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Ethical Economy. Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy
Relational
Anthropology for
Contemporary
Economics
Jermo van Nes
Patrick Nullens
Steven C. van den Heuvel Editors
A Multidisciplinary Approach
Ethical Economy
Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy
Volume 61
Series Editors
AlexanderBrink,Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik,University of Bayreuth,
Bayreuth,Bayern,Germany
JacobDahlRendtorff,Department of Social Sciences and Business,Roskilde
University,Roskilde,Denmark
Ethical Economy describes the theory of the ethical preconditions of the economy
and of business as well as the theory of the ethical foundations of economic systems.
It analyzes the impact of rules, virtues, and goods or values on economic action and
management. Ethical Economy understands ethics as a means to increase trust and
to reduce transaction costs. It forms a foundational theory for business ethics and
business culture. The Series Ethical Economy. Studies in Economic Ethics and
Philosophy is devoted to the investigation of interdisciplinary issues concerning
economics, management, ethics, and philosophy. These issues fall in the categories
of economic ethics, business ethics, management theory, economic culture, and
economic philosophy, the latter including the epistemology and ontology of
economics. Economic culture comprises cultural and hermeneutic studies of the
economy. One goal of the series is to extend the discussion of the philosophical,
ethical, and cultural foundations of economics and economic systems. The series is
intended to serve as an international forum for scholarly publications, such as
monographs, conference proceedings, and collections of essays. Primary emphasis
is placed on originality, clarity, and interdisciplinary synthesis of elements from
economics, management theory, ethics, and philosophy.
The book series has been accepted into SCOPUS (March 2019) and will be
visible on the Scopus website within a few months.
More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/2881
Jermo vanNes • Patrick Nullens
Steven C. vandenHeuvel
Editors
Relational Anthropology for
Contemporary Economics
A Multidisciplinary Approach
ISSN 2211-2707 ISSN 2211-2723 (electronic)
Ethical Economy
ISBN 978-3-030-84689-3 ISBN 978-3-030-84690-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84690-9
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2022
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Editors
Jermo vanNes
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit
Leuven, Belgium
Steven C. vandenHeuvel
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit
Leuven, Belgium
Patrick Nullens
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit
Leuven, Belgium
University for Humanistic Studies
Utrecht, The Netherlands
. This book is an open access publication.
The research for this book was funded by the Goldschmeding Foundation, who supported
both the projects “Hope as an Incentive” and “Homo Amans: A Relational Anthropology for
Work and Economics”.
v
Foreword
Homo economicus is a character. He is said to act in accordance with his own inter-
ests and aim for personal wealth and well-being. Homo amans is said to act on dif-
ferent instincts and motivations, such as love, hope, care, and sympathy. One only
has to look at some of the problems facing our present global society to see that
change is needed. This book provides a remarkably interesting and intelligent
exploration into the world of Homo amans. Is Homo amans a potential alternative
to Homo economicus, the authors of this volume ask? In light of today’s economic,
social, and environmental challenges the question is important to raise but, as the
book shows, difcult to answer. Isn’t it the case, Wildman asks in this book, that
“any large culture plays host to a great variety of mutually inconsistent anthropo-
logical visions”? One can even take this question one step further and ask whether
Homo economicus and Homo amans aren’t interdependent and need each other on
the path towards a more humane and dignied life for all? Why don’t we start this
exploration with something that is laudable in the context of a humane society:
respect for human rights– and, specically, access to healthcare as a human right.
Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads as follows:
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.1
The right indicates that all humans should be able to live without having to worry
about the basic requirements for a free, humane, and dignied life related to physi-
cal, mental, and social health. Having a right to primary goods and services related
to our health and well-being is only the rst condition for ensuring that humans are
able to access and enjoy the benets of these goods and services. The second condi-
tion is that these goods and services are actually available and accessible. As
signatories to the declaration, governments have a responsibility to provide their
citizens and other inhabitants of their countries with what is necessary to live a life
1 https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
vi
in dignity– sufcient medical care, food, shelter, and other goods. With the limited
resources that they often have, they rely partially on the commitment and support of
business and civil society to respect and promote the implementation of human
rights. This sharing of responsibility is already implicated in the preamble of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights that calls on “every individual and every
organ of society” to promote and respect human rights. International law scholar
Louis Henkin noted in 1999 that “every individual and every organ of society
excludes no one, no company, no market, no cyberspace. The Universal Declaration
applies to them all.”2 In many ofcial documents relating to the principles and prac-
tice of business, including but not limited to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational
Enterprises or the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the focus
is mainly on respecting Human Rights. It will not be difcult to argue that it is in the
interest of the company to do so.
Increasingly, however, a plea is made for a more active role for business in pro-
moting human rights and a dignied life for all. A recent example is the UN General
Assembly Resolution A/RES/70/1, adopting “Transforming our world: the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development,” which outlines the Sustainable Development
Goals.3 In its introduction, the declaration calls for an inclusive approach to imple-
menting the agenda:
It is “we the peoples” who are embarking today on the road to 2030. Our journey will
involve Governments as well as parliaments, the United Nations system and other interna-
tional institutions, local authorities, indigenous peoples, civil society, business and the pri-
vate sector, the scientic and academic community– and all people. Millions have already
engaged with, and will own, this Agenda. It is an Agenda of the people, by the people and
for the people– and this, we believe, will ensure its success.
Already in the preceding Addis Ababa Action Agenda that was adopted in July
2015, governments and business had agreed to support the UN development agenda
by making commitments to sustainable development, inter alia through the provi-
sion of (blended) nance. One of those business organizations was Philips, the com-
pany that was previously known for its lighting and household appliances– ranging
from TV sets to electric shavers and toothbrushes– and recently transformed into a
medical appliances company. As its core mission, it wants to “make the world
healthier and more sustainable through innovation.”4 To make that mission more
tangible the company’s expressed goal is “to improve the lives of three billion peo-
ple a year by 2030.” In addition, it wants to be “the best place to work for people
who share our passion. Together we will deliver superior value for our customers
and shareholders.”5
2 https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/business-human-rights-a-brief-introduction
3 https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/
globalcompact/A_RES_70_1_E.pdf
4 https://www.philips.com/a-w/about/company/our-strategy/how-we-create-value.html
5 Ibid.
Foreword
vii
The transformation of Philips did not turn the company into a charitable organi-
zation, thereby disposing of the conception of a human being as Homo economicus
and replacing it by one of Homo amans. On the contrary, Philips is still a company
that aims to create value for its shareholders by doing the things it is good at. As the
mission and vision of companies like Philips demonstrate, mainstream businesses
very gradually become more susceptible to the needs of society and the contribution
they can make to “human ourishing.” They continue to perceive human beings as
rational and as focused on their personal wealth and well-being, while at the same
time acknowledging that making prot is not the sole purpose of a business in a
dynamic society. For some, it is not the purpose of the business at all to make as
much money as possible for shareholders.6 These enlightened companies see busi-
ness as vehicle for producing goods and services for (consumers in) society, for
which, obviously, a business has to be protable. Without prots, there is no well-
being for society. But the opposite also matters: without demonstrably creating
value for society, the company believes it will have no future.
This book calls for a transformation of our thinking in, inter alia, economics,
business, civil society, and politics in order to revalue the notion of a human being.
We are invited to perceive human persons for what they are: individuals engaging in
multiple relationships that add meaning to their life. The value of these relation-
ships, and additional values, is not only perceived in terms of self-interested wealth
creation but also in terms of mutual respect, care, love, and hope. The book wants to
revitalize the idea of morality in business in the way that, for instance, Adam Smith
was able to combine and align his economic and moral thinking. Yes, it does make
sense to promote the division of labor to allow for specialization, without forgetting
that, as human beings, our purpose in life is not to create as much personal wealth
as possible.
Since the 1950s, our global economy has gradually become saturated with the
belief that economic wealth creation is the alpha and omega of value creation in
society– despite the pleas of critics challenging such a narrow view of what– and
who– should count in the dominant economic and political domains of life. More
recently, and partly as a result of the major social, environmental, economic, and
nancial crises that our society has faced and faces still, the economy is changing to
one that is inspired by a sense of human dignity and ourishing. More and more,
new concepts emerge, displaying and endorsing ways of management that promote
values other than self-interest. The “commitment of the will to the true good of
another”– McCloskey’s denition of love– is increasingly found to inspire key
players in the economy. Excellent examples are set by social entrepreneurs and
businesses aimed at promoting the common good. Even though these movements
bring together important business leaders, their impact on the economy is still
6 Recently Danone, the French multinational dairy company, announced it was becoming an
“entreprise à mission” thereby aligning its social and environmental objectives with its purpose.
Nonnancial objectives have become as important as nancial objectives: https://www.danone.
com/about-danone/sustainable-value-creation/danone-entreprise-a-mission.html
Foreword
viii
marginal due to the size of their operations. It is when a B Corp like dairy multina-
tional Danone, or a major medical appliances company like Philips, steers towards
a more humane economy that we can hope to make some progress. The word “hope”
is quite appropriate in this respect. Over time, changing the prevailing economic
paradigm has always been seen to be a rocky road towards– what the incumbent
leaders of previous times believed to be– a better future.
In this respect, we need the aforementioned companies to do more than make
sure that human rights are protected and that people are granted the right to health
and well-being. Respecting rights is important but not sufcient for promoting
human ourishing. It is precisely because Philips promotes access to healthcare in
Africa through its Community Life Centers, and Danone works together with the
Grameen Foundation to produce Shokti Doi, a nutritious yogurt providing the most
needed vitamins and nutrients to young children, that we see progress materializing.
These advances can clearly be seen as expressions of Homo amans, since the com-
panies are not making any money on these activities. They are merely undertaken
because of the social value that they create– although the companies hope to benet
strategically from these investments in a distant future.
It is in the intelligent combination of the strengths of economic development and
the recognition of its weaknesses and limitations, that steps are made towards a
more humane economy. This is a slippery path, however, asking us to continuously
secure the progress that has been made, while simultaneously exploring ways of
advancing further. In climbing the path towards this more humane future, it is not so
much that Homo amans should take Homo economicus by the hand. Nor can Homo
amans replace, or be an alternative to, Homo economicus in our present economic
system. What is needed is an engaged conversation between the two on the purpose
and values in life that matter for our global society and on the path that will lead us
there. The attempts at this conversation that we gradually see being made– and the
rst signs of a changing paradigm in today’s business practice– still have something
about them of the deaf supporting the blind, and vice versa. They are interdependent
and therefore need each other. As Gerrit Glas argues in his contribution “new theo-
ries, concepts, and paradigms are a precondition for change, but they do not bring
about change by themselves. What is needed is a change in the practices themselves,
a change that is both personal and comprehensive.” It is precisely here that Homo
amans can inspire economic practice, while at the same time diligently looking for
support and guidance within current economic practices that will induce change and
lead to an economy that promotes love, care, sympathy, and hope. The current eco-
nomic, social, and environmental crises might actually be helpful in spurring
change: these crises increasingly help to deepen the understanding of leaders of
government, business, and civil society that there are limits to having wealth accu-
mulation as the only purpose of their practices.
This book offers delicious food for thought for a profound and inspirational con-
versation among academics and between academics and practitioners. It nourishes
all those currently walking within the economic landscape, heading for greener and
more humane pastures. One can only hope for a sequel, a future volume that would
report on the fruits of the conversation along the way and the progress that has been
Foreword
ix
made on the road towards a more humane and ourishing economy. It is only when
inspirational leaders point the way, and practical leaders simultaneously take action
to actually create, implement, and secure change, that progress is made.
I began this contribution by referring to the right to adequate healthcare. This can
help us understand how self-interested and other-interested behavior can go hand in
hand and may even benet from each other. Ever since it was proclaimed by the
General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1948, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights has been an extraordinary and important signpost for
human development and respect for every single human living on this planet. Over
time, however, we have learned that a mere declaration is not enough to secure
access to the most basic needs that humans need to live a life in dignity. Action is
needed to promote the interests of others within the context of the current political,
economic, environmental, and social boundaries. That context, the authors in this
book have convincingly argued, is to a large extent still dominated by Homo eco-
nomicus. Replacing Homo economicus by Homo amans is very likely not the best
way of achieving a more humane economy and of promoting human ourishing. A
dialectic relationship, leading to a constructive discourse between the self-interested
Homo economicus and the other-oriented Homo amans, is more likely to clear the
path towards the change that is needed in our current society. We have a long and
interesting walk and talk ahead of us.
Maastricht University HarryHummels
Maastricht, The Netherlands
Foreword
xi
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Jermo van Nes, Patrick Nullens, and Steven C. van den Heuvel
2 Towards a Relational Anthropology Fostering an Economics
of Human Flourishing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Patrick Nullens and Jermo van Nes
3 Natural Goodness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Dennis L. Krebs
4 Homo Amans: A Personalist Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
James Beauregard
5 God’s Work in the World: The Deep Compatibility of Real
Liberalism with Any Abrahamic Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey
6 What Is the Nature of Christian Love? Homo Amans
and Revolutionary Altruism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Rebekka A. Klein
7 Searching for the Anthropological Foundations of Economic
Practice: Controversies and Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Gerrit Glas
8 Altruistic Concern for the Other and the Development
of the Virtue of Humility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
James A. Van Slyke
9 Trust, Faith, and Social Imaginary: Prolegomena
to an Anthropology of Personhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Emilio Di Somma
10 Homo Amans in the Economy: A Utopia? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Hendrik Opdebeeck
xii
11 Out with the Old, In with the New? From Conceptual
Reconstruction in Philosophical Anthropology to a Realistic
Theory of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Wesley J. Wildman
12 Personal Leadership: How to Change What Cannot
Be Changed: A Response to Wesley Wildman’s Out with
the Old, In with the New? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Joke van Saane
13 A Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics?
Concluding Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Patrick Nullens, Steven C. van den Heuvel, and Jermo van Nes
Contents
xiii
About the Editors and Contributors
Editors
Jermo van Nes is Assistant Professor of New Testament at the Evangelische
Theologische Faculteit (ETF), Leuven, Belgium. At ETF, he was Senior Researcher
in the Institute of Leadership and Social Ethics. He is also a Research Associate in
the Department of New Testament Studies at the University of Pretoria, South
Africa. His research has been published in academic journals such as New Testament
Studies, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, Novum Testamentum,
and the Journal for the Study of the New Testament.
PatrickNullens is Full Professor of Systematic Theology with a focus on Christian
Ethics, and former Rector of the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit (ETF),
Leuven, Belgium. He is the founder of ETF’s Institute of Leadership and Social
Ethics. He is also Extraordinary Professor of Leadership Ethics and Humane Society
at the University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, the Netherlands. As a widely pub-
lished author in the eld of theology, ethics, leadership, and humanistic manage-
ment, his research focus is on the need for new leadership and governance to carry
out the urgent transitions in sustainability and social justice.
StevenC.van den Heuvel is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology with a
focus on Christian Ethics at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit (ETF), Leuven,
Belgium, and Director of ETF’s Institute of Leadership and Social Ethics. He pub-
lished inter alia on the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and ecological ethics.
Furthermore, he edited a number of scholarly volumes, published by Springer,
Palgrave, Peeters, and Routledge. At ETF, he is involved with various research proj-
ects on (theological) anthropology, including “The Hope Project” and “Homo
Florens,” both funded by the Goldschmeding Foundation.
xiv
Contributors
JamesBeauregard Rivier University, Nashua, NH, USA
EmilioDi Somma Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
GerritGlas Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
HarryHummels Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
RebekkaA.Klein Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany
DennisL.Krebs Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
DeirdreNansenMcCloskey University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
PatrickNullens Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands
HendrikOpdebeeck Universiteit Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium
StevenC.van den Heuvel Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
Jermovan Nes Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
Jokevan Saane University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands
JamesA.Van Slyke Fresno Pacic University, Fresno, CA, USA
WesleyJ.Wildman Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
About the Editors and Contributors
1© The Author(s) 2022
J. van Nes et al. (eds.), Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics,
Ethical Economy 61, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84690-9_1
Chapter 1
Introduction
Jermovan Nes, PatrickNullens, andStevenC.van den Heuvel
Abstract Discussing the rise and fall of the anthropological concept of Homo eco-
nomicus, which is still a dominant model in the eld of economics, this introductory
chapter provides a framework for understanding the contributions in this volume. In
response to a white paper in which a complementary model entitled Homo amans is
proposed, they altogether reect on the status of the Homo economicus model in
contemporary economics from a multidisciplinary perspective.
Anno 2020, business is among the most popular elds of study for students in higher
education, at least in Europe and the United States.1 Already in 2013, however,
Wharton professor and best-selling author Adam Grant was alerting us that the
study of economics was in danger of discouraging prosocial behavior, referring to a
number of studies showing that the study of economics was quashing cooperation
and generosity.2 It appears, for instance, that US professors of economics donate
less money to charity than their peers in other elds (Frank etal. 1993), and that
economics students, in comparison with students from other majors, are more
1 See https://www.onderwijsincijfers.nl/kengetallen/internationaal/leerlingen-en-studenten/
aantallen- ingeschrevenen-in-het-hoger-onderwijs-naar-studierichting-in-europa (accessed 2
July 2021), and https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37 (accessed 2 July 2021).
2 Adam Grant, “Does Studying Economics Breed Greed?”, Psychology Today, 22 October 2013,
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/give-and-take/201310/does-studying-economics-
breed-greed (accessed 2 July 2021).
J. van Nes (*) · S. C. van den Heuvel
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
e-mail: Jermo.vannes@etf.edu; steven.vandenheuvel@etf.edu
P. Nullens
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
University for Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands
e-mail: Patrick.nullens@etf.edu
2
willing to deceive for personal gain (Frank and Schulze 2000), more easily rate
greed as morally good (Wang et al. 2011), and have less concern for fairness
(Marwell and Ames 1981; Carter and Irons 1991). Experiments further demonstrate
that altruistic values among economics majors drop over the years (Gandal etal.
2005); that economics students become more selsh during their studies and gradu-
ally expect worse of others (Frank etal. 1993); and that just thinking of economics
can make people less caring (Molinsky etal. 2012).
One of the reasons for the destructive effects of studying economics in the
twenty-rst century, as Grant points out, is that certain (neoclassical) economic
models still rely on the assumption that every person is essentially a “Homo eco-
nomicus”, i.e. a rational being who attempts to maximize his or her utility for both
monetary and non-monetary gains. The history of this theoretical construct– a “uni-
versal bogey,” as Lionel Robbins (1932, p.90) called it– is complex. While the term
Homo economicus came into use as late as 1883 (Hengstmengel 2020, p.177), the
idea of economic man can be traced all the way back to Xenophon of Athens (c.
430–355BCE) as his treatise Economicus includes a Socratic dialogue in which
Socrates– wisdom personied– helps the economist Kritoboulos to see “that he
cannot do good for himself if he is not doing good for the polis: his own well-being
and that of the polis are not separate enterprises” (Wilson and Dickson 2012, p.16).
Accordingly, Wilson and Dickson (2012, p.22) see the idea of Homo economicus
foreshadowed in Xenophon’s Economicus as both are personications of instru-
mental activity directed towards ends or values outside themselves.
Joost Hengstmengel (2020, pp.45–64), however, argues that the idea of Homo
economicus could never exist in classical Antiquity as true happiness and ‘the good
life’ were connected to immaterial things. At that time, economics was a moral ‘sci-
ence’. It was normative, being allowed to tell how people should act yet realistic
about people’s capacities. All human economic activity was evaluated in terms of
the cardinal virtues of prudence and justice. With the rise of Christianity, the virtue
of charity was added. Accordingly, in Antiquity and early Christianity an economics
of sufciency and love were promoted respectively in which self-interest was con-
demned when it harmed others and did not contribute to the good life of the com-
munity as a whole. This “prelapsarian” state of economics, as Hengstmengel (2020,
pp.14–16) calls it, slowly but radically changed during the early modern period (c.
