Just as sunshine, water and nutrients are necessary for
plants to flourish, so too are external factors necessary for human
flourishing. Aristotle was criticized by some other ancient Greek philosophers
for holding that view, but it is hard to see how it could be contentious if human
flourishing is viewed as the
exercise of practical wisdom to pursue goals that each individual values in the circumstances in which they find themselves. The
extent that we flourish - the quality of our lives - is not entirely divorced from the outcomes of our efforts to obtain the goods we value.
As in the preceding post, which focused on the internal
(personal development) aspects of human flourishing, the quotes I have selected
below have been chosen on the basis that they support what I hope is a coherent
set of propositions about external factors affecting individual human
flourishing.
1. Human nature is probably shaped by multi-level evolutionary processes.
“Natural selection works at multiple levels simultaneously,
sometimes including groups of organisms. I can’t say for sure that human nature
was shaped by group selection – there are scientists whose views I respect on
both sides of the debate. But as a psychologist studying morality, I can say
that multilevel selection would go a long way toward explaining why people are
simultaneously so selfish and so groupish.”
Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous
Mind, 2012, p 218.
2. There
seems to be broad agreement about virtues among almost all religious and
philosophic traditions.
“Led by Katherine Dahlsgaad, we read Aristotle and Plato,
Aquinas and Augustine, … Buddha, La-Tze, … the Koran, Benjamin Franklin … some
two hundred virtue catalogues in all. To our surprise, almost every single one
of the these traditions flung across three thousand years and the entire face
of the earth endorsed six virtues: … wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance,
and transcendence.” Martin Seligman, Authentic
Happiness, 2002, p 132-3.
3. Our social
interactions encourage us to judge our own conduct as impartial spectators.
“Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally
recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than
any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so. … If he would act
so as that the impartial spectator may enter into the principles of his
conduct, which is what of all things he has the greatest desire to do, he must
… humble the arrogance of his self-love, and bring it down to something that
other men can go along with. … In the race for wealth, and honours, and
preferments, he may run as hard as he can … in order to outstrip his
competitors. But if he should jostle, or throw down any of them, the indulgence
of the spectators is entirely at an end. It is a violation of fair play that
they cannot admit of.” Adam Smith, The
Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759/1984, II.ii.2.1.
4. Freedom
was made possible by the evolution of abstract rules of conduct which enabled
mutually beneficial transactions among strangers.
“Man has not developed
in freedom. The member of the little band to which he had to stick in order
to survive was anything but free. Freedom
is an artefact of civilization that released man from the trammels of the
small group, the momentary moods of which even the leader had to obey. Freedom
was made possible by the gradual evolution of the discipline of civilization which is at the same time the discipline
of freedom. We owe our freedom to restraints of freedom. ‘For, Locke wrote,
‘who could be free when every other man’s humour might domineer over him?’ …
The great change which produced an order of society … for
the preservation of which he had to submit to learnt rules which were often
contrary to innate instincts, was the transition from the face-to-face society,
or at least of groups consisting of known and recognizable members, to the open
abstract society that was no longer held together by common ends but only by
the same abstract rules.” Friedrich Hayek, Law,
Legislation and Liberty, 1982, VIII, p 163-4.
5. The concept of natural law was important in
opening the way to recognition of the right to liberty.
“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which
obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will
but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm
another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions … (and) when his own
preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve
the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender,
take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life,
the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.” John Locke, The Two Treatises of Civil Government, 1689,
II, 6.
6. The
“progress of society toward real wealth and greatness” is hindered by
restrictions on natural liberty.
“All systems either of preference or of restraint … being
thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes
itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of
justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest in his own way, and
to bring forth both his industry and capital into competition with those of any
other man, or order of men.” Adam Smith, Wealth
of Nations, 1776, IV.ix,50,51.
7. The
economic betterment that has vastly improved the lives of an increasing
proportion of the world’s population over the last 300 years can be attributed
to the ‘bourgeois deal’.
“Then after 1798 … life in quite a few places got better.
Slowly, and then quickly, and by now with unstoppable, ramifying worldwide
force, it got much better. Material life got better not merely for Europeans or
imperial powers or Mr Moneybags, but for ordinary people from Brooklyn to
Beijing.
