people want more involvement in decisions that affect them.

Many people are also unhappy about the outcomes of democratic political processes. In my view that unhappiness stems to an important extent from inflated expectations generated by UDHR and other authorities which assert that people have the right to expect politicians to deliver them a standard of living they consider to be adequate. Another important source of disillusionment is the ‘plunder’ that Frédéric Bastiat foresaw as a likely outcome of the universal franchise. Bastiat was referring to the use of the power of the state by some to seize and consume the products of the labour of others. These days economists refer to that as rent seeking and usually consider it to be a major obstacle to productivity growth.

It seems likely in the decades ahead, that low productivity growth will reduce the rate of growth in government revenues in many democratic countries, at the same time as an increase in the proportion of elderly people places increased political demands on governments. Consequently, governments are likely to be forced to reduce their involvement in provision of services that can be supplied either privately, or via voluntary cooperative activity.

Fortunately, as I have previously discussed, technology is developing in ways that are likely to enhance our opportunities to seek mutual benefit in cooperative enterprises.

Conclusions

The right to political participation should be viewed as a natural right which evolved because human flourishing required individuals to participate actively with others in decisions relating to provision of collective goods. Such involvement is less active in modern societies in which many collective goods are provided by remote government agencies.

The positive right to political participation is nevertheless an important right recognised in the UDHR. It differs from social and economic aspirations - that are also claimed to be rights in the UDHR - because it is a right that governments can comply with. The exercise of voting rights provides citizens with some protection against tyranny.

The disillusionment that many people in the liberal democracies feel about the exercise of their democratic rights seems likely to increase as low productivity growth reduces government revenues and demographic change increases political demands on governments. Technological advances that enhance opportunities to seek mutual benefit in cooperative enterprises offer hope that people will in future be able to exercise their natural political rights in ways that give them more involvement in decisions that affect them.

How does liberty promote peacefulness?

People who understand that self-direction is essential to their own flourishing have no difficulty grasping how liberty has potential to promote peacefulness. Such people usually advocate the non-aggression principle, which requires them to refrain from initiating or threatening any forceful interference with other individuals or their property. They are likely to see that principle as an application of the Golden Rule of treating others as you wish to be treated, the Kantian imperative, the ancient virtues of justice, temperance and loving-kindness, a matter of honor and integrity, the ethics of respect, norms of reciprocity, or some combination of the above.

The extent of adherence to the non-aggression principle is a determinant of both liberty and the peacefulness of a society.  A society in which 100% of the population adhered to the principle would be entirely peaceful. A democracy in which 90% of the population adhered to the principle could be expected to be more peaceful than one in which a lower percentage of the population did so, other things being equal.

The proviso is important. One “other thing” that also has an important influence on the peacefulness of outcomes is the way perceived aggressions are dealt with. In particular, outcomes in countries where do-it-yourself (DIY) justice is the norm are likely to be less peaceful than those in countries governed by rule of law. The problem with DIY justice is that it is often perceived to be biased, and hence results in family feuds and further retribution.

John Locke recognised DIY justice as a flaw in his vision of humans being “perfectly free …  subject only to limits set by the law of nature”. He noted that it would be seen to be “unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases” because:

 “self love will make men partial to themselves and their friends; and on the other side, that ill-nature, passion, and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others; and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow: and that therefore God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of men” (Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 2).

In writing that, John Locke was possibly mindful of the historical experience of DIY justice in England and Europe.  

Historical explanations of the growth of peacefulness

In attempting to explain the long-term decline in homicide rates in Europe, shown in the accompanying graph, Steven Pinker follows the reasoning of Norbert Elias who suggested that the advent of centralised monarchies, replacing a patchwork of baronies and fiefs, played an important role in encouraging people to display greater self-control (a modern word with a similar meaning to the ancient virtue of temperance). In England, King Henry I, who reigned in the early 12^th century, redefined homicide as an offence against the state rather than as a tort. That changed the rules of the game. As Pinker puts it:

“A man’s ticket to fortune was no longer being the baddest knight in the area but making a pilgrimage to the king’s court and currying favour with him and his entourage” (The Better Angels of Our Nature, 2011, p 75).