1500–1650) due to three major transitions: (1) communities changed into societies,
(2) man changed from a community being into an economic being, and (3) living
the good life in terms of a virtuous life changed into the ideal of living a life maxi-
mizing one’s utility and pleasure. These transitions were encouraged by the emer-
gence of the Renaissance spirit, which exposed man’s allegedly ‘true nature’ to be
addictive to power, pleasure, and prot, as well as the rise of political economy as a
modern science, which suppressed the normative status of economics as the ties
with moral philosophy and religion were slowly cut.
As a result of these important shifts in early Modernity, the sense of community
was supplanted by economic individualism as the social and religious stigma
attached to self-interest gradually disappeared from political discourse. Inspired by
the political writings of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), whose social contract theory
J. van Nes et al.
3
encouraged that submission to an absolute sovereign was in people’s best interest as
the sovereign secured protection and property, all sorts of (British) intellectuals
ranging from clergymen to politicians in the ‘long’ eighteenth century (c.
1650–1800) started to promote the social value of self-interest. Some tentatively
argued that self-interest is only one of man’s inherent drives and is controlled by a
natural balance of motives. Others proposed that self-interest constructively orga-
nized the movement of human bodies in society. Yet others contended that self-
interest brings about a natural division of labor and results in higher collective
productivity (Myers 1983). The gradual legitimation of self-interest in this age of
Enlightenment is what Hengstmengel (2020, p.14) calls “the Fall” of economics as
self-interest was turned from vice into virtue.
The most important intellectual writer on the (moral) question of how individual
self-interest can be a constructive force for the collective welfare in the eighteenth
century was the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790), who is generally
considered to be the father of modern economics and founder of the classical school
of economics. In his most famous studies The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Smith–
standing in a long tradition of virtue ethicists– sought an economic solution to what
is in essence a moral question: Can individual self-interest be a constructive force
for the collective welfare? Answering in the afrmative, Smith attempted “to recon-
cile economic and moral behaviour in the emerging system of market capitalism
and to quell the anxiety this market gave rise to” (Comyn 2018, p.29). Acknowledging
the complexity of human nature yet arguing that people are predominantly driven by
self-love and self-interest, Smith discerned mainly egocentric forces in economics
(Hengstmengel 2020, p.166).
While the term Homo economicus was not coined yet by the turn of the nine-
teenth century, many scholars (e.g. Ridder 1941–1942) see the spirit of free market
capitalism as reected in the writings of Smith as the delivery room of the concept.
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was among the second generation of classical econo-
mists who continued to explain economic behavior by means of self-interest, but
consciously abstracted it from other human motives. As Mill (1844, pp.137–138)
notes on the ever-growing science of political economy:
It does not treat of the whole of man’s nature as modied by the social state, nor of the
whole conduct of man in society. It is concerned with him solely as a being who desires
wealth, and who is capable of judging of the comparative efcacy of means for obtaining
that end. It predicts only such of the phenomena of the social state as take place in conse-
quence of the pursuit of wealth. It makes entire abstraction of every other human passion or
motive; except those which may be regarded as perpetually antagonizing principles to the
desire of wealth, namely, aversion to labour, and desire of the present enjoyment of costly
indulgences.
This famous quote implies two important methodological assumptions: (1) eco-
nomic behavior can be explained solely in terms of people’s pursuit of wealth, and (2)
economic decisions in terms of ends and means are judged rationally by people. Mill
himself was very clear about the hypothetical and imagery character of his anthropol-
ogy, but insisted on its necessity if political economy wanted to develop into a science
1 Introduction
4
of equal status as the natural sciences: “Not that any political economist was ever so
absurd as to suppose that mankind are really thus constituted, but because this is the
mode in which science must necessarily proceed” (Mill 1844, p.139).
In response to Mill, Charles Devas (1883, p.27) was the rst to use the term
Homo economicus in noting that “Mill has only examined the homo oeconomicus,
or dollar-hunting animal.” He abstracted “‘economic man’, who is under no ethical
inuences and who pursues pecuniary gain warily and energetically, but mechani-
cally and selshly” (Marshall 1890, p. vi) and “whose activities are determined
solely by the desire of wealth” (Keynes 1891, p.16). Mill’s conceptual ‘invention’
of Homo economicus was by no means adopted by every economist, but it further
stimulated economics to develop into a theoretical, deductive, and abstract disci-
pline in which moral philosophy was no longer needed to study the relationship
between self-interest and happiness. Accordingly, the traditional virtue ethical con-
cerns were slowly but steadily replaced by the emerging ideal of utilitarianism– to
maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. This resulted in a
‘positive’ form of economics, which was consciously amoral (Hengstmengel 2020,
pp.173–187).
Assuming that agents make consumption choices so as to maximize their happi-
ness or utility, economists like Stanley Jevons, Léon Walras and Carl Menger for-
malized Mill’s ideas into a set of axioms in the late nineteenth century. This
“guaranteed the internal coherence of economic assumptions and allowed the use of
mathematics to deduce testable implications from those assumptions” (Rodriguez-
Sickert 2009, p.224). The eld of study that emerged from this mathematical
enquiry is known as rational choice theory, which is particularly associated with the
Chicago school of economics. The basic premise of this theory is that the decisions
made by individual actors collectively produce aggregate social behaviour.
Proponents of rational choice theory also assume that individuals have preferences
available and choice alternatives. Advocates of rational choice theory do not (cl)aim
to describe the choice process, but rather help predict the outcome and pattern of
choice. They consequently assume that the individual is self-interested and comes
to a decision that maximizes personal advantage by balancing costs and benets
(Friedman 1953, p.15). As such, the idea of Homo economicus is still very much
alive in contemporary economics, at least in this branch of the discipline (e.g.
Becker 1976; Jensen and Meckling 1994).
On 6–7 June 2019, the Institute of Leadership and Social Ethics, a research insti-
tute of the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit in Leuven, Belgium, organized a
symposium in the Peace Palace in The Hague, the Netherlands, to address the
importance of reecting on the status of the Homo economicus model in contempo-
rary economics from a multidisciplinary perspective. In order to kindle a construc-
tive dialogue, a discussion paper drawing on anthropological research in the life
sciences, social sciences, and humanities was prepared that outlined the contours of
what could potentially serve as a rened version of Homo economicus, preliminar-
ily entitled “Homo amans” – the human person as a loving being. A number of
keynote speakers and respondents working in various academic disciplines were
invited to interact with this paper. Most of the contributions in this volume were
J. van Nes et al.
5
presented during the symposium; others were written later, by invitation. As a result,
some of the essays do not directly engage with the discussion paper but reect on
relevant themes evoked by it; others dialogue directly with some of the ideas pre-
sented in the discussion paper; and there are some that interact with someone
else’s paper.
In the second chapter, Patrick Nullens and Jermo van Nes open the discussion by
addressing the problem that overall human ourishing is hindered by the ongoing
dominance of the Homo economicus paradigm in contemporary economics. They
believe the Homo economicus paradigm overemphasizes people’s rational capabili-
ties at the cost of their relational qualities. By way of suggestion, Nullens and Van
Nes develop the contours of the holistic concept of Homo amans as phenomenologi-
cally constituted by the virtues of faith, hope, and love, since multidisciplinary
study has shown that human persons are searching, expecting, and relational beings.
They also suggest that people are able to search for meaning, project their longings
into the future, and relate meaningfully to others by means of their ability to trust.
The contributions by Dennis Krebs and James Beauregard in Chaps. 3 and 4
respectively support the overall idea of Homo amans. Rejecting the common claim
that evolutionary theory implies that all animals are selsh by nature, Krebs argues
that social animals can propagate their selsh genes in psychologically unselsh
ways. As such, the central function of morality is to uphold adaptive systems of
cooperation. Throughout human history, as Krebs explains, primitive psychological
sources of moral behavior such as perspective-taking and moral reasoning have
helped the human species to evolve. From a personalist perspective, James
Beauregard offers a robust anthropological vision which presents the human person
as a dynamic unity– active, and capable of learning, and living the virtues of faith,
hope, and love. He also believes that neuroscience can inform the Homo amans
model, but warns about its conceptual limitations.
In Chaps. 5, 6 and 7, contributors (in)directly engage with the argument of the
discussion paper. Deirdre McCloskey argues for the connection between free will in
Abrahamic theologies and free action in liberal ideologies. In God’s eyes, she
insists, a free-willed person should be free from human interference in religion as
well as behavior and business. This implicitly critiques the Homo amans model as
living up to the virtues of faith, hope, and love may interfere in people’s freedom.
Rebekka Klein questions whether the nature of love is truly phenomenologically
discussed in its ambivalence. Drawing on Kierkegaard’s phenomenology of love,
she argues that love cannot be clearly distinguished from selsh acts without refer-
ence to an external party. Gerrit Glas sides with the concerns raised by Klein, adding
that thinking that science helps in validating and legitimizing a biblically informed
concept of love is committing a naturalistic fallacy. In addition, he seriously ques-
tions whether academic disciplines by themselves will be able (and should be
expected to be able) to transform deeply ingrained, institutionally anchored eco-
nomic practices. What is needed more, Glas insists, is a change in economic prac-
tices themselves, a change that is both personal and comprehensive.
More specically, the contributions in Chaps. 8, 9 and 10 address the notion of
virtue and reect on the potential of the Homo amans model. James Van Slyke
1 Introduction
6
focuses on the virtue of love as altruistic concern, arguing on the basis of psycho-
logical studies that this type of love uniquely informs the virtue of humility, as it
puts people ahead of or before the self. In the context of business, humility is formed
through the development of relational values and is best expressed in how superiors
show concern for others. Those who value the intrinsic worth of other persons are
less likely to express the various vices of pride and will more readily demonstrate
humility towards others, as was demonstrated in moral exemplars, such as Holocaust
rescuers. Emilio Di Somma focuses on the notion of trust. Using Taylor’s concept
of “social imaginary”, he argues that in order to implement the Homo amans model
a desire for trust among people and institutions is to be instilled in people rst. This
takes courage as it requires the afrmation of the objective goodness of virtues such
as faith, hope, and love. According to Hendrik Opdebeeck, a paradigm shift from
Homo economicus to Homo amans is not a utopia as long as the models are not
considered as rivals. With the right attitudes, as advocated in the Homo amans
model, a rational economy can turn into a responsible economy, or, in his words, a
“u-globia”.
Wesley Wildman and Joke van Saane, in Chaps. 11 and 12 respectively, discuss
the transformative power of the Homo amans concept in economics. Wildman
argues that relationality and self-awareness are necessary corrections for the indi-
vidualism and cognitive error found in contemporary western human self-
understanding. He also believes that love as agape and karuna, and wisdom as
knowledge and humility could be two spiritual translations of these corrections.
Reecting on how the envisaged transformation in ideas about human nature could
be implemented, Wildman concludes that the anthropological insights of philoso-
phers would be best served by a partnership with education and policy experts. Van
Saane agrees with Wildman’s analysis concerning the structural failures in human
functioning caused by individualism and cognitive errors, but counters that we bet-
ter acknowledge our individualism and failing cognitions. This creates opportuni-
ties for personal leadership, as only individuals are real game changers.
In the nal chapter, Patrick Nullens, Jermo van Nes, and Steven van den Heuvel
reect on all the contributions and revisit the discussion paper. As a result, they
reply to some of the questions brought up in the overall discussion, including the
possible restriction an anthropological model may have on human freedom, the
relationship between Homo economicus and Homo amans, the nature of love, the
danger of committing a naturalistic fallacy, and the need for a theory of change.
They end the conversation by rening the Homo amans model and pointing to new
directions of study.
Acknowledgments The publication of this volume in this series as a result of the symposium in
The Hague offers the opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to a number of people. First of
all, many thanks are due to all contributors for shaping our thoughts on relational anthropology by
means of their worthy contributions. Second, we thank all our honored guests at the symposium for
their active participation. Many of the questions and stimulating discussions have helped us in the
process of rening our thoughts. Third, as we look back on a wonderful symposium, we say a big
“thank you” to its general director, Erik de Baedts, and his staff, for hosting us in the beautiful
J. van Nes et al.
7
context of the Peace Palace. Fourth, we thank our colleague Cees Tulp, as well as Kay Caldwell,
for their editorial assistance in preparing the manuscript. Fifth, we thank the anonymous peer
reviewers of the manuscript for their suggestions on how to improve the manuscript. Sixth, we
wish to express our gratitude to the series editors for accepting this book in their prestigious series.
And last but not least, we gratefully acknowledge the Goldschmeding Foundation for their ongoing
support for this project. Special thanks are due in this regard to Michiel de Wilde, Wim Janse,
Martijn Roos, Aart Jan de Geus, and Suzanne Ekel.
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1 Introduction
8
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9© The Author(s) 2022
J. van Nes et al. (eds.), Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics,
Ethical Economy 61, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84690-9_2
Chapter 2
Towards aRelational Anthropology
Fostering anEconomics ofHuman
Flourishing
PatrickNullens andJermovan Nes
Abstract Basic capabilities and human interests that are directed towards the ideal
of human ourishing now seem at odds with the concept of Homo economicus as
once dened by John Stuart Mill– a rational being pursuing wealth only for his own
self-interest. This popular paradigm still dominates economic theory and practice,
but a growing group of academics consider its underlying model of human behavior
to be inaccurate. As a result, scholars across various disciplines have expressed the
need for a more rened anthropology in relation to contemporary economics. In
response, the holistic concept of Homo amans as phenomenologically constituted
by the virtues of faith, hope, and love is introduced, since multidisciplinary yet
complementary study suggests that human persons are questing, expecting, and
relational beings. Whether or not Homo amans could serve in the future as a com-
plementary model to Homo economicus remains to be seen, because several aspects
of human relationality that are relevant to contemporary economics are in need of
future study.
2.1 Introduction
Amidst the many environmental and societal problems facing our world today, there
is growing awareness and recognition in both academia and society that economics
should aim to foster human well-being. But how do we substantiate the good life?
Is it more than freedom of choice? Is it a matter of fullling our needs? Is it about
commitment to an idea or ideal? The capability approach offers a potential way to
move ahead. Inspired by the political/economic works of Amartya Sen (1992,
P. Nullens (*)
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
University for Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands
e-mail: Patrick.nullens@etf.edu
J. van Nes
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
e-mail: Jermo.vannes@etf.edu
10
1999), Martha Nussbaum (2011, pp.33–34) proposed a list of ten core capabilities
that will enable people to ourish. These are being able to (1) live, (2) enjoy good
health, (3) move freely, (4) use the senses to imagine, think, and reason, (5) relate
emotionally to things and people, (6) reason practically by engaging in critical
reection, (7) afliate to others on the basis of self-respect and non-humiliation, (8)
live in relation to the natural world, (9) play, and (10) have control over one’s envi-
ronment in terms of politics and property. In a similar vein, Christian Smith (2015,
pp.181–82) identied six universal goods that dene basic human motivations and
interests: (1) bodily survival, security, and pleasure, (2) knowledge of reality, (3)
identity coherence and afrmation, (4) exercising purposive agency, (5) moral afr-
mation, and (6) social belonging and love. Without these, Smith (2015, p. 240)
argues, no human being can develop: “[f]or persons to be rejected, excluded, and
isolated, outcast, invisible, untouchable, and irrelevant, leaves them retarded,
wounded, or deformed in their personhood.” This implies that one can ourish as a
person only by seeking the good for oneself and others, in other words, by seeking
the common good.
Yet, in both academia and society the dominant approach to human behavior
continues to be that of economic man or Homo economicus– “a model of human
agency in which the individual actor maximizes his own well-being given the con-
straints he faces” (Rodriguez-Sickert 2009, p.223). The term came into existence as
late as 1883 (Devas 1883, p.27), and though the concept can be traced all the way
back to Xenophon of Athens (c. 430–355), it was the writings of the British theorists
Adam Smith (1723–1790) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) that made the idea of
Homo economicus popular and inuential.1 While Smith (1759, 1776) developed a
nuanced version of economic man whereby well-being is not exclusively related to
material goods (McCloskey 2016, pp. 172–96), it was Mill (1844, p. 137) who
dened Homo economicus as “a being who desires wealth, and who is capable of
judging of the comparative efcacy of means for obtaining that end.” Mill’s focus
on accumulation, leisure, luxury, and procreation, was to make his version of eco-
nomic man the more popular and dominant one over time.
While the concept of economic man as introduced and developed by eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century British intelligentsia makes sense against the background of
Enlightenment thinking in general, and the American Revolutionary War
(1775–1783) as well as the French Revolution (1789–1799) in particular, it makes
less sense today. The utilitarian model of behavior underlying this concept not only
embodies a commitment to methodological individualism (i.e. the individual more
than the social system is the basic unit of analysis), but also accepts that human
nature is essentially rational, a-moral and unsocial (Bovenberg 2018, p. 25).
However, from the twentieth century onwards, the mechanical worldview advo-
cated by Mill (and his followers), in which people are isolated yet rational beings
acting in an environment populated by like-minded individuals, has been criticized
in many different disciplines (Kirchgässner 2008, pp.185–218; Ng and Tseng 2008,
1 For an historical overview of the concept of Homo economicus, see Hengstmengel (2020).
P. Nullens and J. van Nes
11
pp. 269–71; Rodriguez-Sickert 2009, pp. 225–26; Klein 2011, pp. 101–109).
Sociologists, for example, have insisted that the Homo economicus model is too
narrow since it does not allow for human behavior to be explained by social norms
(Dahrendorf 1958), social interdependence (Frank 1985), social relations
(Granovetter 1985), moral codes (Sen 1982), and/or institutions (Bowles 1998).
Behavioral economists (e.g. Forsythe etal. 1994; Gintis etal. 2005) have found that
people sometimes act irrationally and/or reciprocally, something that goes beyond
mere rational self-interest. More recently, neuroscientists have claimed that altruism
is a genetically based human capacity (Krebs 2012). The same is true for emotions,
which seems to affect human behavior (Haidt 2003). Because emotions “are gener-
ated spontaneously in the limbic system outside the conscious control of the indi-
vidual” (Kullberg and Singer 2012, p.249), they sometimes contradict the rationality
of human nature.
With the concept of Homo economicus being criticized on so many fronts,2 Kate
Raworth (2017, pp.88–100) represents a growing group of scholars who have asked
that Mill’s caricature of human nature be replaced by a more rened anthropologi-
cal model allowing for our sociality (instead of self-interest), uid values (instead of
xed preferences), interdependency (instead of isolation), approximating (instead
of calculating), and embeddedness in life (instead of dominion over life).3 As
Raworth (2017, p.82) urges,
…it is time to meet ourselves all over again by taking his [Mill’s] cartoon depiction out of
the economic gallery and painting, in its place, a new portrait of humanity. It will turn out
to be the most important portrait commissioned in the twenty-rst century, mattering not
just to economists but to us all. Its preparatory sketches are under way and, just as in
Leonardo’s workshop, many artists are collaborating in piecing them together, from psy-
chologists, behavioral scientists and neurologists to sociologists, political scientists and,
yes, economists.
Yet responding to Raworth’s call is anything but easy. Arguably the major chal-
lenge is nding a common language that enables scholars working in various disci-
plines, each with their own worldview and (religious) background, to think deeply
about how human ourishing can be increased. This chapter is nothing more than a
modest attempt to encourage a multidisciplinary dialogue on anthropology in con-
temporary economics by (1) rethinking human personhood, (2) introducing the con-
cept of Homo amans as a complementary model to Homo economicus, and (3)
exploring some dimensions of human relationality that deserve future study.
2 For popular critiques on the Homo economicus model, see especially Cohen (2012), Papadogiannis
(2014), and Fleming (2017). Already by 2000, a survey of 64 participants had revealed that even
ordinary people question the model on the basis of common sense, as they generally believe that
“the human being is free, changeable, inuenced by the subjective world of experience, a product
of the environment, and best understood from a holistic perspective” (Hochwälder 2000, p.611).