The betterment stands in human history as Great Enrichment,
the most important secular event since we first domesticated squash and
chickens and wheat and horses. …
The real engine was the expanding ideology of liberty and
dignity that inspired the proliferating schemes of betterment by and for the
common people. Liberty and dignity for ordinary projectors yielded the
Bourgeois Deal: ‘You accord to me, a bourgeois projector, the liberty and
dignity to try out my schemes in voluntary trade, and let me keep the profits,
if I get any, in the first act – though I accept, reluctantly, that others will
compete with me in the second act. In exchange, in the third act of a new, positive
sum drama, the bourgeois betterment provided by me (and by those pesky, low
quality, price-spoiling competitors) will make you all rich.’ And it did.” Deirdre McCloskey, Bourgeois Equality, 2016, p 21.
8.. Economic betterment has been associated with
the emergence of emancipative values, and social movements to promote civic
entitlements.
“Most people in … [technologically advanced] societies have
a high living standard, are well educated, and can easily connect to
like-minded others, irrespective of locality. In these situations, and in many
societies approaching these conditions, people recognize the use of universal
freedoms and value them accordingly: emancipative values emerge. Inspired by
emancipative values, people take action on behalf of freedoms. This is evident
in all kinds of social movement activity, the most vigorous of which voice
emancipative goals: people-power movements, equal opportunity movements, civil
rights movements, women’s rights movements, gay rights movements, children’s
rights movements, and so forth. … This is a virtuous circle that describes
thriving societies.” Christian Welzel, Freedom
Rising, 2013, Loc 9324.
9. Classical
liberalism is not an all-embracing ethic.
“As liberals, we take freedom of the individual, or perhaps
the family, as our ultimate goal in judging social arrangements. Freedom as a
value in this sense has to do with the interrelationships among people; it has
no meaning whatsoever to a Robinson Crusoe on an isolated island (without his
Man Friday). … Similarly, in a society freedom has nothing to say about what an
individual does with his freedom; it is not an all-embracing ethic. Indeed, a
major aim of the liberal is to leave the ethical problem for the individual to
wrestle with.” Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 1962, p 12.
10. Individual
rights answer the question of how it can be possible for the
flourishing of individual humans to be self-directed without conflicting.
“Individual rights are an ethical concept different from
those concepts generally found in normative ethics. They are not needed in
order to know the nature of human flourishing or virtue, or our obligations to
others, or even the requirements of justice. … Rather, individual rights are
needed to solve a problem that is uniquely social, political and legal. … How
do we allow for the possibility that individuals might flourish in different
ways … without creating inherent moral conflict in … the structure that is
provided by the political/legal order? How do we find a political/legal order
that will in principle not require that the human flourishing of any person or
group be given structural preference over others? How do we protect the
possibility that each may flourish while at the same time provide principles
that regulate the conduct of all?”
Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl, Norms of Liberty, 2005, p 78.
11. The
liberal order can only succeed if sufficient people want to be free to make
their own choices, and are prepared to enter into relationships with others on
the basis of fair dealing, reciprocity and mutual respect.
“I have suggested that the liberal order that embodies
political democracy and a market economy must be grounded in two normative
presuppositions: first, that all persons are capable of making their own
choices and that they prefer to be autonomous and, second, that most if not
all, persons enter into relationships with others on a basis of fair dealing,
reciprocity and mutual respect. I have also suggested that, from certain
perspectives, observed reality in politics and economics may not seem to square
with those presuppositions. My argument is that, nonetheless, and regardless of
what may be observed, we must, within limits of course, proceed as if the
presuppositions are satisfied. …
Properly designed institutional-constitutional safeguards
against deviations from the norms can be effective … only in settings where the
share of participants who might behave in violation of the norms of autonomy
and reciprocity remain relatively small. Generalized or widespread failure of
persons to adhere to these norms, along with widespread recognition that others
also disregard the standards, will ensure that the liberal order itself must
fail, quite independently from any institutional safeguards.” James Buchanan, Why I, Too Am Not a Conservative, 2005, pp
26, 28.
