Perspectives on Morality and Human Well-Being. Syed Nawab Haider Naqvi

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CHAPTER 1

       An Overview

I. Introduction

The analysis presented in this book offers three perspectives – i.e., the ‘secular-normative’, the Judaeo-Christian and the Islamic – on the likely impact of morality on individual behaviour and human well-being. These views are in some respects similar and complementary and in other respects contrasting and competitive. However, the points of similarity between them are no less important than their differences. It may be useful to recount them briefly. (a) Moral values held by individuals in society do make a significant difference to their social, political and economic behaviour, and that without them individuals will live precariously, anxiously and vulnerably. (b) It is not at all irrational for individuals to act morally and with regard to the concern of others rather than be utterly self-centred, selfish and insensitive to the collective good. (c) Human well-being is enhanced neither by maximising social welfare in the neo-classical sense of achieving a Pareto-optimal state nor by maximising the sum-total of individual ‘utilities’. (d) To elicit the individual’s commitment to collective good, it should be possible to evaluate the moral credentials of a society in terms of some noncontroversial, fair, and visible principles of social justice – i.e., an equality of economic, political, and social conditions between members of society, the priority of the needs of the least-privileged in society, and equal capabilities of individuals to convert monetary gains into their happiness and well-being. But beyond these points of similarity, the three perspectives differ, even clash. Thus, the secular analysis would not agree that moral behaviour becomes necessarily more compelling when guided by an internalised sense of obligation which only religion induces in individuals, that human well-being flows both from material and spiritual well-springs, and that material advancements can be consolidated on the foundations of religious spirituality. Furthermore, it would caution against an overemphasis by religious ethical thought on the sufficiency of moral behaviour to generate enough resources for poverty alleviation. The reason is that moral hazard, assurance and coordination problems prevent voluntary, altruistic individual behaviour from making a wholesome contribution to his/her well-being. Also, secular moral theories systematically maintain that individual morality (a sense of good and bad) is autonomously determined, independently of religious beliefs; while religious morality would insist that a deepening of the human perception of good and bad has been an integral part of the strengthening of his/her religious consciousness. It is contended in this book that, historically, religious thought has been strengthened, rather than weakened, by the process of secularisation;¹ and that secular morality need not be antithetical to religious moral thinking. What can bring both the ethical systems together is an uncompromising insistence on rational thought, which steers clear of doctrinaire rigidity. To be useful, both should focus on the vital problems of human existence – especially, growth, distributional justice and poverty.

      The brief analysis that follows recaptures the highlights of the above-mentioned perspectives on morality and human well-being, which are discussed at length in the ensuing chapters.

II. Ethics and Economics

      An economic calculus suffused with some solid ethical concerns should be an attractive alternative to unrepentant self-interest maximisation because “the morality of economic agents influences their behaviour and hence influences economic outcomes” [Hausman and McPherson (1993); p. 673]. Before proceeding further, it would be useful to answer the following question: why has mainstream (neo-classical) economics been so uncompromisingly insistent on keeping economics and ethics separate, indeed divorced, even at the cost of significantly blinkering the economist’s moral vision of the economic universe?

      i) The Separation of Economics from Ethics?

      Lionel Robbins (1935) pronounced, without remorse, that economics and ethics are irreconcilably divorced because: “it does not seem logically possible to associate the two studies [economics and ethics] in any form but mere juxtaposition” (p. 148). In particular, economists need not entertain considerations of social justice or be concerned for the poor for the simple reason that doing so would be irrational! Instead, the self-interest principle is advertised as the only one that is “rational”. This somewhat counter-intuitive result flows from the efficiency-oriented Pareto-optimality principle – which depicts a situation in which the utility (welfare) of everyone cannot be increased without reducing the utility (welfare) of someone else. The two celebrated fundamental theorems of welfare economics prove that, given some stringent conditions, Pareto-optimality and competitive equilibrium imply each other. Whence follows that the competitive solutions – i.e., those produced by unfettered markets – are “unimprovable”. In other words, state intervention is redundant because it cannot improve upon market solutions. Indeed, it is positively harmful because it imposes an avoidable “excess cost” on the economy. No moral problem arises because neo-classical economics does not recognise any conflict between members of a society; and in its ‘eyes’ the equal and unequal outcomes are equally preferable. Hence, the Pareto-optimality principle is distributionally neutral. It further decrees that the rich could have everything as long as improving the conditions of the poor does not require cutting into their pleasures; and that the market solutions СКАЧАТЬ