3 Other critics who have asked for the Homo economicus model to be replaced include Drucker
(1939), Arendt (1958), Dahrendorf (1958), Elworthy (1993), O’Boyle (1994), Doucouliagos
(1994), Bowles and Gintis (1998), Dinello (1998), Thaler (2000), Pearson (2000), and Girgerenzer
and Brighton (2009), to name but a few.
2 Towards aRelational Anthropology Fostering anEconomics ofHuman Flourishing
12
2.2 What Is aPerson? Rethinking Human Nature
The centuries-old quest for the meaning of being human has given rise to many dif-
ferent and sometimes rival theories about human nature (Stevenson et al. 2018).
Focusing on the Western intellectual tradition, Joseph Torchia (2008, p. xiii) distin-
guishes four distinct periods in the history of philosophical anthropology: (1) the
classical period, ranging from the pre-Socratics to Aristotle, during which the rst
metaphysical accounts of humanity were developed; (2) the Middle Ages, when key
Christian thinkers such as Augustine and Thomas argued for the fundamental psy-
chosomatic unity and relationality of human beings; (3) Modernity, which saw the
emergence of Descartes’ mind-body dualism and the subsequent critique of the
notion of mind in British empiricism as represented by David Hume; and (4)
Postmodernity, during which a new brand of dualism emerged in terms of biological
humanity versus moral personhood.
It appears that, during the long history of philosophical anthropology, the ques-
tion of what it means to be human has been approached from different angles– the
religious, the scientic, and the philosophical. Torchia (2008, p.1) observes that
from the very beginning two competing answers have been given, and these con-
tinue to be expressed in various forms: (1) teleological perspectives that endorse “a
metaphysical distinction between an immaterial mind and a material body,” recog-
nizing “an order and a purposiveness in human existence by virtue of an appeal to
something which transcends our physical being” (Torchia 2008, p.1), and (2) mech-
anistic perspectives that ultimately reduce “our mental life and decision-making
capacity to no more than highly complex neurophysiological processes”, suggesting
that “there is no difference between mind and brain, or between thinking and brain-
wave activity” (Torchia 2008, p.1).
Drawing upon the works of the Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre (1981,
1988), Torchia (2008, p. 10) himself endorses the view that “only a teleological
understanding of human nature and the virtuous life rooted in the Aristotelian/
Thomistic tradition of inquiry” allows for making moral judgments. This being the
case, he stresses the importance of recovering a human telos to form the basis for
our view of happiness. Accordingly, human lives are to be interpreted as coherent
narratives directed toward the realization of their nal ends. Torchia (2008, p.11)
questions whether “a purely reductionist account of human nature and personhood
explain[s] everything we are capable of doing in cognitive, volitional, and affective
terms.” Personhood is not a matter of arbitrary interpretation, nor is it denable on
the basis of biological or behavioral characteristics alone. Instead, Torchia (2008,
p.11) argues:
In my reckoning, “human being” is correlative with “being human,” the mode of existence
appropriate to persons as dynamic centers in their own right who participate in human
nature even as they transcend it in their uniqueness. This touches on the mystery inherent in
our way of being, a mystery that can only be revealed and appreciated by entering in the
experience of the other through the intimacy of interpersonal relationships. In the face of
such a penetrating mystery, a metaphysical explanation alone sufces, since this type of
P. Nullens and J. van Nes
13
account attunes us to the luminosity of an inner life that always eludes attempts at complete
empirical analysis.
Similarly, Christian Smith (2010) dismisses mechanistic anthropologies that
reduce all reality to natural laws inherent in matter and energy and in doing so
neglect the reality of moral values, meaning, and the spiritual dimension of life.
Preferring a teleological understanding of human nature, Smith (2010, p.15) argues
“that human beings as they exist in the world embody a particular constitution–
they have a human nature rooted in nature more broadly.” They are characterized by
properties, abilities, and qualities that are unique to human personhood. Assuming
the essentially social condition of humanity, Smith believes that human personhood
emerges through the social interaction, communication, and communion between
people. The concept of emergence is a daily phenomenon, referring to “the process
of constituting a new entity with its own particular characteristics through the inter-
active combination of other, different entities that are necessary to create the new
entity but that do not contain the characteristics present in the new entity” (Smith
2010, pp.25–26). One could think, for instance, of hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O)
merging into water (H2O).
In support of his thesis for the emergence of personhood, Smith relies on three
key theoretical resources: (1) critical realism, (2) personalism, and (3) anti- scientistic
phenomenology. First, critical realism as introduced by the English philosopher
Roy Bhaskar (1997), searches for a middle way between empirical positivism on the
one hand and postmodern constructivism on the other. It makes a distinction between
the real, the actual, and the empirical: the real is the objective being, material or
non-material, which exists apart from our human awareness of it; the actual is what
happens in time and space, whether we experience it or not; and the empirical is
what we experience directly and indirectly. Critical realism critiques the conation
of these three aspects. It is critically aware of our limited understanding and at the
same time aware of a reality, apart from our limited understanding. Smith (2010,
pp.92–93) summarizes the core ideas of Bhaskarian critical realism as follows:
Critical realism’s central organizing thought is that much of reality exists independently of
human consciousness of it; that reality itself is complex, open, and stratied in multiple
dimensions or levels … ; that humans can acquire a truthful, though fallible knowledge and
understanding of reality through various forms of disciplined conceptualization, inquiry,
and theoretical reection; that (social) science is rightly concerned with, rst, identifying
what is real and, second, understanding and explaining real causal capacities, mechanisms,
and processes that operate in reality to produce various events and outcomes of interest …
; and, nally, that knowledge and understanding of the truths about reality position knowers
to critically engage the world in normative, prescriptive, and even moral terms in ways that
may overcome the traditional fact-value divide and intentionally try to shape the world for
the better.
Being strongly anti-reductionistic, critical realism respects the many dimensions
and causal interactions of what is real and actual. Smith (2010, p.54) presents a list
of no less than 30 human capacities that structure themselves hierarchically in ve
categories: (1) “existence capacities” (e.g. subconscious being), (2) “primary expe-
rience capacities” (e.g. mental representation), (3) “secondary experience
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capacities” (e.g. emotional experience), (4) “creating capacities” (e.g. language
use), and (5) “highest order capacities” (e.g. interpersonal communion and love). To
understand the interrelation of these capacities and to avoid all forms of reduction-
ism, the reality of emergence is crucial. The 30 human capacities “are the stuff out
of which human personhood exists emergently” (Smith 2010, p.59).
Second, the core belief underlying the philosophy of personalism as it originated
in the United States and continental Europe in the late nineteenth and early twenti-
eth century respectively, is that human beings are real entities with an ontological
being that exists in nature. We are truly persons. This ostensibly simple claim has
serious implications as it entails that we are more than “rational, self-interested,
exchange-making calculators of costs and benets” (= Homo economicus); more
than “the constituents of functional social orders”; more than “discursively con-
structed positions of shifting identities pieced together in the ux of variable mean-
ings and power relations”; more than “corporeal sites through which regimes of
power express themselves through bodily discipline”; more than “strategic, dra-
matic presenters of performances driven by culturally specied scripts”; more than
“biological carriers of “selsh” genetic material that has been naturally selected
upon for its superior reproductive tness and that seeks to perpetuate itself through
behavioral determinism”; and more than “egos struggling to manage the id in the
face of the superego” (Smith 2010, pp.102–103). Smith (2010, p.104) approvingly
quotes Karol Wojtyla (1993, p.211), better known as Pope John Paul II, who notes
that personalism believes “in the primordial uniqueness of the human being, and
thus in the basic irreducibility of the human being to the natural world.”
Third, anti-scientistic phenomenology as developed by the Canadian philoso-
pher Charles Taylor (1989) challenges common assumptions of naturalistic sci-
entism in terms of materialism, objectivity, and reductionism that discount “people’s
phenomenological experience as a guide to valid and reliable knowledge about real-
ity, including human life” (Smith 2010, p.105). Smith counters that no single scien-
tic view should dominate, but that priority should be given to our lived experiences
of being human. He argues that we are beings who want to make sense of our lives,
because we are by nature morally and spiritually committed. We are always search-
ing for “the best account” of our lives, referred to as “the BA [best account] princi-
ple” (Taylor 1989, p.58). We need to search continuously for the best account that
makes sense of our phenomenological experiences and immaterial realities, includ-
ing value, meaning, morality, and personhood. Such accounts are best “arrived at by
challenge, discussion, argumentation, reection, criticism, vetting, that is, by test-
ing against the clarity of experience, including through systematic observation and
the discipline of reason” (Smith 2010, p.112).
Smith also engages critically with the popular theory of social constructivism
introduced by the sociologists Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1966), who
argued that all reality, including someone’s personality, is socially constructed. This
implies that what normally is taken for granted as “natural” and “factual” is nothing
but a cultural artifact. As such, all theories regarding human nature, whether reli-
gious or scientic, are creations of people engaged in patterned roles and behaviors
that become habituated or institutionalized. While Smith (2010, p.121) recognizes
P. Nullens and J. van Nes
15
that social constructivism is “an important instrument in the sociological toolkit,” it
overstretches relativistic claims when it becomes dominated by poststructuralism
and postmodernism. By way of an alternative, Smith proposes a weak or realist ver-
sion of social constructivism: “All human knowledge is conceptually mediated and
can be and usually is inuenced by particular and contingent sociocultural factors
such as material interests, group structures, linguistic categories, technological
development, and the like– such that what people believe to be real is signicantly
shaped not only by objective reality but also by their sociocultural contexts” (Smith
2010, p.122). Yet these human capacities are not without limits. Human beings are
nite creatures. It is in the tensions between human capacities and their limits that
patterns of lived practice emerge, and eventually these become social structures.
This entails that human goods or values are not conditional, and each society or
individual is free to choose them.
All of these deliberations make Smith (2010, p.61) dene a human person as “a
conscious, reexive, embodied, bodied, self-transcending center of subjective expe-
rience, durable identity, moral commitment, and social communication who– as the
efcient cause of his or her own responsible actions and interactions– exercises
complex capacities for agency and intersubjectivity in order to develop and sustain
his or her own incommunicable self in loving relationships with other personal
selves and with the nonpersonal world” (Smith 2010, p.61). He stresses that the
fusion of these elements is not just a mix of component parts but constitutes a dis-
tinct personal being. This thick notion of human personhood grounds eudaimonic
ethics, i.e. the understanding of the human good as the realization of our nature.
Smith gives a foundation to a morality that profoundly acknowledges personal
agency, sustaining a social context of loving and nurturing relationships that enable
human persons to ourish. This involves an ethics that moves beyond a set of rules
or procedures to a realistic type of teleological personalism: “Moral life that is tuned
to reality thus begins with a correct understanding– whether intuitive or reexive–
of the real human condition, actual human potentialities, and the right telos of per-
sonhood” (Smith 2010, p.414). It requires virtue ethics “to become our real and best
selves” (Smith 2010, p.418). And for this purpose, no new moral system is needed;
it simply requires the rediscovery of the wisdom of old moral systems that are
already often in line with our own intuitions. Universal traits such as love, justice,
generosity, etc., should be enacted and developed continuously. They enable us to
ourish, and their absence from our lives threatens our very personhood.
2.3 Faith, Hope, andLove: Introducing Homo Amans
The studies of Torchia (2008) and Smith (2010), as outlined above, acknowledge
the complexity of human nature and resist the reductionist tendencies in contempo-
rary scholarship when dening human personhood. They both stress the importance
of virtue. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, human personhood is marked, ideally, by
the virtues of faith, hope, and love. They are mentioned in one breath by the apostle
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Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:13– “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and
the greatest of these is love” (NRSV). Paul also notes that faith and love produce
good works, and that hope gives endurance (cf. 1 Thess. 1:2–4); that faith, hope, and
love are defensive weapons (cf. 1 Thess. 5:7–9); that faith is active in love (cf. Rom.
5:1–5; Gal. 5:5–6); and that faith and love are the result of hope (cf. Col. 1:4–6).
Modern studies of the three theological virtues usually discuss them separately (e.g.
Brunner 1956; Pieper 1986; Robinson 2004; Cubillos 2017), whereas ancient com-
mentators stressed their inseparability. Augustine (Serm. 359A), for example, in one
of his sermons noted:4
Faith does not fail since it has hope to support it. Take away hope, and faith fails. How does
someone who does not hope to arrive even move his feet in walking? But if from the two,
faith and hope, you take away love, what good does it do to believe, what good does it do
to hope? It is not possible to hope for what one does not love. It is love that kindles hope;
hope glows with love. But when we have arrived at what we hoped for in faith without see-
ing it, what faith will be left to praise since faith is the conviction of things not seen [Hebr.
11:1]? When we see, it will no longer be called faith. You will see then; you won’t believe.
The same is true for hope itself. When the reality is present, you do not hope. For hope that
is seen is not hope (Rom. 8:24). There it is: when we have arrived, faith is ended, hope is
ended. What happens to love? Faith turns to sight and hope to its reality. Now it is sight and
reality, not faith and hope. What happens to love? Can it come to an end? No, for if the soul
was already aame with love for what it had not seen, certainly when it sees this it will burn
all the brighter. So it was truly said that the greatest of these is love, since faith is succeeded
by sight, hope by reality, but love has no successor. It grows, it increases, it is perfected in
contemplation.
The importance of the virtues of faith, hope, and love for human personhood is
not stressed only in early Christian texts. In 2004, in the eld of positive psychol-
ogy, Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman (2004) published a landmark cross-
cultural list of character strengths and virtues taken from different religious traditions
(Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Judeo-Christian, Islam) as well as from ancient
and modern philosophy.5 They distinguish between virtues, character strengths, and
situational themes. Virtues are “the core characteristics valued by moral philoso-
phers and religious thinkers: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and
transcendence;” character strengths are “the psychological ingredients” that form
the routes to displaying virtues; and situational themes refer “to the specic habits
that lead people to manifest given character strengths in given situations,” such as
the workplace or family (Peterson and Seligman 2004, pp. 13–14). The overall
result revealed a surprising amount of similarity across cultures. Six core virtue
groups were classied (wisdom and knowledge, humanity, courage, justice, temper-
ance, and transcendence) that are based on 24 character strengths, including the
capacity to love and to be loved, leadership, forgiveness and mercy, gratitude, hope,
and religiousness and spirituality (Peterson and Seligman 2004, pp. 29–30).
According to Peterson and Seligman (2004, p. 13), these virtues and character
strengths are no social constructs, but universal predisposed mechanisms that are
4 English translation of the Latin text is derived from Kovacs (2005, p.228). Italics in original.
5 See also http://www.viacharacter.org
P. Nullens and J. van Nes
17
“grounded in biology through an evolutionary process that selected for these aspects
of excellence as means of solving the important tasks necessary for survival of the
species.”
Similarly, Deirdre McCloskey (2006, pp. 91–300) in the eld of economics
argues that the virtues of faith, hope, and love (together with courage, temperance,
justice, and prudence) are an integral part of the history of European prosperity, and
continue to be essential for the well-functioning of a commercial society. They are
classied as soft, “feminine” virtues that complement the overrated strong, “mascu-
line” virtues of courage and prudence in the current world of markets. McCloskey
(2006, pp.168–171) rejects the anti-theistic bias of the French philosopher André
Comte-Sponville (1995), who explicitly excludes faith and hope from his list of 18
great virtues since they have God as their object. He argues that courage will sufce
in the presence of a danger or an uncertain future. McCloskey herself provides a
secular version of faith, hope, and love in order to warrant their transcendent char-
acter. Faith is about our awareness of identity, “a backward-looking virtue”
(McCloskey 2006, p.153). Hope, by contrast, is “forward-looking” (McCloskey
2006, p.160). Love is like “a commitment of the will to the true good of another,”
and has “the quality of attachment” (McCloskey 2006, p.91).
When understood transcendently, the virtues of faith, hope, and love mark
humans as questing, expecting, and relational beings. In the last decade, three major
studies have argued that each trait is inherent in human nature. First, Wesley
Wildman (2009) in a wide-ranging study offered a naturalistic interpretation of the
human being as Homo religiosus. Integrating different academic disciplines, such as
molecular biology, evolutionary theory, cognitive neurology, and the scientic study
of religion, Wildman (2009, p. xv) basically defended the hypothesis “that religious
behaviors, beliefs, and experiences– understood sufciently broadly – constitute
human nature not only historically, culturally, or circumstantially, but also ontologi-
cally, essentially, and inescapably.” He believes that religion is universal and applies
even to atheistic scientists committed to the battle against the myths of religion and
superstition. Religion is a commitment to ultimate and existential concerns as “[i]t
pertains to the way we bind ourselves (religio) to that which has surpassing meaning
for us,” and, in this sense, “suffuses every aspect of human life” (Wildman 2009, p.
xv). Religion is not a cultural product, separate from our genes, but nor is it purely
the result of evolutionary adaptation. In evolutionary terms, “religion,” according to
Wildman (2009, p.69), “is as an ad hoc, complex, and variable assemblage of
adapted and exapted genetic traits that constrain culturally colored exploration of a
landscape of social and existential possibilities within an ultimate environment
dened by the valuational depth of nature itself.” This implies that human beings are
religiously concerned in any given socio-cultural setting, but it does not require any
verdict on the reality of god(s). It simply means that, by nature, we are all “oriented
to primordial, ultimate mystery in our experiences, our social practices, our drives
and projective impulses, our longings and failures, our malevolence and love”
(Wildman 2009, p.230).
Second, Anthony Scioli and Henry Biller (2009, p.6) argued that the virtue of
hope “is not merely a process by which you arrive at some desired destination,” but
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also “a way of being in the world.” Both psychologists insist that hope is a universal
emotion, dening it as a “future-directed, four-channel emotion network, con-
structed from biological, psychological, and social resources” (Scioli and Biller
2009, p.30). These four channels include mastery, attachment, survival, and spiri-
tual subsystems that operate in semiautonomous fashion at ve different levels in
the life of every human person: (1) hope blueprints, which are “biologically based
motives relating to mastery, attachment, and survival,” (2) nature and nurture, con-
sisting of “natural endowments and early nurturing experiences,” (3) the hopeful
core, including different “kinds of personality dispositions or traits” which emanate
from the four-channel emotion network producing goal-related trust, mediated con-
trol, relational trust, self-other bonds, survival-oriented trust, terror management,
spiritual integrity, and symbolic immortality, (4) the faith system, growing “from
the seeds of trust, mediated control, and self-other bonds”, and (5) beliefs and
behaviors, which are “the manifestations or exterior signs of hope” (Scioli and
Biller 2009, pp.32–38). Scioli and Biller (2009, pp.41–47) locate the origin of hope
in the evolution of man, arguing that the construction of hope developed progres-
sively, from 6,000,000years ago when the rst species possessed the pre- adaptations
of hope until 2500years ago when the grand religious, spiritual, and philosophical
systems of the ancients originated. By that time, a form of brain reorganization had
occurred that affected the mastery, attachment, and survival systems. According to
Scioli and Biller (2009, p.32), “there is overwhelming evidence that certain brain
structures and pathways are primarily associated with these motives,” pointing to,
inter alia, the frontal lobes that allow “for mastery-associated initiative and plan-
ning,” parts of the right hemisphere, the hormone oxytocin, and the amygdala that
allow for “the biology of attachment”, and the immune system as well as a complex
set of reexes and the stress-related “ght or ight response” that allow for our
survival system.
Finally, Rebekka Klein (2011) described the sociality of the human condition.
Acknowledging competing viewpoints in the study of anthropology, Klein (2011,
p.305) refrains from doing interdisciplinary study of anthropology as “[t]he trans-
disciplinary way of gaining knowledge is rooted in the false premise that there is
only one correct interpretation of human behaviour, and the best way to nd this
interpretation is to unify scientic methods and modes.”6 Instead, she prefers to give
primacy to philosophical anthropology by using a phenomenological method of
multi-perspectivism that allows observers to describe objects from their own limited
perspective. As Klein (2011, pp.1–2) explains,
Phenomenological criticism is based on the intuition that the unique characteristics of an
object of description show themselves precisely in the object’s appearance, in its phenom-
enality to the observer. This applies to experiences in the lifeworld [Lebenswelt] as well as
to the scientic analysis of an object. As a phenomenon, therefore, an object can never be
described independently of the modality of its observation or description. Consequently,
there can also be no perspective-free representation of the object in a phenomenological
analysis that reduces the various aspects of its appearance to a single, supposedly more
6 Italics in original.
P. Nullens and J. van Nes
19
objective or more fundamental view. The multitude of appearances of an object is resistant
to further analysis and cannot be resolved by interdisciplinary discourse or otherwise.