The advent of centralised monarchies also improved incentives for mutually beneficial trade by penalising plunder. When people are engaged in mutually beneficial trading, they have an added incentive to refrain from murdering their trading partners. Given appropriate incentives, the ancient virtue of prudence helped people to exercise the Christian virtue of loving their neighbours rather than murdering them.

In case anyone is wondering, the thought in the preceding sentence wasn’t borrowed from Steven Pinker. Pinker doesn’t claim that the Christian virtues played a positive role in the civilisation process. He suggests, with some justification, that in the middle ages Christianity was more concerned with saving souls than with the sacredness of life. Nevertheless, at a couple of points in The Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker acknowledges the importance of the various versions Golden Rule that have been discovered by the world’s major religions.

If you are sceptical about the ability of an autocratic monarchy, a Leviathan, to play a positive role in defending rights and promoting peace, it may help to think of the advantages of stationary bandits replacing roving bandits, as suggested by Mancur Olson. Even if the motives of a stationary bandit are entirely selfish it can still be in his interests to enter into a mutually beneficial partnership with his subjects. In exchange for taxes he may use his power to give them the incentive to attempt to accumulate wealth, for example by recognising property rights and enforcing contracts. There is further explanation here.

In historical terms, monarchies that were prepared to use their coercive powers to defend the rights of citizens were a step in the direction of rule of law – a set of institutions protecting individual rights and ensuring that no-one is above the law.

Steven Pinker notes that a humanitarian revolution occurred in the 17^th and 18^th centuries resulting in a reduction in barbarity of punishments, a greater willingness to allow heretics to go to hell rather than to persecute them to save their souls, and a reduction in the power of kings. Pinker attributes this revolution to enlightenment humanism. I have previously argued that Pinker is broadly correct to present this as a coherent world view in terms of its impact on public opinion, despite the disparate views of leading thinkers.

Other factors which Pinker sees as contributing to the peacefulness of societies include: growth in the power of women; an expansion in the circle of sympathy to encompass people in other communities and other countries; and ‘the escalator of reason’, which involves detaching oneself from a parochial viewpoint. I have discussed those processes previously, so I will not dwell on them here. It is worth noting, however, that the circle of sympathy and escalator of reason also promote freedom via greater recognition of human rights and enabling widespread adoption of emancipative values.

So, has the greater liberty of the western democracies made them uniquely peaceful?

The answer isn’t obvious. Homicide statistics suggest that some countries with autocratic governments are also relatively peaceful. It seems likely, however, that may reflect suppression of violence rather than genuine peacefulness. That view is supported by the explosion of violence that occurred in eastern Europe following the collapse of communism in eastern Europe.

Research by Tapio Lappi-Seppälä and Martti Lehti, using an extensive international data base, suggests that the level of lethal violence is heavily dependent on the rule of law, the extent of corruption, the level of democracy, and social and economic equality. High crime societies are characterised by stronger authoritarian and conservative moral views, more collectivist cultures, and short-term cultural orientations (‘Cross-Comparative Perspectives on Global Homicide Trends’,  Crime and Justice 43(1): 2014).

The relationship between rule of law and homicide rate, as depicted in the graph at the beginning of this post (borrowed from the article by Tapio Lappi-Seppälä and Martti Lehti) is particularly pertinent to the question of how liberty promotes peacefulness. The rule of law index used (the World Bank’s index constructed by Daniel Kauffman, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi) captures “perceptions of the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence”. I have previously noted that the index covers similar ground to the legal component of an economic freedom index.

Conclusion

Liberty promotes peacefulness because it requires people to refrain from initiating or threatening any forceful interference with other individuals or their property. The rule of law that protects liberty also promotes peacefulness by enabling societies to avoid the violence associated with do-it-yourself justice.