Rather, it is the basic phenomenological task of an inter-disciplinary study to bring its indi-
vidual perspectives to a point where they acknowledge that their representations are limited,
and that they need to be supplemented with other perspectives regarding the phenomenality
of their object.
So, Klein (2011, p. 3) urges that we should not seek to answer the question
“What is a human being?” by means of empirical methods, but rather initiate a
philosophical human self-inquiry by asking “What is human about human beings
and their sociality?” She answers this question by offering a wide range of eco-
nomic, philosophical, and theological perspectives (Klein 2011, pp.27–301). She
nds that human sociality is not found in the difference between human and animal
sociality but in the every-day interactivity between human beings through which the
humanity (and inhumanity) of human beings is displayed. Because the interactive
relationship between human beings is vulnerable and critical, any description of
human sociality should acknowledge the ambivalence in terms of “altruism/egoism,
reconciliation/hostility, recognition/disrespect, responsibility for/negation of the
other” (Klein 2011, p.307). This anthropological tension is, in fact, acknowledged
in theological perspectives, and described in terms of the old and new existence.
From the perspective that God is present in the world, the old existence is replaced
by the new existence. This entails that human beings become “a neighbour, ‘a next
one’ to God,” which makes it possible to explicate “the difference between the
humanity and inhumanity of human social life” (Klein 2011, p.307).
While using different methodologies, Wildman (2009), Scioli and Biller (2009),
and Klein (2011) nd respectively that we are questing, expecting, and relational
beings. In terms of method, Klein’s phenomenological analysis and theory of multi-
perspectivity allow for the complementarity of these three anthropological accounts.
While the interrelationship of faith, hope, and love deserves future study, Scioli and
Biller (2009) have indicated that faith is inspired by hope, and Wildman (2009)
argued that love is inspired by faith. This aligns with the notion of Franz Foltz and
Frederick Foltz (2018, p. 67) that “[f]aith and hope inform and inspire love.”
Supposing that the virtues of faith, hope, and love are somehow interconnected, we
propose to invoke the holistic anthropological concept of Homo amans as a pre-
scriptive category referring to man as a questing, expecting, and relational being.
Unlike Mill’s version of Homo economicus, the idea of Homo amans is inspired by
ancient wisdom that aligns with contemporary scholarship and allows for three of
our basic desires: (1) to quest for meaning (faith), (2) to project our desires onto the
future (hope), and (3) to relate to other human beings (love):
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Homo
Amans
Love
Faith Hope
Expecting
2.4 “The Greatest ofThese is Love”: Exploring
Human Relationality
Given the supremacy of love over faith and hope, the remainder of this chapter
focuses specically on our most important virtue. Love is a universal concept. It is
present in all world religions (Greenberg 2008, p. xxiii). In the Qu’ran, for example,
God is always spoken of as Al-Rahman (“the Compassionate One”) and Al-Rahin
(“the Merciful One”). Love as an ethics of reciprocity is expressed in the so-called
golden rule “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” which has uni-
versal support in virtually all societies (Hertzler 1934). Yet this does not mean that
love is understood everywhere in the same way. The ancient Greeks, for example,
distinguished between eros, philia, and agape. It is often said that these concepts
referred to sexual, brotherly, and divine love respectively (e.g. Nygren 1969;
Greenberg 2008, p. xxiii), but this does not nd support in all ancient sources (Silva
2014a, p.112, 2014b, p.606): eros is associated with good things, virtues, persever-
ance and temperance, peace, truth, wisdom, heavenly, divine, and even the source of
all virtue (e.g. Philo, Leg. 2.55,80,83; Somn. 2.40; Spec. 2.258; Virt. 1.55,62); philia
is used in reference to political alliances (e.g. Josephus, Ant. 7.66; 12.154), seduc-
tion (e.g. Sir. 9.8), and the divine-human relationship (John 5:20, 16:27; Philo, Fug.
58; Cont. 90); and agape connotes sexual love (e.g. Prov. 2:4–7).
Semantic ambiguity in the vocabulary of love exposes the need for a sound de-
nition. Yet as Edward Vacek (1994, p.34) observed, “most philosophical and theo-
logical writing, when it speaks of ‘love’, does not analyze what love is, but rather
assumes that it has an evident meaning.” Vincent Brümmer (1993, pp. 39–146),
being one of the exceptions, distinguishes ve attitudinal forms of love, three of
which are directed towards beloved persons (exclusive attention, ecstatic union, and
passionate suffering) and two of which are directed towards persons in general
(need-love and gift-love). Brümmer himself concludes that love is a relationship
more than an attitude, arguing that all ve attitudinal forms of love are somehow
involved in this relationship. The relational nature of love is also reected in the
denition given by Thomas Oord (2010, p.15): “To love is to act intentionally, in
P. Nullens and J. van Nes
21
sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being.” Or,
in other words, “loving actions are inuenced by the previous actions of others,
oneself, and God, and these actions are purposefully executed in the hope of encour-
aging ourishing” (Oord 2010, p.15).
Not everyone will agree with Oord’s denition. Evolutionary biologists will
probably refer to Richard Dawkins’ inuential thesis (2016, p.3) that we are blind
to our motives because our genes are essentially selsh as they are “programmed”
for reproduction:
[W]e, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. … [A] predominant quality
to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selshness. This gene selshness will usually
give rise to selshness in individual behavior. However, … there are special circumstances
in which a gene can achieve its own selsh goals by fostering a limited form of altruism at
the level of individual animals. […] Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal
love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolu-
tionary sense.
In other words, someone cannot act for the well-being of others without some
form of selsh motivation or genetic programming for personal benet. This makes
the intentional act of love and common aim for well-being questionable. Dawkins’
theory, however, is not immune to criticism (McGrath 2007). Even our day-to-day
experience of people acting benevolently towards others without receiving anything
in return challenges Dawkins’ theory. This is why Edward Wilson (1975, p.3) once
considered altruism “the central theoretical problem of sociobiology”, asking
“how … altruism, which by denition reduces personal tness, [can] possibly
evolve by natural selection.” One solution that has been proposed is that helping
others has personal benets in the end as it helps a species to survive. As Samuel
Bowles and Herbert Gintis (2011, p.1) explain, “people cooperate not only for self-
interested reasons but also because they are genuinely concerned with the well-
being of others, try to uphold social norms, and value behaving ethically for its own
sake” on the basis that “our ancestors lived in environments … in which groups of
individuals who were predisposed to cooperate and uphold ethical norms tended to
survive and expand relative to other groups.”
For Paul Seabright (2010), this new perspective on human evolution implies that
we are cognitively and temperamentally adapted to intimate world cooperation. In
the Holocene period, which started about 12,000years ago, human life became less
mobile and was based more on farming. People started to live in less intimate
worlds, culminating in more complex social worlds of large-scale states and cities.
How did minds, customs, and social technologies adapted to these intimate worlds
support cooperation? If humans were to thrive in a more densely populated environ-
ment, the circle of cooperation would somehow have to be enlarged. This is how
trust in non-intimates became a major issue. The prot in cooperating was depen-
dent on the trustworthiness of others. This makes Seabright wonder how the human
species made the transition some 12,000years ago from “murder that stranger” to
“smile at that stranger.” Paul Frijters and Gigi Foster (2013) afrm that love is a
product of evolution in accordance with elementary desires and basic mental pro-
cesses, but they also think that this was not a conscious decision. In fact, Frijters and
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22
Foster (2013, p.88) believe that love is ultimately ego-centric, since the uncon-
scious is prone to believe in reciprocity and thus will “implicitly believe that the
entity to which [it is] giving [its] love will reciprocate.”
Amidst the confusion about our selsh, cooperative, and altruistic behavior, evo-
lutionary psychologist Dennis Krebs (2012, p.36) helpfully distinguishes between
two types of altruism– “one dened in terms of the consequences of helping behav-
iors, and the other in terms of the motives and intentions of those who help others.”
He thinks the former type is biologically selsh, while the latter is not. This makes
us partly selsh and partly altruistic by nature. Evidence for the latter was initially
provided by social psychologists in the 1970s and 1980s. As Jane Allyn Piliavin and
Hong-Wen Charng (1990, p.27) noted in their literature review of 1990, the “theory
and data now being advanced are more compatible with the view that true altruism–
acting with the goal of benetting another – does exist and is a part of human
nature.” More recently, the ndings of neurologists seem to support this conclusion
(e.g. Eisenberger 2013; Vrtička 2017). Donald Pfaff (2015) outlined his altruistic
brain theory, explaining how neurons in our prefrontal cortex are naturally inclined
to make us behave altruistically. For Pfaff (2015, p.10), “the guiding principle of a
healthy human brain is ‘First act morally, then ask why’.” If people are basically
good, he argues, empathy and trust are of enormous practical utility since they are
crucial to all sorts of relationships in private and public life. Trust is encouraged by
good behavior and this in turn encourages team spirit, as people are willing to rely
on each other. When all members of a group hold each other in high regard, their
cooperation will produce a positive outcome. Pfaff offers a piece of advice to soci-
ety on the basis of his altruistic brain theory: remove all obstacles to leadership by
women, because “[w]omen’s hormones, such as estrogen and oxytocin operating on
circuits in the female brain, together with the neural systems they affect, foster pro-
social attitudes and good behavior” (Pfaff 2015, p.264).
For at least three reasons, Pfaff’s work is of great signicance for economic
theory and practice, especially leadership studies. First, it accredits the shift from
transactional to (authentic) transformational leadership as being partly motivated by
a growing number of behavior studies showing that interest in others motivates us
more than self-interest (Bass and Steidlmeier 1999). Second, altruistic leadership
theories, such as Servant Leadership (Greenleaf 2002), Responsible Leadership
(Pless and Maak 2012) and Spiritual Leadership (Fry 2003), are encouraged to use
the notion of trust in rethinking the critical relation between self-love and other-love
in terms of cooperation. By way of example, Geoff Moore (2017) recently pro-
moted virtuous leadership in companies and organizations. Distinguishing between
internal goods (“goods which we should pursue for their own sake”, e.g. love) and
external goods (“[goods] which we should pursue for the sake of some other good,”
e.g. economic success), Moore (2017, p.59) argues that managers have a specic
role to play in upholding the tension between both types of goods in order to estab-
lish cooperation between employers and employees. Third, Pfaff’s work aligns with
McCloskey’s notion that love is a feminine virtue. Its ndings afrm the importance
of moral exemplars, in particular women, because they spark prosocial behavior. As
James Van Slyke (2014, p.476) notes:
P. Nullens and J. van Nes
23
Moral exemplars are persons whose appraisal systems are uniquely attuned to the moral life
and are able to know the correct moral action based on intuitive processes running in paral-
lel and linked with other types of evaluation. Over time, these evaluations produce good
moral actions that require less and less conscious deliberation and become dispositions
towards right moral action. These dispositions become the basis of moral character and
generate consistency and reliability in moral action.
Because moral exemplars embody love on a regular and consistent basis, we
normally want to imitate them. Thomas Oord (2013, p.187) suggested that, after
determining what criteria should be used, a research program be undertaken to com-
pare the neural systems of moral exemplars with people who did not develop loving
characters. In such a program, it would also be interesting to examine if it would
make any difference to the results if the (non-)moral exemplars were religious or
not. One would expect confessing believers as imitators of their superior moral
exemplars (e.g. Jesus, Buddha) to show a more loving character, but the current
state of the art cannot conrm that there is a positive correlation between altruism
and religion (Habito and Inaba 2008, pp.4–5).
Our natural inclination to do good, and the very existence of exemplars that
embody, inter alia, the virtue of love, raises the question of what factors make peo-
ple develop into such exemplars. Focusing on moral development in early child-
hood, Robert Emde (2016) assumes virtues to be universal, social, emotion-motivated,
polar, and developing over time. Because human behavioral development involves
necessary adaptive exchanges within the environment, it must be considered in both
its biological and sociocultural context, i.e. “not only from the perspective of conti-
nuity, but from the perspective of transformational change; not only from the per-
spective of successful adaptation and health, but from the perspective of unsuccessful
adaptation and disorder” (Emde 2016, p.71). Key to the formation of the social self
in early childhood, according to Emde, are (1) reciprocity (e.g. turn-taking, fair-
ness), (2) empathy (e.g. emotional communication, compassion), and (3) valuation
(e.g. the internalization of rules and standards). Each of these dimensions should be
supported by parental regulation in order to prevent the moral development of
infants from going awry. With regards to this possibility, Emde (2016, p.83) stresses
that future study is needed on why morally virtuous people, at any age, turn “to what
most would see as the dark side, and what overcomes such turnings” as well as “the
prevention of derailment of individual pathways to what most in a society would
consider virtuous.”
Emde’s study exposes our current ignorance about the specics of the social
circumstances that help people maintain virtue, including love. This applies not
only to people of different age-groups, such as children, teenagers, adults, the
elderly, etc., but also to people acting in different contexts, such as home, school,
work, etc. While Emde stressed the importance of parents acting reciprocally, empa-
thetically, and evaluatively at home in order to encourage virtuous living among
their children, Lans Bovenberg (2016) in his inaugural lecture at Tilburg University
some years ago argued that education informed by a relational anthropology will
create more awareness of citizenship among teenagers. According to Bovenberg,
economics is not only about earning money but also about building relationships.
2 Towards aRelational Anthropology Fostering anEconomics ofHuman Flourishing
24
He stresses the importance of nding the right balance in serving one’s own needs
and those of others. While people will always make mistakes in this process, the
overall purpose should be to cooperate in a reciprocal way that eventually gives the
best result for all stakeholders involved. In terms of work, Stephen Post and Jill
Neimark (2007) encourage organizations to foster a “positive hierarchy,” where an
ethos of service emanates from the top down and reciprocal behavior is expected,
exhorted, acknowledged, and rewarded. These are just examples of how moral
development can be supported in the contexts of home, school, and work, but it is to
be expected that many more could be discovered for similar and other contexts. One
could question, for example, whether companies should offer bonuses to reward
their employees for their prot making or their (reciprocal) behavior.
A nal thought concerns the future of human relationality in an age of technol-
ogy. According to Foltz and Foltz (2018, p.128), the technical revolution reduces
loving actions to rational processes and single operations. Yuval Noah Harari (2016,
p.388) warns about dataism that only appraises “the value of human experiences
according to their function in data-processing mechanisms.” While not necessarily
due to technological developments, a 2006 report from the American Sociology
Review (McPherson etal. 2006) showed that the number of friends for the average
American over the period 1985–2004 dropped from 4 to 2. The number of digital
friends via networks such as Facebook will have increased, but this is not without
negative psychological and relational experiences (Fox and Moreland 2015). These
are only some examples of how technology could have negative effects on human
relationality, but there are also examples of positive use of technology in this regard.
Social neuroscientists, for example, have developed compassion training programs
for people lacking empathy, one of which trains people to have more compassion by
means of, inter alia, simulated video games (Leiberg etal. 2011).
2.5 Discussion
A growing body of evidence across various academic disciplines shows that human
beings do not behave in an exclusively selsh way. This means that the concept of
Homo economicus is in need of serious modication. By way of suggestion, we
have introduced the concept of Homo amans– a holistic anthropological model that
is phenomenologically constituted by the virtues of faith, hope, and love and refers
to man as a questing, expecting, and relational being who wants to foster human
ourishing. Whether or not Homo amans could serve in the future as a complemen-
tary model to Homo economicus remains to be seen, because several aspects of
human relationality in relation to contemporary economics are contested and in
need of future study. The following questions might shape a future multidisciplinary
dialogue on relational anthropology:
1. How is love best dened, and how does it relate to other virtues in general, as
well as faith and hope in particular?
P. Nullens and J. van Nes
25
2. Are we naturally predisposed to love, and if so, how does this generate trust?
3. Is there any connection between trust and the virtues of faith, hope, and love, and
if so, how are they interconnected?
4. How can the virtue of love develop over a person’s life-time, and what factors
encourage people to promote well-being in the contexts of home, school,
and work?
5. Which areas of the neural system are required to facilitate a person acting inten-
tionally to promote overall well-being?
6. Does gender make any difference to the promotion of well-being in companies
and organizations?
7. How is love understood inter-culturally and inter-religiously in relation to global
economics?
8. How can technology damage and stimulate human relationality in the future?
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Chapter 3
Natural Goodness
DennisL.Krebs
Abstract Although the theory of evolution might seem to imply that all animals
must be selsh by nature, this is not the case because social animals can propagate
their selsh genes in psychologically unselsh ways. To understand the moral
aspect of human nature, we must understand the adaptive functions that moral traits
served in early human environments. I argue that the central function of morality is
to uphold adaptive systems of cooperation. Even though some cooperative strate-
gies are susceptible to exploitation by selsh strategies, there are several ways in
which the kind of cooperative behavioral strategies that people consider moral can
evolve. Primitive psychological sources of moral behavior, such as moral emotions,
and advanced sources, such as perspective-taking and moral reasoning, evolve and
develop throughout the life span in a Russian Doll manner. Although the original
function of perspective-taking and moral reasoning may have been to help early
humans advance their interests in strategic social interactions, these processes may
now motivate people to behave in moral ways. We are evolved to be as good as our
early ancestors had to be to reap the benets of sociality and cooperation.
3.1 Introduction
Some eminent evolutionary biologists have asserted that, on the laws of evolution,
all animals must be selsh by nature. For example, George Williams (1989) wrote,
“there is no encouragement for any belief that an organism can be designed for any
purpose other than the most effective pursuit of … self-interest…. [because] evolu-
tion is guided by a force that maximizes genetic selshness” (pp.195–6). In a simi-
lar vein, in The Selsh Gene, Dawkins (1989) asserted, “‘Nature red in tooth and
claw’ sums up our modern understanding of natural selection admirably…. Much as
we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and welfare of the species as a
whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense .… Be warned that
D. L. Krebs (*)
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
e-mail: dennis_krebs@sfu.ca
32
if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and
unselshly toward a common good, you can expect little help from biological
nature” (pp.3–4).
Claims such as these stem from the assumption that it is appropriate to character-
ize those who win “survival of the ttest” contests as selsh because they propagate
their genes at the expense of those against whom they are competing. It would seem
that a mutation that disposed an animal to sacrice its prospects of surviving and
reproducing for the sake of others would not fare well in the process of natural
selection. For this reason, so the argument goes, on the laws of evolution, all ani-
mals must be selsh by nature.
There is, however, an obvious problem with this conclusion, namely that many
animals appear to behave in unselsh ways. Members of many species make sacri-
ces for their offspring and other relatives. Members of some species join forces to
kill prey, and members of other species help one another avoid predators, by for
example emitting alarm calls. Many animals collaborate in the building of shelters,
dams, and tunnels. Although most people assume that we are the only– or at least
the most– altruistic species, we do not even come close to the sacrices that many
social insect species make for their groups. Ants, bees, and termites spend virtually
all of their lives gathering food for others, and they willingly sacrice their lives to
defend their colonies.
If biologists such as George Williams and Richard Dawkins were correct in
asserting that all traits that evolve through natural selection must be selsh, then
evidence that animals behave in altruistic and cooperative ways would constitute a
serious challenge to the theory of evolution. Charles Darwin was aware of this chal-
lenge, acknowledging that the self-sacricial altruism of social insects presented
“one special difculty, which at rst seemed insuperable, and actually fatal to my
whole theory.” In a similar vein, Williams (1989) asked, “how could maximizing
selshness produce an organism capable of often advocating, and occasionally
practicing, charity toward strangers and even towards animals” (p.208)?
One of the ways in which skeptical evolutionary theorists have accounted for
seemingly altruistic behaviors will seem familiar to many– they have attributed it
to social learning and cultural indoctrination. As expressed by Dawkins (1989), “let
us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selsh…. Our genes
may instruct us to be selsh, but we are not necessarily compelled to obey them all
our lives” (p.3). Or, as expressed by Campbell (1978), “in man, genetic competition
precludes the evolution of … genetic altruism. The behavioral dispositions that pro-
duce … self-sacricial altruism must instead be products of culturally evolved
indoctrination that has had to counter self-serving genetic tendencies.” According to
Campbell, an important implication of this point is that “man is profoundly ambiva-
lent in his social role– as Freud noted…. The commandments, the proverbs, the
religious ‘law’ represent social evolutionary products directed at inculcating ten-
dencies that are in direct opposition to the ‘temptations’ representing, for the most
part, the dispositional tendencies produced by biological evolution” (pp. 52–3).
Campbell and Dawkins are endorsing Original Sin-type models of human nature.
Many people nd such models appealing: we are born bad, but we can learn to
be good.
D. L. Krebs
33
There is no question that skeptical evolutionary theorists are correct when they
assert that we are evolved to behave in sinful, selsh, and immoral ways, and there
is no question that they are correct when they assert that we can be taught to be
good. However, this is just half the story. We also are evolved to behave in unselsh
and moral ways, and we can learn to be bad. In essence, Original Sin models pit
nature against nurture, biology against culture, biological evolution against cultural
evolution, and genes against environments. However, biology and culture can work
together to produce moral traits. I believe that the evidence supports the conclusion
that mental mechanisms that dispose us to behave in ways that we consider altruis-
tic, fair, and moral can evolve and have evolved in our species (and in some other
species as well) (Krebs 2011). We inherit a capacity to be good. This does not mean
that we are entirely good by nature. We are evolved to be good and bad, moral and
immoral, virtuous and vicious, depending on the conditions.
3.2 The Nature ofSelshness andAltruism
The rst step in explaining how a capacity to be good could evolve is to recognize
that genetic selshness is quite different from the kind of selshness that we con-
sider bad. The kind of selshness that is relevant to morality does not pertain to the
propagation of genes; it pertains to the motives of individuals. Several social scien-
tists have pointed out that a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding about
human nature has been fomented by scholars who fail to recognize that biologists
dene selshness and altruism in qualitatively different ways from the ways in
which psychologists and laypeople dene these constructs. For example, in response
to an assertion by Richard Dawkins that genes that rendered horses susceptible to
developing bad teeth and genes that disposed humans to smoke cigarettes would
qualify as altruistic if they reduced individuals’ prospects of surviving and repro-
ducing, Batson (2000) wrote, “most people interested in the existence of altruism
are not thinking about bad teeth in horses or smoking cigarettes; they are thinking
about psychological altruism” (p.208). In a related vein, Sober and Wilson (2000)
pointed out that “the automatic assumption that individualism [i.e., selshness] in
evolutionary biology and egoism in the social sciences must reinforce each other is
as common as it is mistaken. More care is needed to connect the behaviors that
evolved … with the psychological mechanisms that evolved to motivate those
behaviors” (p. 205). Expanding on this point, De Waal (2008) explained that
although evolutionary accounts of altruism are “built around the principle that all
that natural selection can work with are the effects of behavior, not the motivation
behind it,” they persist in invoking motivational terms:
The hijacking of motivational terminology by evolutionary biologists has been unhelpful
for communication about motivation per se…. It is not for nothing that biologists hammer
on the distinction between ultimate and proximate ….ultimate accounts stress return-
benets, i.e., positive consequences for the performer and/or its kin. Inasmuch as these
benets may be quite delayed, however, it is unclear what motivational role, if any, they
play (pp.280–1).
3 Natural Goodness
34
Whether selsh individuals who seek to obtain benets for themselves without
due regard for others fare better biologically and contribute more copies of their
genes to future generations than those who behave in more moral ways is an open
question. They might, or they might not. There is nothing in the process of natural
selection that dictates that individuals who are motivated to behave in ways that we
consider bad will prevail in the struggle for existence. Psychologically altruistic
individuals motivated to help others as an end in itself, and moral individuals moti-
vated to benet themselves and others in fair and equitable ways, could be more
likely to survive, to produce offspring, and to propagate their genes than individuals
who are motivated to advance their own interests without concern for others.
Altruistic motives could produce biologically benecial results. People who genu-
inely want to help others could fare better biologically than people who are con-
cerned only with themselves. The assumption that all evolved dispositions are
selsh is valid only with respect to genetic forms of selshness in the environments
in which they were selected. Inasmuch as moral traits can be genetically selsh (i.e.,
can increase the biological success of those who emit them), they can evolve.
The question that those who are concerned with human nature should be asking
is how psychologically selsh strategies, dened in terms of the motivation to
advance one’s own welfare without concern for others, fared against psychologi-
cally unselsh strategies in helping early humans propagate their genes (that is to
say, achieve genetically selsh effects). Which strategies were selected and evolved
to become part of human nature? Did those who were motivated to cooperate,
behave fairly, and help others contribute more copies of their genes to future genera-
tions than those who were motivated to look out only for themselves?
3.3 The Evolution ofSocial Strategies
Imagine members of early human groups faced with recurring decisions about
whether to behave in selsh or unselsh ways. Evolutionary theorists assume that
such choices are guided by genetically inuenced strategies, and they seek to under-
stand which strategies produced the most adaptive decisions in early human envi-
ronments and, therefore, which ones evolved. Although the genes that program
evolved strategies were selected hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years ago,
evolutionary theorists expect them to guide strategic decision making in modern
environments in conditions corresponding to those that regulated them in archaic
environments.
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3.3.1 The Adaptive Potential inCooperative Strategies
It is easy to see how animals could advance their adaptive interests more effectively
by adopting cooperative social strategies than by adopting solitary or selsh strate-
gies. Examples abound in the animal kingdom. We can safely assume that early
humans were poorly equipped to survive on their own. A solitary human with small
teeth, ngernail claws, devoid of fur to keep warm, and relatively slow afoot would
not have lasted long in early environments, just as modern humans would not last
long by themselves in the wild today. Although our distant primate ancestors pos-
sessed killer ape traits such as large canine teeth and claws, these traits diminished
as we evolved because early humans acquired adaptations that enabled them to
solve their adaptive problems more effectively in social ways. As expressed by
Curry (2016), “humans descended from a long line of social primates; they have
spent 50 million years living in social groups…. and two million years making a
living as intensely collaborative hunter-gatherers. This has equipped humans with a
range of biological– including psychological– adaptations for cooperation” (p.29).
It is easy to see how early humans who inherited genes that induced them to join
forces to kill large game and defend their groups, to collaborate in the construction
of shelters, to help one another when they were in need, and to coordinate their
efforts to mate and rear offspring could have fared better than early humans who
inherited genes that induced them to behave in more selsh and immoral ways
(Ellis 1998).
There is untold adaptive potential in cooperative social strategies in modern soci-
eties. If everyone did his or her share, we would produce signicantly more resources
than we currently produce, and if everyone took his or her share, we would not have
to waste energy competing for them. If no one were disposed to cheat, we wouldn’t
have to waste resources on crime prevention and the punishment of criminals.
Everyone would benet. So, in view of the tremendous adaptive potential in coop-
eration, why aren’t we more cooperative and moral?
3.3.2 Obstacles totheEvolution ofCooperation: TheAdaptive
Potential inSelsh Strategies
The reason that unconditionally cooperative (purely moral) strategies have not
evolved in the human species is because it is in the biological and genetic interest of
individuals to maximize their gains and to minimize their costs in exchanges with
others, and this creates the temptation to behave selshly and cheat. As expressed
by Rawls (1999) in the opening pages of his classic book, A Theory of Justice:
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Although a society is a cooperative venture for mutual advantage, it is typically marked by
a conict as well as by an identity of interests. There is an identity of interests since social
cooperation makes possible a better life for all than any would have if each were to live
solely by his own efforts. There is a conict of interests since persons are not indifferent as
to how the greater benets produced by their collaboration are distributed, for in order to
pursue their ends they each prefer a larger to a lesser share (p.4).
Conicts of interest give rise to moral problems because they tempt us to advance
our interests at the expense of others, which undermines cooperative social orders.
In the words of Alexander (1985), “if there were not conicts of interest among
people and societies it is difcult to see how concepts of right and wrong, ethics and
morality, and selshness and altruism could ever have arisen.” Alexander argues
that to understand conicts of interest fully, we must trace them back to their bio-
logical core: “The interests of every individual human (i.e., the directions of its
striving) are expected to be toward ensuring the indenite survival of its genes and
their copies, whether these are resident in the individual, its descendants, or its col-
lateral relatives” (p.3).
Conicts of interest present obstacles to the evolution of cooperative and fair
strategies. For example, it would have been in the interest of early humans who col-
laborated in hunting large game and defending themselves against predators to con-
serve their energy, position themselves in ways that diminished their chances of
getting injured, let others do the dirty work, and take the lion’s share of the spoils.
Such cheating is prevalent in the animal kingdom and among modern humans in
some situations.
The biological benets of strategies inducing individuals to behave in coopera-
tive and moral ways hinge on them interacting with other individuals who behave in
cooperative and moral ways. The problem is, within populations of individuals
inheriting genes that induce them to behave in unconditionally cooperative ways,
some individuals inevitably would inherit genes that disposed them to behave in
more selsh ways, and unfortunately, unless counteracted effectively, the selsh
individuals would come out ahead. The bad guys would take what that the good
guys were willing to offer without suffering the costs of giving in return, and the
good guys would suffer the costs of giving to the bad guys without reaping the ben-
ets of receiving in return. In the currency of evolution, the selsh individuals
would be more likely than the cooperative individuals to survive and propagate self-
ish offspring like themselves, who would be more likely to propagate additional
selsh offspring, and so on, causing an exponential explosion of selsh individuals
in the population. It follows that strategies that induce individuals to behave in
unconditionally cooperative and moral ways are doomed to extinction in groups
containing individuals who are willing and able to exploit cooperative individuals
by behaving in selsh ways. The only population in which unconditionally coopera-
tive strategies could evolve would be one in which there were no genetic conicts of
interest, such as in a population of clones. In sexually reproducing species such as
our own, pure goodness is out of the question.
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3.3.3 The Ultimate Irony: Self-Defeating Selshness
In view of the adaptive superiority of social strategies that induce individuals to
behave in selsh ways when competing against strategies that induce them to behave
in unconditionally cooperative ways, it might seem that selsh strategies would win
all evolutionary contests, rendering all species selsh by nature, as skeptical evolu-
tionary theorists, such as those I quoted above, have claimed. Fortunately, however,
this is not the case. Even though strategies that induce individuals to behave in self-
ish ways can evolve and have evolved in many species, including our own, uncon-
ditionally selsh strategies are not optimal in social species that need, or can benet
from, assistance from others. Brown (1984) eloquently explained why.
Imagining a group of cooperative Christian birds dependent for their survival on
being groomed by other birds, Brown (1984) considered the ultimate effect of a
mutant cheater who reaped the benets of being groomed without suffering the
costs of grooming others in return. As discussed, the cheater would fare better than
the cooperative members of the group, propagating offspring who inherited his or
her cheating ways, and so on, until the selsh cheaters replaced all of the Christian
cooperators. However, Brown points out that this would usher in a tragically self-
defeating consequence for the selsh cheaters, because “once grooming birds had
become extinct, so eventually would cheaters; one imagines a pathetic nal act in
which all birds on the stage present to one another heads that none will groom”
(Brown 1984). Although it might have been in the biological interest of members of
early human groups that collaborated in activities such as hunting prey and defend-
ing themselves against predators to do less than their share and take more than their
share under some circumstances, this strategy would not have paid off if other mem-
bers also adopted it or if they got punished for shirking their duties.
The evolution of unconditionally selsh and immoral strategies would be an
unmitigated disaster in the human species. No one would help anyone. Everyone
would try to cheat everyone else. Unconditional selshness would inevitably do
everyone down because in social species in which individuals are dependent on one
another for their welfare, those on whom they are dependent– whether marital part-
ners, friends, or members of their groups– are resources that it is in their interest to
preserve and cultivate. Helping those on whom your welfare is dependent is like
cultivating resources such as gardens, orchards, and domesticated animals that you
can use to advance your welfare down the line. Investing in your group is like invest-
ing in public goods such as the common grazing land described by Garrett Hardin
in The Tragedy of the Commons. Failing to support those on whom you are depen-
dent is like letting your resources go to waste. As expressed by Flack and de
Waal (2000):
Inasmuch as every member [of a group] benets from a unied, cooperative group, one
expects them to care about the society they live in, and to make an effort to improve and
strengthen it similar to the way the spider repairs her web, and the beaver maintains the
integrity of his dam. Each and every individual has a stake in the quality of the social envi-
ronment on which its survival depends. In trying to improve this quality for their own pur-
poses, they help many of their group mates at the same time (p.14).
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To summarize, we would expect individuals who inherited genes that disposed
them to adopt cooperative moral strategies to fare better than individuals who inher-
ited genes that disposed them to adopt selsh immoral strategies as long as the good
guys interacted with other good guys and the bad guys interacted with other bad
guys. In addition, we would expect cooperative groups to prevail in competitions
against selsh groups– a phenomenon that some theorists believe played a very
important role in the evolution of morality. However, within mixed groups, we
would expect selsh strategists who exploit cooperative strategists to come out
ahead, but only temporarily. If selsh strategists ran cooperative strategists into the
ground, they would destroy the resources they needed to advance their welfare,
leaving them with no choice but to go it alone or to interact with one another. The
solution to this problem– the way in which natural selection solved the problem of
selshness – is to build conditions into cooperative strategies that induce co-
operators to interact with co-operators and guard against being exploited by those
who are prone to behave selshly.
3.3.4 Resolving theConundrum ofCooperation:
TheEvolution ofConditional Strategies
Evolutionary game theorists have created computer-based simulations of social
evolution in which they have pitted a variety of social strategies against one another.
In these contests, points equate to replicas, or genetic clones, of winning strategies.
The better each strategy does against the other strategies against which it competes,
the more copies of itself it contributes to future generations, and the more copies of
defeated strategies it knocks out of the population.
“Behave selshly” is a powerful social strategy– probably the most primitive of
all. It doesn’t require much brainpower. It is uncomplicated, and it is a daunting foe
in social games. One on one, it can’t be beaten in single exchanges; the best that
other strategies can do is tie it. Pitted against cooperative strategies, behaving self-
ishly always wins the initial exchange. In one-shot interactions, the best you can do
against a selsh opponent is make a selsh move yourself, and tie. For reasons such
as these, many evolutionary game theorists assumed that there were no strategies
that could defeat purely selsh strategies (and therefore that all animals were selsh
by nature), but this changed when some game theorists found that a simple condi-
tionally cooperative strategy, Tit for Tat, could prevail over more selsh strategies in
repeated games and evolve under certain conditions.
Tit for Tat contains the decision-rule “on the initial exchange with other players,
make a cooperative move, then on the following exchanges, treat them the way they
treated you.” “If your partner is nice to you, be nice back, but if your partner treats
you selshly, treat him or her selshly in return.” This decision-rule directs players
to make a cooperative overture to potential exchange partners and follow it up by
reciprocating their decisions. Although the Tit for Tat strategy renders individuals
D. L. Krebs
39
vulnerable to being suckered on the rst exchange (causing them to lose to selsh
strategies one-on-on), Tit for Tat induces players to cut their losses quickly against
those who exploit them, while reaping the benets of cooperative exchanges with
those who treat them right. Tit for Tat can be considered a somewhat moral strategy
because it induces individuals to behave altruistically on the rst exchange and
fairly (quid pro quo) on subsequent exchanges. However, Tit for Tat would not be
considered a highly moral strategy by people who believe it is right to forgive those
who trespass against us, because Tit for Tat induces people to get even with those
who treat them selshly. In one of the rst computer-based simulations of the evolu-
tion of social strategies, run by Robert Axelrod and his colleagues at the Institute of
Public Policy Studies, University of Michigan in collaboration with the late William
Hamilton, from Oxford University, Tit for Tat came out on top, defeating all other
strategies against which it competed, including a purely selsh strategy called “All
D” (always defect). This outcome excited many evolutionary theorists because it
demonstrated that at least one cooperative strategy could defeat purely selsh strate-
gies and evolve, which implied that we could inherit a capacity to behave in moral
ways (Axelrod and Hamilton 1981).
At rst, it seemed that Tit for Tat would reign supreme over all other strategies.
However, follow-up studies revealed that this was not the case. As you might expect,
Tit for Tat did well in populations replete with cooperative strategies; however, it
did poorly in populations replete with selsh strategies. In addition to being vulner-
able to exploitation on the rst exchange, the Tit for Tat strategy was susceptible to
getting locked into mutually defeating selsh-selsh exchanges. Let’s say, for
example, that two Tit for Tat strategists are happily enjoying the benets of coopera-
tive exchanges, but one of them makes a mistake or behaves selshly in a moment
of weakness. Obeying the Tit for Tat decision-rule, the other player returns selsh-
ness with selshness, which induces the rst player to behave selshly, giving rise
to an endless string of self-defeating exchanges– a blood feud. Game theorists came
to discover that conditionally cooperative strategies that enable players to break out
of such self-defeating exchanges without opening themselves up to ongoing exploi-
tation– strategies such as “Generous Tit for Tat” and “Tit for two Tats” – could
defeat Tit for Tat. A hopeful aspect of these ndings is that all of the strategies that
defeated Tit for Tat were “nicer” than Tit for Tat– that is to say, they were more
forgiving and induced players to make more altruistic and cooperative choices
(Ridley 1996).
3.3.5 Paths totheEvolution ofCooperation
The key to explaining the evolution of goodness lies in explaining how cooperative
social strategies that benet others at immediate costs to actors can pay off geneti-
cally in the end, or how such strategies could have evolved even though they were
maladaptive. Evolutionary theorists have identied ve ways in which conditionally
cooperative strategies could evolve. In all ve cases, the question to keep in mind is
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how these strategies help individuals propagate the genes that dispose them to
behave in cooperative ways. To begin with, cooperative strategies such as Tit for Tat
can evolve when they produce return benets by inducing recipients to pay donors
back (direct reciprocity). Second, cooperative strategies can evolve when they pro-
duce return benets indirectly, by inducing third parties who are willing to cooper-
ate to select cooperative individuals as exchange partners (indirect reciprocity).
Third, cooperative strategies can evolve when individuals suffer the survival costs
of helping others in order to increase their chances of propagating their genes by
mating (sexual selection). Fourth, cooperative strategies can evolve when they
increase the biological success of kin who share copies of cooperators’ genes (kin
selection). And nally, cooperative strategies can evolve when they increase the
biological welfare of groups that contain members who share copies of cooperators’
genes (group selection). In all ve cases, the immediate costs that individuals suffer
from helping others pay off genetically in the end. Inasmuch as conditionally coop-
erative strategies equate to conditionally moral strategies, they render those who
invoke them conditionally good by nature. (Cooperative strategies also can evolve
through cultural selection, but I will not discuss this process here.)
3.4 Psychological Sources ofGoodness
Biologists focus on the evolution of behavioral strategies; evolutionary psycholo-
gists focus on the ways in which the evolved mental mechanisms that give rise to
these strategies are designed. Lay people base their attributions of goodness primar-
ily on the psychological sources of behaviors. When we observe others doing good
things, we ask ourselves what kinds of motives are driving their behaviors– what
they are trying to achieve. To deem a behavior moral, it must be viewed as stemming
from a moral motive and being aimed at doing good. For example, if we think that
a charitable act stemmed from sympathy for the disadvantaged and was aimed at
improving their lot, we would be inclined to consider it moral, but if we thought that
it was aimed at establishing dominance, impressing others, or currying favor we
would be inclined to consider it selsh.
Mental mechanisms that give rise to love, guilt, gratitude, forgiveness, empathy
and other “moral emotions” have evolved in our species. Other animals, especially
other primates, display precursors of these emotions. The mental mechanisms that
regulate these emotions reside in the older parts of our brains. As our brains evolved,
we acquired higher-order mental mechanisms that enabled us to engage in uniquely-
human forms of cognition such as perspective-taking and moral reasoning. These
mechanisms, which reside in the outer layers of our cerebral cortex, normally
become increasingly sophisticated as our brains develop throughout the lifespan.
Early-evolved and later-evolved mechanisms participate in the activation and regu-
lation of moral motives.
D. L. Krebs
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3.5 Moral Emotions
The function of moral emotions is to motivate individuals to behave in ways that
enable them to reap the biological and genetic benets of cooperation. Early humans
who inherited psychological mechanisms that disposed them to experience moral
emotions fared better than those who did not inherit these mechanisms. For exam-
ple, early humans who inherited psychological mechanisms that induced them to
love their offspring, siblings, and mates were more likely to propagate their genes
through kin selection and sexual selection than those who did not. Groups that con-
tained members who inherited mechanisms that disposed them to experience feel-
ings of solidarity and loyalty fared better than more selsh groups in inter-group
conicts. Moral emotions such as gratitude, guilt, and righteous indignation paid off
biologically and genetically by motivating our early ancestors to behave in ways
that upheld biologically benecial systems of social exchange. Feelings of forgive-
ness motivated early humans to repair broken social relations. A sense of justice
evolved because it motivated our ancestors to uphold the cooperative social orders
of their groups. Moral emotions are a signicant psychological source of goodness.
3.5.1 Empathy
Among the suite of emotions that have been classied as moral, empathy and its
cousin, sympathy, have received the most attention from social scientists.
Neuroscientists have traced empathic reactions to “mirror neurons.” When people
observe others performing acts, these mirror neurons re in exactly the same way as
when they perform the acts themselves (Decety 2005). Theory and research on
empathy illustrates the ways in which early-evolved and later-evolved mental mech-
anisms interact to motivate people to do good. As expressed by De Waal (2006),
“empathy covers all the ways in which one individual’s emotional state affects
another’s, with simple mechanisms at its core and more complex mechanisms and
perspective-taking abilities at its outer layers. Because of the layered nature of the
capacities involved, we speak of the Russian doll model, in which higher cognitive
levels of empathy build upon a rm, hard-wired basis” (p.11). Each “layer” gives
rise to a different kind of empathic experience, or a different form of empathy. The
more recently-evolved and advanced the level, the more altruistic the motives it
engenders.
The Evolution of Empathy It seems plausible that the psychological mechanisms
that endowed early humans with a capacity for empathy originated though kin
selection. Early humans who inherited mechanisms that induced them to share the
feelings of their offspring and other blood relatives propagated the genes that guided
the creation of these mechanisms by helping those with whom they shared genes. As
these mental mechanisms evolved, they came to be activated by individuals other
than kin. As expressed by De Waal (2006), “the empathic response is amplied by
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similarity, familiarity, social closeness, and positive experience with the other…. In
human studies subjects empathize with a confederate’s pleasure or distress if they
perceive the relationship as cooperative.” De Waal cites research showing that “see-
ing the pain of a cooperative confederate activates pain-related brain areas, but see-
ing the pain of an unfair confederate activates reward-related areas, at least in men.”
De Waal concludes that, “the empathy mechanism is biased the way evolutionary
theory would predict. Empathy is (a) activated in relation to those with whom one
has a close or positive relationship, and (b) suppressed, or even turned into
Schadenfreude, in relation to strangers and defectors” (p.16).
It is tempting to view our tendency to empathize with and assist people who
share characteristics of our kin as a misring of mental mechanisms that evolved
through kin selection, and this may, in part, be the case. However, in addition, such
“overgeneralizations” probably beneted our early human ancestors by producing
several return benets. Early humans who helped non-kin with whom they empa-
thized may well have been rewarded biologically and genetically by enhancing their
reputations, by increasing their chances of mating, by upholding the groups on
which they were dependent, by inducing recipients to reciprocate, and so on.
De Waal (2006) asserts that the rst type of empathy to evolve, which constitutes
the primitive core in humans and some other animals, induces us to experience feel-
ings of personal distress when we are exposed to the distress of others– a type of
emotional contagion. When we are in this state, we do not differentiate ourselves
from those with whom we are empathizing. We are motivated to help others in order
to relieve our own feelings of distress, which renders the motivation selsh in nature.
At “the next evolutionary step,” which De Waal (2006) labels cognitive empathy,
“emotional contagion is combined with appraisal of the other’s situation and
attempts to understand the cause of the other’s emotions” (p.9). Put another way, at
this level, individuals attempt to take the perspective of those who are experiencing
distress and understand it from their point of view. Cognitive empathy motivates
individuals to engage in sympathetic behaviors such as consoling those who have
been harmed. De Waal cites evidence demonstrating that consolation is common in
humans and apes (and interestingly, in some large-brained birds), but virtually non-
existent in monkeys.
De Waal goes on to suggest that with expanded brain evolution, humans and a
few other species acquired increasingly sophisticated perspective-taking abilities,
which endowed them with the capacity to experience increasingly other-oriented
forms of empathy. According to De Waal (2006), the essential cognitive ability that
endows us with a capacity for the highest level of empathy– empathic perspective
taking – is the ability to distinguish ourselves from others and to understand how
others are feeling on their own terms: “For an individual to move beyond being
sensitive to others toward an explicit other-orientation requires a shift in perspec-
tive. The emotional state induced in oneself by the other now needs to be attributed
to the other instead of the self. A heightened self-identity allows a subject to relate
to the object’s emotional state without losing sight of the actual source of this state”
(p.9). De Waal (2006) cites evidence that apes, humans, elephants, and dolphins are
D. L. Krebs
43
able to recognize themselves in mirrors, that this ability is correlated with
perspective- taking abilities in humans, and that animals that possess self- recognition
abilities engage in “targeted helping,” dened as “help that is ne-tuned to another’s
specic situation and goals” (p.9).
Neuroscience research on empathy has supported De Waal’s assertion that
empathic reactions in humans are produced by an interaction between primitive
types of emotional contagion and more advanced forms of cognition. Based on a
review of research in the area, the neuroscientist Decety (2005) concluded that
“cognitive processes that exert a top-down control on [primitive empathic emotional
reactions] are mediated by specic subregions of the prefrontal cortex” that help
people distinguish actions that they produce from actions produced by others
(p.153).
The Development of Empathy De Waal accounts for the evolution of empathy in
our species in terms of the increasing sophistication of cognitive abilities mediated
by the evolution of the brain. The human brain also expands as children develop.
Psychologists have advanced models of the development of empathy that are com-
plementary to De Waal’s evolutionary model. Consider, for example, the model
advanced by Martin Hoffman (2000).
Hoffman (2000) acknowledges that empathy stems from evolved dispositions,
then goes on to describe four phases in its growth in children that are dened in
large part by the expansion and renement of perspective-taking abilities. In the rst
phase, infants experience empathic reactions as “global distress,” triggered, for
example, by the cries of other infants. In the second phase, infants display egocen-
tric empathic reactions that motivate them to respond to others’ distress by engaging
in behaviors that make them (but not those with whom they are empathizing) feel
better. For example, they might hug their teddy bear. In the third phase, children’s
empathic reactions are evoked by interpretations of the situations that others experi-
ence, and children make more nely tuned emotional attributions, realizing that
others’ thoughts and feelings may differ from their own. In the nal, most advanced,
phase (not discussed by De Waal), those who develop sophisticated perspective-
taking abilities acquire the ability to understand that others’ reactions are affected
by life experiences that go beyond the immediate situations at hand. Such people are
able to experience empathy for disadvantaged groups or classes of people that they
have never observed directly.
3.5.2 Empathy andAltruism
Empathizing with others in distress motivates us to help them– there is no question
about that. However, there is some question about the extent to which such helping
behaviors are aimed at relieving the suffering of victims, as opposed to improving
the welfare of recipients, and therefore how altruistic they are. Daniel Batson, from
the University of Kansas, has investigated this issue most extensively. Batson
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(1991, 1998) launched his research program on what he called “the empathy-
altruism hypothesis” by demonstrating that we may react in two quite different
ways when we are exposed to the suffering of others. First, in concert with De Waal
and Hoffman, Batson suggested that we may experience personal distress that we
can allay in a variety of ways, such as looking away, leaving the scene, or helping
the suffering person. Batson conceded that when we help others in order to relieve
feelings of personal distress, our behavior is selsh in nature. However, argued
Batson (2000), observing others who are feeling bad also may evoke “an other-
oriented emotional response…[such as] empathy, sympathy, compassion, etc.”
(which he labeled empathic concern) that engenders “a motivational state with
the … goal of increasing another’s welfare” (pp. 207–8). Batson argued that
empathic concern motivates us to help others as an end in itself, as opposed to help-
ing them instrumentally in order to relieve our own vicariously experienced per-
sonal distress or to achieve other selsh goals.
Batson reasoned that if, as cynics claim, people who empathize with victims help
them in order to reduce their personal distress (that is to say, if the goal they are
attempting to achieve is to make themselves feel better), then they should not help
victims when they are able to reduce their personal distress in less costly ways, such
as leaving the scene. Batson and his colleagues designed experiments to test this
hypothesis and found that participants who empathized with victims (but not par-
ticipants who did not empathize with them) chose to help them even when given
opportunities to reduce their distress in other ways. Batson concluded that empathy
(but not personal distress) engenders altruistic motives.
However, Batson’s ndings did not satisfy some of his more cynical colleagues,
who argued that the participants in Batson’s experiments who seemed to be behav-
ing altruistically could have been attempting to achieve selsh goals other than
reducing their personal distress. For example, they could have been trying to avoid
feeling guilty; they could have been trying to improve their mood; they could have
been trying to make a good impression on the experimenter, and so on. Batson and
his colleagues conducted some 30 experiments that evaluated the possibility that
participants who experienced empathy with victims helped them in order to advance
their own interests. Consider three examples. To evaluate the cynical claim that
people help those with whom they empathize in order to gain social approval or to
avoid disapproval, Batson and his colleagues determined whether people who
empathized with victims were more likely to help in public than they were to help
in private. To evaluate the claim that those who empathize with victims help them in
order to avoid self-censure and guilt, Batson and his colleagues determined whether
participants they had induced to empathize helped victims when they were offered
personally and socially acceptable reasons and justications for not helping. To
evaluate the claim that those in empathic states help others in order to feel good
about themselves, Batson and his colleagues assessed the mood of empathizing
participants after they learned that third parties helped victims.
Batson and his colleagues were remarkably successful at disconrming compet-
ing hypotheses and demonstrating that people choose to help those with whom they
empathize even when they are prevented from using their helping behaviors to
D. L. Krebs
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achieve selsh goals, and even when they are offered more direct and less costly
ways of achieving selsh goals than helping others. These investigators also found
that when people who empathized with others in need were prevented from helping
them, they felt bad. Citing a review of the literature on prosocial behavior by the
psychologists Piliavin and Charng (1990), Batson (1998) concluded that a “para-
digm shift” is occurring in psychology “away from the earlier position that behavior
that appears to be altruistic must, under closer scrutiny, be revealed as reecting
egoistic motives. Rather, theory and data now being advanced are more compatible
with the view that true altruism– acting with the goal of beneting another– does
exist and is a part of human nature” (p.27). Natural goodness.
It is important to note that Batson and his colleagues did not claim that people do
not ever help others for selsh reasons. Even in Batson’s research, participants who
were not induced to empathize with victims helped others in order to pursue selsh
goals such as reducing their personal distress, gaining social approval, and improv-
ing their mood. Batson claimed only that a particular set of mental mechanisms–
those that mediate advanced levels of empathy– engender altruistic motives. Note
also that it is not possible to prove conclusively that participants in Batson’s studies
who empathized with victims were not driven to help them by some hidden selsh
motive activated by Batson’s methods of evoking empathy. And nally, note that
Batson acknowledged that empathy does not always engender moral motives; it can
also motivate people to behave in immoral (e.g., nepotistic and unjust) ways.
3.6 The Evolution andDevelopment ofMoral Reasoning
The Russian Doll model that De Waal invoked to explain the evolution of empathy
can also be invoked to account for the evolution of moral reasoning. Moral reason-
ing probably originated as a tool used by early humans to advance their interests in
strategic interactions with members of their groups. “You should be good to me
because it will pay off for you in the end ….” As humans evolved larger brains, their
capacity to invoke increasingly sophisticated forms of moral reasoning would have
increased in much the same manner it does in children as they develop. According
to cognitive-developmental theorists such as Kohlberg (1984), moral reasoning is
the central source of goodness in people. The better we become at moral reasoning,
the greater our capacity to make fair and impartial moral decisions, and the more
highly developed our sense of justice. However, viewing moral reasoning as a tool
that evolved to help early humans advance their biological and genetic interests
raises questions about its status as a source of goodness.
Do people use moral reasoning to reach impartial moral decisions, or do they use
it to advance their own selsh interests? On the one hand, there is a great deal of
evidence that most people are inclined to process information in ways that favor
them, their relatives, and members of their in-groups (Pyszczynski and Greenberg
1987). For example, people tend to hold others to higher moral standards than they
apply to themselves, and people are more likely to argue that others should sacrice
3 Natural Goodness
46
their interests for their sake than that they should sacrice their interests for others’
sake. People tend to overestimate how much they deserve (their rights) and under-
estimate how much they owe (their duties), while underestimating how much others
deserve and overestimating how much others owe (Greenberg and Cohen 1982).
People tend to overvalue the contributions that they make to others, while under-
valuing the contributions that others make to them. And people often use moral
judgments to justify their immoral acts and to deect responsibility onto others
(Haidt 2001), diminishing their transgressions and excusing their misdeeds, while
exaggerating the blameworthiness of their adversaries’ immoral behavior (Krebs
and Laird 1998).
Fortunately, however, there are several antidotes to self-serving biases in moral
judgment. To begin with, people may constrain their self-serving biases in order to
achieve the long-term benets of moral strategies. In The descent of man, Charles
Darwin (1874) suggested that early humans’ capacity to reason enabled them to
understand that it is in their long-term interest to forgo immediate gratication in
order to uphold the interests of their communities and to gure out which customs
are best equipped to help them improve their welfare: “As the reasoning powers and
foresight of the members [of early human groups] became improved, each man
would soon learn from experience that if he aided his fellow-men, he would com-
monly receive aid in return” (p.127). On this line of thought, the capacity to reason
facilitated the evolution of morality by enabling early humans to gure out that
investing in their groups and behaving in moral ways paid off better than more self-
ish alternatives in the end– a form of enlightened self-interest.
In a similar vein, people may constrain their self-serving biases during the pro-
cess of moral negotiations with others in order to avoid stalemates and reach win-
win deals, and in addition, people may persuade themselves to abide by moral rules
and principles in the process of attempting to persuade others. As expressed by
Singer (1981), “ethical reasoning, once begun, pushes against our initially limited
ethical horizons, leading us always toward a more universal point of view.” “If I
claim that what I do is right, while what you do is wrong, I must give some reason
other than the fact that my action benets me (or my kin, or my village) while your
action benets you (or your kin or your village)” (pp.118–9). In a similar vein,
Bloom (2004) asserted “once a creature is smart enough, impartiality – and an
appreciation of moral codes such as the Golden Rule – will emerge as a conse-
quence of this smartness” (p. 139). In a book entitled The Better Angels of our
Nature, Pinker (2011) adduced a great deal of evidence in support of the conclusion
that advances in our ability to reason accompanied by cultural developments such as
mass media have mediated signicant increases in the goodness of the human race
over the past several thousand years.
D. L. Krebs
47
3.7 Summary
Evolutionary theorists who have concluded that, on the laws of evolution, we (and
all other animals) must be selsh by nature are not referring to the kind of selsh-
ness that we consider immoral. The question that arises from an evolutionary analy-
sis of morality is how behavioral strategies that we consider moral fared against
behavioral strategies that we consider immoral. Did early human ancestors who
treated their fellows right fare better than those who wronged them?
To understand the evolution of goodness, we must understand the adaptive func-
tions that moral traits served in early human environments. Along with many other
theorists, I argue that the central function of morality was (and still is) to uphold
systems of cooperation that advanced the adaptive interests of members of groups.
In large part, moral behaviors equate to cooperative behaviors. Evolutionary theo-
rists have explained how a variety of conditionally cooperative strategies could
evolve. Such strategies render us conditionally good (and conditionally bad)
by nature.
A suite of psychological mechanisms has evolved to motivate us to behave in
cooperative and moral ways. It is helpful to view these mechanisms in a Russian
doll manner, with those that give rise to primitive emotions such as love and empa-
thy at the core and those that give rise to higher-order cognitive processes such as
perspective-taking and moral reasoning in the outer layers. Although perspective-
taking and moral reasoning abilities probably originally evolved to help early
humans prevail over members of their groups in strategic social interactions, there
are several ways in which they can produce impartial moral judgments. Perspective-
taking and moral reasoning abilities normally increase in sophistication as we
develop, and they affect the ways in which we experience moral emotions, which
increases our capacity for goodness. Cultural changes that render us increasingly
civilized contribute to this process. Although we have not yet reached the summit of
the mountain of goodness– indeed, it could be argued that we have a long way to
go– we have made a great deal of progress.
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51© The Author(s) 2022
J. van Nes etal. (eds.), Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics,
Ethical Economy 61, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84690-9_4
Chapter 4
Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
JamesBeauregard
Abstract The Homo amans project has called for a re-examination of the notion of
persons as Homo economicus, an outdated notion that does not fully account for the
whole human person. The authors have proposed the concept of Homo amans as a
model for considering the nature of persons and their role in the economic sphere.
This essay responds to the authors’ initial challenge from the perspective of the
philosophy of personalism, specically in the areas of philosophical anthropology,
the virtues, some aspects of contemporary neuroscience, and how these might be
brought into dialogue with economic theory.
4.1 Introduction
I am grateful to Patrick Nullens and Jermo van Nes for their invitation to participate
in the project, “Homo Amans: A Relational Anthropology for Work and Economics.”
This project seeks to develop an adequate philosophical anthropology that sees the
human person “as phenomenologically constituted by the virtues of faith, hope, and
love…since multidisciplinary yet complementary study has shown that human per-
sons are questing, expecting, and relational beings” (Nullens and Van Nes, Chap. 2,
p. 9, this volume). This is captured in the phrase ‘Homo amans.’ Nullens and Van
Nes attempt to bring this anthropology into conversation with the discipline of eco-
nomics as a viable alternative to the limited and outdated notion of human beings as
Homo economicus.
Rather than an attempt to summarize the discussion paper and the project (the
other essays in this book have already admirably done so), this essay turns to the key
questions the authors put forward at the end of the paper. These act as a de facto
summary of their work as well as a plan for future development:
J. Beauregard (*)
Rivier University, Nashua, NH, USA
e-mail: jbeauregard@rivier.edu
52
1. How is love best dened, and how does it relate to other virtues in general, as
well as faith and hope in particular?
2. Are we naturally predisposed to love, and if so, how does this generate trust?
3. Is there any connection between trust and the virtues of faith, hope, and love, and
if so, how are they interconnected?
4. How can the virtue of love develop over a person’s life-time, and what factors
encourage people to promote well-being in the contexts of home, school,
and work?
5. Which areas of the neural system are required to facilitate a person acting inten-
tionally to promote overall well-being?
6. Does gender make any difference to the promotion of well-being in companies
and organizations?
7. How is love understood inter-culturally and inter-religiously in relation to global
economics?
8. How can technology damage and stimulate human relationality in the future?
(Nullens and Van Nes, Chap. 2, pp. 24–25, this volume)1
In reading the paper, I discern three continuous and intertwined threads. First, philo-
sophical anthropology, our notion of the human person, second, virtue ethics as a
valuable and necessary aspect of personhood, third, the eld of economics and how
it might be transformed by a vision of the human person as Homo amans.
It is this author’s opinion that the rst of these three threads, philosophical
anthropology, is the foundational and most vital feature. If we get persons right, that
is, if we can develop a robust and adequate notion of what it means to be a human
person, then the outline for the two subsequent threads is already present. In what
follows, then, we will consider rst and foremost the vision of the human person,
and then make some nal comments on how such a vision might move into and
inform the discipline of economics.
4.2 Philosophical Anthropology: What Is atStake?
Nullens and Van Nes are fundamentally correct in asserting that the vision of person
that has long survived in economic theory, that of Homo economicus, is badly out-
dated and in need of reformulation. In addition, it is not only that particular and
utilitarian vision of person that is outdated, the philosophical presuppositions about
persons, society, and economics are not only outdated, but fundamentally in error.
Homo economicus does not provide an accurate description of who we are, either
then or now. Those presuppositions move from the particular world view of the
modern era and in doing so embrace, to a greater or lesser degree of consciousness,
a certain scientic world view that is truncated and incomplete.
1 See the “Discussion” section immediately prior as well.
J. Beauregard
53
All political questions and all economic questions are, ultimately, ethical ques-
tions, since they are directed at some good, including the question of how the good
life is to be lived individually and in community. How we understand persons is the
rst step in raising these larger sociopolitical questions– anthropology and ethics
are distinct but deeply interwoven. Our notion of person delimits what is and is not
possible in the larger societal framework. Getting anthropology right, then, is the
essential rst step in addressing all social questions, including, here, the question of
economics.
Philosophical anthropology is almost as old as human thought itself. The ques-
tion arises early in the history of western philosophy.2 While the earliest Greek
philosopher asked questions of nature, they considered themselves very much a part
of that natural world. Socrates began to ask questions of virtue and the soul, and it
was Plato and his student Aristotle who gave direct attention to questions of philo-
sophical anthropology. The Christian tradition continued to raise these questions,
and did so in a new way in light of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of
Nazareth. Many of our contemporary notions of personhood were rst formulated
during the patristic period of Christianity, as early believers sought to understand
how God, in light of Christian revelation, could be both one and three. Their essen-
tial answer was to conceptualize three persons and one God. Initially they made use
of the Greek Platonic tradition (consider Plato, Plotinus, and Augustine), and at the
height of the Middle Ages, the work of Aristotle (for example, in Albert the Great
and his student, Thomas Aquinas).3 Questions about personhood continued to be
asked as the West moved forward form the Christian synthesis of the Middle Ages
into the early modern era, and into the profound changes in human thought that
occurred during and in response to the scientic revolution). It was, however, in the
move to a scientic paradigm, that the question of personhood became progres-
sively fragmented, as science adopted a physicalist vision of the universe, rst evi-
dent in physics and chemistry, and later in nineteenth century biology. We live now
in an era that has been called both post-modern and post-Christian. The term “post-”
can be quite misleading, as it does not really describe a complete rupture with mod-
ern thought, but developed out of it and in reaction to it. We live now in an era
frequently marked by fragmentation– social, spiritual, intellectual, moral, in which
grand narratives have been rejected and relativism is a common presence.4
Given this intellectual, cultural, and spiritual environment, is it even possible
today to articulate a robust and comprehensive philosophical anthropology, one that
is capable of responding to the eight questions that Nullens and Van Nes propose at
the end of Homo amans? In response to this question, I will argue below that the
2 This is not to say that questions of person did not emerge in Eastern tradition or that they are not
vital and relevant today. I am conning my comments here to the western philosophical tradition;
no devaluation of Eastern philosophical traditions is intended, and in fact, Eastern traditions will
emerge later in this paper in a consideration of persons, virtue ethics and technology.
3 The development of Greek philosophy, and its transmission into early Christianity has been exten-
sively studied. For an overview see, for example, Guthrie (1975); Copleston (1993a, b).
4 A classic text in this regard is Lyotard (1979).
4 Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
54
answer is, and must be, yes. If such a response is not possible, then we can have no
guidance in thinking about persons, about ethics and about human activity in the
world, including the authors’ questions about economics. There is in fact a contem-
porary philosophical vision, one with ancient roots in both East and West, that can
respond to these fundamental human questions– the philosophy of personalism.
4.3 Personalism
In what follows, as a response to the question about persons, I will outline a particu-
lar tradition within the broader philosophy of personalism, Integral Personalism,
that is capable of bearing fruit both anthropologically and in the eld of economics.
In the rst instance, personalism can be broadly dened as “any philosophy that
considers personality the supreme value and the key to the measuring of reality”
(Buford n.d.). Personalism has also been dened as “a ‘current’ or a broader ‘world-
view,’ since it represents more than one school or one doctrine while at the same
time the most important forms of personalism do display some central and essential
commonalities. Most important of the latter is the general afrmation of the central-
ity of the person for philosophical thought” (Williams and Bengtsson 2020). There
are a number of characteristics common to personalist thought, evident in numerous
personalist philosophers including a fundamental distinction between persons and
animals and the rest of the natural world, the dignity of the human person, persons
as possessing an interior/subjective life (persons as conscious subjects rather than
merely objects), the realities of freedom and self-determination, and the social/rela-
tional nature of human persons (Williams and Bengtsson 2020).5
Within this broader personalist framework I will focus on one specic current of
personalism, that of Integral Personalism, as a personalist response capable of pro-
viding a sound philosophical anthropology capable of addressing the fundamental
anthropological, ethical and economic questions facing humanity today.
5 Williams & Bengtsson delve into these characteristics in detail in their Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy article. These aspects will be presented and developed below in the section on Integral
Personalism.
J. Beauregard
55
4.4 Integral Personalism: Philosophical Anthropology6
Integral Personalism is the name of the philosophical position developed by Spanish
philosopher Juan Manuel Burgos (1961–), which seeks to bring into conversation
the best elements of both ancient and modern philosophical tradition.7
4.4.1 Philosophical Anthropology
Burgos has argued that an adequate contemporary philosophical anthropology
ought to contain the following features:
1. Explanation and Understanding: Philosophical anthropology seeks to move
beyond description to a deeper level of explanation and understanding. It must
ask the fundamental human questions– What is the meaning of life? What is the
meaning of death? What is love?
2. Metaphysical or ontological perspective: Anthropology must move beyond the
early modern reductionist conceptions of persons arising from phenomenalism,
from the notion that we are merely the bundle of our conscious experiences, as
Hume believed, and recognize the continuity and permanence of identity and
personhood rooted in being.
3. Integration: It must offer us a comprehensive notion of personhood that stands
against attempts at reductionism or fragmentation, and that takes into account all
dimensions of person: physical, psychological, spiritual, cognitive, affective,
dynamism, and that is able to draw upon all of the hard sciences as well as the
human sciences– sociology, psychology, economics, history, philosophy, theol-
ogy, etc.
6 While Iwill befocusing onone particular personalist strand ofthought (Integral Personalism), it
is important tonote that there are multiple personalist currents inexistence today, including Anglo-
American Personalism (representative philosophers include, inthe United States, Borden Parker
Bowne, Edgar Shefeld Brightman, Peter A.Bertocci, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Buford,
Randall Auxier, James McLaughlin; inEngland Michael Polanyi, Austin Farrer, John Macmurray,
Richard T. Allen, Charles Conti, Simon Smith;) Phenomenological Personalism (Max Scheler,
Dietrich von Hildebrand, Edith Stein, Viktor Frankl, Josef Seifert); Communitarian Personalism
(Emmanuel Mounier); Dialogical Personalism (Martin Buber, Emanuel Lévinas, Romano
Guardini), Classical Ontological Personalism (Jacques Maritain). Authors working intheIntegral
Personalist Tradition today include Elio Sgreccia, Elias Bermeo, Xosé Manuel Dominguez, Rosa
Zapién, J.L.Cañas, James Beauregard, Sergio Lozano, Alfonso López Quintas, Denis Larrivee,
Gregorz Holub, Raquel Vera.
7 The majority of Burgos’ work has not yet been translated into English, but a notable exception is
Burgos (2018). The reader is referred there for a detailed explication of his thought. His major
work on philosophical anthropology is Antropología: una guía para la existencia (2013). It is cur-
rently in the process of translation into English. I will refer when possible to English language
translations to his work; translations from the Spanish-language editions are my own.
4 Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
56
4. Scientic character: Philosophical anthropology in particular, and the human
sciences in general must reclaim their character as sciences, broadly understood
as investigation, as the search for knowledge, each discipline according to its
methods and content, and each discipline recognizing its limitations and bound-
aries, rather than the common position of scientism, the belief that only the hard
sciences provide valid knowledge. Science is far broader than physics, chemis-
try, and biology.
5. Experiential character: A robust anthropology must analyze and take into
account the whole of human experience, not merely the sensory/perceptual
aspects recognized in the biological sciences. Our experience of the world
includes the experience of ourselves and our own subjectivity, and involves sen-
sation and perception, but also cognition and affectivity, understanding and the
organization of knowledge that allows for its transmission to others, e.g. in a
communal process of scholarship (Burgos 2013, pp.18–9).
4.4.2 Integral Personalism– Structure
4.4.2.1 The Structural Centrality ofPerson
In keeping with the personalist tradition in general, Integral Personalism places the
person at the structural center of thought. It is the notion of person that is the central
vision that bears fruit in anthropology and in ethics. While this may at rst appear
an obvious philosophical move in personalist thought, the history of the concept of
person belies this. In Aristotelian thought, for example, persons were not thought of
in and of themselves but rather in relation to something else– the animal kingdom.
To begin with a concept of person that is derived directly from persons is a relatively
recent move in philosophical thought (Burgos 2018, pp.204–5).
4.4.2.2 Personalist Categories
This notion brings us to a central point in Integral Personalism, and one that can
ow out into economic theory, with which this project is explicitly concerned. As
noted above, Aristotle the biologist sought to categorize living things by kingdom
and species. He conceptualized human beings as part of the animal kingdom, that is,
as a type of animal, with many features in common with other animals. The species
distinction, that which differentiated human beings from other members of the ani-
mal kingdom, was the human capacity for rationality– we are rational animals.
Along with this, Aristotle rened the notion of substance that was carried forward
in western thought– Boethius’ individual substance of a rational nature, Aquinas
thought on substance. The notion lived in the scholastically trained Descartes, and
continues to manifest itself in various ways in contemporary thought; it underlies,
for instance, notions of a mind body dualism, mind-body medicine, etc. There
J. Beauregard
57
remains a notion present that a human being is composed of distinct and separable
parts that need to be linked together in some way. Dualism stood at the foundation
of Greek thought, and has accompanied us on the journey, inuencing our funda-
mental vision of persons at every turn.
The philosophy of persons often continues to experience a category problem, a
consequence of the Greek ballast of organic and animal categories applied directly
to human beings (Burgos 2007, pp.58–64). In other words, a critical conceptual
problem in the philosophy of person has been the making of what Gilbert Ryle
termed a category mistake– the application of one category of thought onto some-
thing which is a poor or incomplete t. The inevitable consequence is that once this
transfer is made, some aspects of persons are highlighted, while others are obscured
by the very category in use (Ryle 2002, p.19ff).8 An example would be the classical
Aristotelian denition of human beings as rational animals. As long as we are placed
in the category of the animal kingdom, it is difcult to recognize aspects of human
persons that are univocal to us, such as freedom and our capacity for
self-determination.
This is a critical point to consider in the philosophy of person– does the use of
terms drawn from biological and animal categories directly and completely apply in
the same manner when they are applied to persons? The term instinct has been used
of both human beings and animals, but there is a crucial difference– animals must
follow their instincts, while human beings may follow theirs. The category of
instinct does not allow for the reality of human freedom, for the reality that we can
freely choose to act against instinct when we decide there is a higher purpose to be
served. The “instinct” for self-preservation exists in all living things. Yet, when
Maximillian Kolbe offered to take the place of another prisoner chosen for execu-
tion in the Auschwitz concentration camp, he overrode his own instinct for self-
preservation, knowing with certainty that he would die as a result.9 These actions
and experiences do not exist in the animal kingdom, and to apply animal categories
to human beings typically obscures what is most univocal about us– Freedom, self-
determination, self-sacrice for a higher good, love, etc.
8 Ryle includes in this concept the polysemic character of words. When we speak of human “mind”
and animal “mind” does the word “mind” mean the same thing? We have direct access to our own
minds, and by report of the minds of other persons, and we see the obvious similarities. We do not,
however, have direct access to the “minds” of animals, though when this is discussed, there is often
an implicit assumption that the word “mind” means exactly the same thing both the human and the
animal sphere, rather than recognizing that we are to some extent speaking metaphorically.
9 There had been an escape from Auschwitz and as a result ten prisoners were chosen to be exe-
cuted. Kolbe, a Polish Roman Catholic priest, offered to take the place of one of them. He died by
lethal injection August 14th, 1941. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 10, 1942.
https://blog.franciscanmedia.org/sam/martyr-of-auschwitz. Accessed 3/20/20.
4 Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
58
4.4.2.3 Personalist Method
If the Homo amans project is to consider the virtues of faith, hope, and love, and
furthermore to consider trust, empirical scientic methods will be of only the most
limited utility. A methodology is needed that can capture the fullness of what it
means to be a person. Integral personalism has developed a method of investigation
(Integral Experience) that gives proper place to the typically empirically studied
aspects of human knowledge (sensation and perception) but is broader in perspec-
tive. Briey, knowledge begins with experience, in keeping with both the hard sci-
ences and empirical philosophy (Locke, Hume, etc.). Our experience, though, is
integral. It is not merely blind sensation and the integration of percepts through
neural processes. Integral Experience recognizes that our most fundamental contact
with the world, our direct experience of the world and ourselves, also has, from the
outset, cognitive and affective aspects. In other words, human experience has an
intellectual-affective-sensitive structure from its origin. This is our most direct con-
tact with the world and ourselves, an originary experience upon which knowledge
at more complex levels is based. We explore and process our experience, seeking for
example stable or universal categories to help us understand our experience, and we
also reect critically on our experience in a more systematic way that allows us to
share our knowledge with others. Human experience extends far beyond the sensory
and perceptual, and it has characteristics unique to us as persons (Burgos 2016,
pp.41–79).10
4.4.2.4 Personalism andtheTransformation ofSociety
There are few public intellectuals today who are philosophers dedicated to mean-
ingful social change (Homo amans presents a noteworthy exception to this state-
ment). Personalist thought in its twentieth century European expression, beginning
with the work of Emmanuel Mounier and arising, as it did, between the two world
wars, sought to directly inuence society since “Every human being is called, by
means of his action, to inuence and modify the world which surrounds him”
(Burgos 2018, p.212). In the specic case of personalist philosophy, the philoso-
pher “promotes a philosophy that vindicates the very special dignity of the person
with respect to everything that exists” (Burgos 2018, p.212).
10 This book chapter provides an overview of Integral Experience as an epistemological model. For
a more comprehensive treatment, see Burgos (2016).
J. Beauregard
59
4.4.2.5 The Three-Dimensional Structure ofthePerson
I have alluded above to the necessity of getting the model of persons right before
one proceeds to consider human action and the transformation of society. Integral
Personalism offers this model of person:11
“I act” Personal
“I want something” Identity
Spiritual
Heart:
Love
Happiness
Aesthetic
Feelings
Intelligence:
Experience
Understanding
Freedom:
Self-
determination
Choosing
Will Conscience
Psychic
Emotions
Feelings /
Passions
Likes
Imagination
Memory
Inclinations
Desires
Interiority
Self-
consciousnes
s
Corporeal
Bodily
Affectivity
SensesBodily activity
Reflex
movements
Affectivity Knowledge Dynamism
Unconscious
Self
P
E
R
S
O
N
A brief explanation of certain aspects of this diagram can clarify the nature of the
person as conceptualized in this anthropological model.
The rst thing to point out about this anthropology is that is it dynamic. A person
is a unity, and a dynamic unity, a being who thinks, feels, and acts. “Person” is both
noun and a verb. Dynamism is what characterizes our nature; we are relational
beings, in relation to ourselves and to others, social by nature and living in com-
munity. To be a person is to be with.
A second aspect of this model is that persons are considered ontologically prior
to relation. Some accounts of person view us as being created by relationships, that
is, there is no person considered present until one is in relation with others. This
view, however, overlooks a most fundamental reality. There is someone there to
start with. Relationships are not creative in this sense, but formative. We are born
11 Figure by Juan Manuel Burgos. Used by permission.
From an earlier diagram by Mollenido (2006). Also used by permission.
4 Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
60
into a relational world, and we grow and develop in this same world. Personhood is
ontologically prior to relation, including all forms of human social relations.12 This
can be conceptualized by comparison with a well-known statement from the reli-
gious domain: “Grace builds on nature.” In order for grace to be active in us, there
must rst be a structure, a person in whom it can act. So with persons vis a vis
relationships.
A third point to consider is that a person is a unity. This is depicted in the dia-
gram above through the dotted lines inside the diagram. In the three-by-three matrix
above, each of the nine individual areas is conceived as an aspect of the whole per-
son, not a distinct, separable part. Persons are not bundles of distinct actions or
activities, they are persons, unied and active in all aspects of their being and
activity.
Fourth, there are three levels of person to consider, body, psyche, and spirit. Our
corporeality is an essential aspect of our personhood– it is more than mere organ-
ism; it is the locus of our psyche and spirit. The body has not only a physical and
organic meaning, but a personal one.
Fifth, the term “spirit” here is not used in an exclusively religious sense, but more
broadly to include all aspects of persons that exist beyond the physical aspects of
corporeality and the psychological processes of conscious life. Love, aesthetic
experience, moral experience are spiritual aspects of the person.
Sixth, knowledge and affectivity are distinct but equally important aspects of the
person. The history of philosophy has tended to downgrade affectivity, viewing it as
something that has the ongoing potential to interfere with our rational capacities,
seeing affect as an enemy of reason. To do this is to fail to see human affectivity as
an integral aspect of our being, ever present and ever operative in our actions and
our knowing.
Seventh, and lastly, this is an anthropology that is anti-reductive in nature. It
stands in its structure against two trends of our technological and scientic age:
gradualism and functionalism. Gradualism suggests that we become persons, in a
slow process of development, typically sometime after the very beginning of life.
Many points have been arbitrarily named down through the centuries as the moment
of personhood, and with more specicity in recent years– 14days, at the time of
implantation in the uterus, a certain number of weeks after conception, when mea-
surable EEG activity is present in a fetus, at the point of viability outside the uterus,
in children when certain aspects of personal activity are objectively observable.
Functionalism points to this last, “personal activity,” that is, a person is dened as a
12 This is a point of contrast within in the personalist tradition as some view person as ontologically
prior to relation (as Integral Personalism does) while other personalist traditions, such as aspects
of the Anglo-American tradition, view relationship as ontologically prior to and creative of person.
Dialogical personalism, for example, while it recognizes the spiritual aspects of persons in rela-
tion, tends to see relationships as rst creative of persons, then formative. See, e.g. Buber (1996).
In Buber’s case, relation and ontological priority can be debated, given that his focus is on the
I-You relation and relationality in general, hence, “there is no I as such but only the I of the basic
word I-You” (p.54), and “Man becomes an I through a You” (p.80).
J. Beauregard
61
person when certain functions, arbitrarily assigned, become objectively observable
or measurable. The necessary corollary of this view is that when such functions are
no longer evident, person is no longer present. A person is, rather, a unity, not a col-
lection of functions. There are probably relatively few moments in our lives when
every aspect of person is evident. When we sleep many aspects of personhood are
absent. And yet, we do not typically assert that a sleeping person is not a person.
Functionalism becomes a prominent concern, for example, at the end of life, in
cases of dementia and in the criteria for death. The broader question of who counts
as a person will pervade a personalist view of economics as well.
4.4.3 Integral Personalism– Key Anthropological Features
Here I will touch briey on some of the critical features of personalist anthropology
which can be of assistance in approaching economic concerns.
4.4.3.1 Human Freedom
If we focus on the material or the organic, as the empirical sciences do, we are
forced to reach a conclusion of determinism. Physical reality is subject to the law of
cause and effect, and biological life to the law of stimulus and response. In fact,
there is a long history of argument, going all the way back to Democritus in ancient
Greece, that, for these reasons, human beings have no free will. There is, however,
a fundamental aw in the presuppositions that underlie arguments against free
will– the belief that we are exclusively material beings, living organisms to be sure,
but subject to deterministic laws. To assert this is to ignore the spiritual aspects of
persons evident in the diagram above. There is much about us that is simply not
explainable from the perspectives of matter and organism. Love, freedom, and self-
determination, the moral life, many of our human social emotions, make no sense
from an organismic perspective. Happiness is not a physical or a biological concept,
but a human one.
4.4.3.2 Good andEvil: Ethics
I mentioned above that if we are to understand the fullness of persons, we must
approach anthropology in categories specic to persons, abandoning the Greek bal-
last of animal views of persons, but also contemporary neuroscientic views of
persons that also view us in purely biological categories. All ethical thinking pre-
supposes freedom, and the hard sciences give us no way to conceive of freedom.
Beings driven solely by instinct do not live the moral life, they live an organic one.
An animal that kills its prey is not acting in an ethical manner– it is following
instinct and the self-preservative drive of hunger. Moral experience, the experience
4 Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
62
of good and evil, is a category specic to persons. Postmodern relativism has often
made this difcult to see. If we accept that there are no longer any grand narratives,
and that all aspects of all cultures are relative and deserving of equal respect, then
we effectively blind ourselves to the reality of good and evil. Pure relativism is quite
rare– many of us are relativists in some areas but ethical absolutists in other areas.
Here in the United States, for example, we have seen doping scandals in sports,
baseball and cycling being but two examples; Lance Armstrong was stripped of his
seven Tour de France titles for this reason. Our sense of fairness and justice, which
emerges in the deep sense that cheating in these arenas is wrong, suggests a moral
sense within us that extends beyond relativism. “Do good, avoid evil” is the most
fundamental precept of the moral life. This can only be fullled in freedom, with
free will, and specically, by persons.13
4.4.3.3 The Primacy ofAction andLove
Augustine introduced the concept of love into philosophical thought. Nullens and
Van Nes also bring it into the center of their discussion of Homo amans. An integral
vision of person recognizes the nature and activity of love as it pervades our person-
hood and our relationships with others at many levels. If persons are dynamic
beings, rather than static ones, then love stands at the foundation of many of our
most important actions; “personalism emphasizes the primacy of love as the guiding
factor in human activity and as a decisive thematic action, which gives meaning to
life in the context of interpersonal relations” (Burgos 2018, p.229). In light of the
Homo amans project, it is necessary to consider how love can inform economic
thought, moving away from the utilitarian self-interest of Homo economicus and
toward a different conception of persons. What would happen in theoretical and
practical economics if we took seriously Wojtyła’s personalistic norm: “A person is
an entity of a sort to which the only proper and adequate way to relate is love”
(Wojtyła 1993, p.41).
4.5 Philosophical Anthropology: Love andtheVirtues
In light of what has been presented here, how might we understand love from within
a personalist perspective? To begin with, love can be seen as a dynamic activity of
the whole person, encompassing both affectivity and knowledge, and impacting
every aspect of the person, body, psyche, and spirit.
13 On good and evil as a category specic to persons, see Burgos (2018, pp.220–1).
J. Beauregard
63
4.5.1 Phenomenology ofLove
As Nullens and Van Nes make explicit mention of the phenomenological method in
their paper, it may be helpful to turn to one personalist philosopher who has given
us a detailed phenomenology of love: Dietrich von Hildebrand.14 In his work The
Nature of Love, von Hildebrand (a student of Edmund Husserl also inuenced by
the phenomenological work of Max Scheler) wrote of love most essentially as a
value response: “The self-giving and commitment proper to every kind of love…is
necessarily based on the fact that the beloved person stands before me as beautiful,
precious, as objectively worth of being loved. Love exists as a value response” (von
Hildebrand 2009, p.17). Von Hildebrand notes four characteristics of values:
(i) They have the ability to bestow delight upon us
(ii) They address themselves to us in specic ways, making us aware of them and
imposing an obligation to respond
(iii) They call forth from us an appropriate response
(iv) The value response called forth in us by values has a character of transcen-
dence and submission to the value, of abandoning ourselves to the value before
us (von Hildebrand 1953, p.32ff).15
That which we see as valuable delights us, reaches out to us, and elicits a response
from us, that is, we are affected by value. As noted above, we must think of persons
in categories specic to persons, that is, we must move directly from experience as
persons and not draw upon categories outside personhood to attempt to understand
ourselves– to fall into such a category error is to blind ourselves to that which is
uniquely human and belongs to persons.
Love is a polysemic word.16 It is the love between persons as persons that is per-
haps the supreme category specic to persons, pointing to capacities and actions
unique to us. Love is expressed in the free gift of self to another, and a life lived in
the practice of the virtues is one that makes such a gift possible.
14 Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889–1977) was a member of the early Göttingen circle of Husserl’s
students and a contemporary of Adolf Reinach, Edith Stein, Romano Guardini, Roman Ingarden
and others. Von Hildebrand’s work is being intensively studied, and his works appearing in new
translation, through The Hildebrand Project, centered at Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio,
http://www.hildebrandproject.org
15 Furthermore, he identies value as one of three categories of importance: the merely subjectively
satisfying, the objectively good for the person and the important in itself (=value).
16 On the polysemic nature of the word love, see Pieper (2012, pp.145–62).
4 Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
64
4.5.2 Love andEthics
Anthropology is distinct from, but has a deep connection to ethics. To get persons
right makes it possible to get ethics right. In light of persons as integral, dynamic
beings, the word “person” is both a noun and a verb. To be a person is to be acting,
to engage with oneself and with the world, and to do so with all of our personhood–
body, psyche, and spirit, embracing our knowledge and affectivity. In addition, the
virtues of faith, hope, and love are dispositions and activities of the whole person,
manifested by the whole person in relation to other persons and to the community.
Love is the gift of self to the other, and the receiving of that same gift. The virtues
can be seen as manifestations of love, united by it and directing us toward the good.
Here, we can see how the vision of persons outlined above is entwined with
Homo amans as person and as an ethical being. A person is a unity. An ethical vision
that seeks both the individual and the common good can be an activity of the whole
person, and the virtuous life is an integral life directed toward these goods. Love is
the foundation and the unifying force of this type of life. St. John of the Cross, in his
work The Spiritual Canticle, depicts each of the virtues as owers woven into a
garland: “all the virtues and gifts the soul (and God within her) acquires are like a
garland of various owers within her.”17 John further notes that the weaving of the
garland of the virtues is not a matter of acquiring one particular virtue individually
and then adding it in, but rather that the garland is “made at the same time,” that is,
the virtues are acquired not individually or sequentially, but concurrently– to grow
in love is also to grow in faith and in hope. It is, again, an activity of the whole per-
son, enacted in community.
4.6 Homo Amans andNeuroscience: What Might
theRelationship Be?
The Homo amans project makes frequent reference to neuroscience and how it
might interface with the project, touching specically on the domains of social neu-
roscience, neuroscience and morality, including decision-making neuroscience, and
biological bases of altruism.
Approaching this question as a clinical neuropsychologist, I would offer several
considerations with regard to what role neuroscience in general might play in the
Homo amans project.
17 St. John of the Cross (1991, p.592, stanza 30, no. 6).
J. Beauregard
65
4.6.1 The Worldview ofNeuroscience
My rst comment is a word of caution. The scientic world view, in terms of the
hard sciences and the empirical method, can only offer limited help at the level of
conception. Neuroscience is structured conceptually in the same manner as biology
and the other empirical sciences. This mean that at the theoretical level at least,
there are assumptions of materialism and determinism operative that do not allow
for the existence of free will, and so cannot serve as a basis for thinking about
amans, which entails freedom and choice.
A second caution is that neuroscience must be approached at its cutting edge if it
is to make any signicant contribution to philosophy in general and the Homo
amans project in particular. The era of examining specic discrete brain regions–
for example, Broca’s Area in the frontal lobes for expressive language or the pri-
mary occipital cortex for vision, effectively came to an end with the arrival of
functional neuroimaging in the 1990’s. This allowed for an examination in vivo of
some of the things happening in the brain during different aspects of thought. The
current neuroscience understanding of the brain is to view it as a connectome, that
is, the entire network of connectivity between each of the brain’s 80–100 billion
neurons. The neuroscience technique of diffusion tensor imaging, for example, is
able to highlight axonal pathways in the brain and illustrate connectivity in ways
that did not yet exist even a few decades ago. It is now possible to visualize the
human brain as a complex matrix of connections and interactions across many
regions. The understanding of a variety of neuropsychiatric diseases is being trans-
formed by this level of understanding.18
The recent eld of neuroeconomics dened as “a research program founded on
the thesis that cognitive and neurobiological data constitute evidence for answering
economic questions,” provides a case in point (Clarke 2014, p.195). It has been
brought into dialogue with Conrmation Theory (Clarke 2014, p.195), and as a
resource to enrich contemporary economic models (Fumagalli 2017, pp.210–20).
Decision making has been a particular point of interest at the intersection of neuro-
science and economics.19 The intersection and utility of neuroscience has also been
challenged (McMaster and Novarese 2016, pp.963–83).
18 For an overview of this level of understanding of the human brain, see for example, Sporns
(2012). To speak of brain regions exclusively is, today, to speak an outdated language.
19 See for example, Mudrick etal. (2019, pp.67–86); Hamoway and Conigliaro (2016, pp.27–9).
4 Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
66
4.6.2 Neuroscience: Normative or Informative
forHomo Amans?
Given these cautions, neuroscience can provide a great deal of useful information
that can be useful to the Homo amans project, but should not be looked to at a nor-
mative or theoretical level. Areas of neuroscience that could provide useful informa-
tion to the project would certainly include social neuroscience, as well as
developmental neuroscience and the neuroscientic aspects of both psychiatry and
neurology. Neuroscience, in this sense, can help esh out understanding of human
persons, but it is important not to adopt the materialist or deterministic underpin-
nings of the empirical methods of neuroscience.20
In addition, the data neuroscience provides must be correctly understood.
Functional neuroimaging data (fMRI), for example, is not a depiction of the actual
process of thought; thus, claims that functional neuroimaging may someday be able
to engage in “mind reading” are overblown, science ction rather than fact. FMRI
measures energy use by neurons as we engage in various cognitive or emotional
activities, the point being that the more active neurons are, the more energy they
use. It is important not to confuse the purely physical with more complex processes.
Uncertainties about the nature and reliability of neuroimaging data is evidenced, for
example, in the fact that it is typically not accepted as evidence in legal proceedings,
because it can be misleading. If a defense attorney points to a neuroimaging scan,
for example, and indicates a specic place or lesion in the brain, and then argues
that this is the reason that their client committed the act for which they are on trial
(and thus should be held less than fully accountable), it must be said in response that
many others may have virtually identical lesions observable on neuroimaging who
do not commit similar crimes. Furthermore, it is important to separate out the data
of neuroscience from the hype about it. Mirror neurons provide a perfect case study
for this. The discovery of mirror neurons occurred rst in monkeys, and, from this,
leaps were made to their possible role in humans. Realistically, mirror neurons
appear to activate in response to observed action and may play a role in intention
detection. However, once they were on the scene, many claims about them were
made without adequate empirical justication. They have been implicated as being
involved in such far ung issues as Schizophrenia, hypnosis, sexual orientation,
smoking, music appreciation, obesity, degree of male erection, psychopathy, busi-
ness leadership, love, mass hysteria, substance abuse, and self-awareness in other
20 On the preeminence of the empirical perspective in neuroscience, see, for example, Gazzaniga
etal. (2009, p.4), where the authors write, “Philosophy can add perspective, but is it right? Only
scientic method can move a topic along on sure footing.”
J. Beauregard
67
mammalian species. New ndings in neuroscience can become fads, but in time the
expectations prove overblown.21
Another caution about neuroscience data arises in the context of models of deci-
sion making developed in neuroscience that are taken over into neuroeconomics.
Much of the contemporary literature on decision making from a neurobiological
perspective has arisen from several now classic studies by the American neuroscien-
tist Benjamin Libet.
These studies point to the stark and necessary distinction between neuroscience
data and the interpretation of that data, a distinction that often goes unnoticed. Libet
conducted studies of what were termed conscious intentions to act. For example,
experimental subjects were asked to view an analogue clock with a circulating dot
in the place of the second hand, while being monitored by surface EEG.They were
asked to press a bar at some point in the rotation of the dot. Subjects were later
asked when they were rst conscious of their intention to press the bar. In a consis-
tent and replicated nding, EEG activity was recorded prior to the subject’s reported
conscious intention to act, by several hundred milliseconds. The nding has been
replicated more than once. Difculty has arisen, though, in discussion of what the
data actually meant (the interpretive aspect). Some have argued that given that our
conscious intention to act is preceded by frontal neural activity we do not have free
will, but rather, our brains make decisions for us prior to our conscious awareness.
Some have supported this conclusions while others have rejected it.
The debate continues.
An additional issue not often attended to in these debates is the nature of lan-
guage itself. Empirical experiments require operational denitions of the matter
under study– the language must be as specic and as concrete as possible in order
to be measured accurately. But this is only one aspect of human speech. Experimental
conditions are, by design, as literal and concrete as possible. Once the data is col-
lected, though, it must be interpreted. It is here that neuroscientists make a leap,
often unnoticed, from literal to metaphorical speech. While experimental conditions
are carefully laid out in the methodology section of research articles, and data are
scrupulously reported, the interpretation and reporting of the meaning of such data
is a different cognitive and linguistic process altogether. Here scientists often move
to metaphorical speech without identifying the shift, and it is here we run into a
common problem– scientists are not philosophers. Their training is in science, not
in philosophy, the philosophy of language or in logic. For example, while EEG
parameters are well-dened, terms such as “free will,” “voluntary,” “conscious-
ness,” “unconscious” and “intention” typically are not. An assumption is made that
we all agree on the meanings of those terms, and also that they mean the same thing
21 For an overview of how mirror neurons were discovered and the many things in which they have
been implicated, see Hickok (2014). The areas mentioned above for mirror neurons are from a
much longer list on pages 24–5 of this book. Eric Racine has done extensive research on public
perceptions of neuroscience, and perceptions of neuroimaging in particular. See Racine (2010),
esp. Chapter 5, “Public Understanding of Neuroscience Innovation and Emerging Interpretations
of Neuroscience Research,” 97–119.
4 Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
68
across species.22 This has been an unspoken and often unrecognized source of con-
fusion in the discussion of Libet’s ndings since the 1980’s. When examining deci-
sion-making models, whether in neuroscience or in economics, our use of language,
and the move from the concrete and literal to the metaphorical should always be
considered.23
4.6.3 Anthropology
Neuroscience can, at most, provide us with a partial anthropology, and this limita-
tion places boundaries on what is essential a philosophical/theological project. The
eld of neuroscience, a child of the discipline of biology, follows biology’s empiri-
cal methods and presuppositions, operating in the world of the organic. That which
is specically and univocally personal (what I have outlined above as the level of
spirit) cannot be accessed by empirical methodology in the way that matter and
organism can. In order for Homo amans to provide a comprehensive and robust
philosophical anthropology, it is the data of the human sciences that must hold
sway, drawing as needed on the hard sciences, but keeping them in their proper
context, and recognizing their conceptual (empirical, physicalist and deterministic)
limitations.
4.6.4 Ethics
Ethics is not an empirical science: it is a human science. In the world of Homo
amans, it is the disciplines of philosophy and theology that must be drawn upon to
develop an ethical vision (including by the eld of economics, which aims at certain
goods). This is not to say that neuroscience has no role to play. It can, and has,
informed us about the neural networks underlying processes of decision making,
and human moral life has become subject to neuroscientic study. Moral enhance-
ment is a eld of neuroscientic endeavor. It can tell us about brain areas and net-
works active during certain types of tasks, but it cannot tell us what is or is not
moral, nor can it direct us to what goods we ought to seek. Neuroscience studies the
world as it is; ethics studies the world, and the person, as we ought to be.
22 Libet himself does not dene such terms in his work. See, for example, his discussion of the
implications of his experimental ndings, Libet (2002, pp.291–9). The bibliography to this article
lists many of Libet’s now-classic experimental studies.
23 For a detailed discussion of the different aspects of language employed in science and in conver-
sational speech, see Beauregard (2019).
J. Beauregard
69
4.7 Philosophical Anthropology, Ethics andEconomics
The Homo amans project asks if a new philosophical anthropology, that of Homo
amans, grounded in faith, hope, and love, can become a viable substitute for Homo
economicus. If the life of the virtues, intertwined and lived, can inform economic
theory, it will be important for economic theory to integrate two fundamental con-
cepts: human dignity and the common good. Homo amans has articulated three
principle virtues– faith, hope, and love. It is important that these virtues are not
thought of as distinct, but as interrelated virtues, and related to the other virtues as
well, including the classic cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and
fortitude. This catalogue of virtues, and the many subordinate virtues related to
them, can serve as a guide for economic thought in light of a robust anthropology
that gives attention to human dignity and the common good.
Human dignity is a much-debated topic today. Some have argued that it is essen-
tial, some, in contrast, that it does not exist. Some years ago the bioethicist Ruth
Macklin argued that human dignity is a “useless concept” that ought to be replaced
with the more concrete notions of respect and autonomy (Macklin 2003,
pp.1419–20). Human dignity was on the minds of many in the post-World War II
era, when the nature and extent of the violations of persons received widespread
attention. This was the era in which the world saw the creation of documents like the
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, in which respect for
the dignity the human person was integrated into numerous bioethical documents.
A common denominator to the question of dignity is that it is typically refer-
enced, but not dened. There seems to be an assumption that everyone knows what
dignity is, but as soon as one tries to dene it, words often fail. This ought to be
addressed in light of the current project.
Dignity is, rst, a question of the whole, integral person. It is question of funda-
mental value. Recognition of dignity is the recognition that there is something pre-
cious, unique, unrepeatable, deeply valuable about each human person. As Kant
asserted, each of has a dignity, not a price. Furthermore, the question of dignity is
not a question of denition or ascription– we do not assign dignity to persons, we
recognize that dignity is present and inherent. Perhaps a fundamental reason that the
post-World War II era was the time that saw the creation of illuminating documents
on human dignity and human rights is that the world, as a community, was forced to
reckon with the concept of dignity by having witnessed its profound violation across
the decades and in time of war. Events like those witnessed across Europe from
1939 to 1945 forced us to ask why the Nazi concentration camps were so deep a
violation of persons and the dignity of persons.
Never since, has the entire human community been brought face to face in the
same way with the questions of persons, violations, and dignity. This is perhaps a
reason why the notion of dignity has receded, and in particular, why the question of
dignity is sometimes opposed outright in rst world countries. Dignity is a “useless
concept” only when one’s own dignity is not subject to violation or annihilation. By
its violation, the presence and nature of dignity is thrown into sharp relief. It is
4 Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
70
borne within us, not conferred– or withdrawn– by the state or any other organiza-
tion. Human persons are bearers of dignity.
Furthermore, the question of dignity is one that science cannot help us answer,
especially an empirical science grounded in physicalist views. If dignity is to be
recognized and understood, it will happen from a direct examination of the human
person that reveals all the uniqueness and preciousness of what it means to be
human, to be a person.
The common good is the second concept to be considered in a contemporary
economic vision, if such a vision wishes to give pride of place to persons rather than
capital. The personalist philosopher Jacques Maritain reected on the question of
the common good in the mid-twentieth century. At the outset, he stated that we
desire to live in community because we are social by nature, and also because it is
necessary for our ourishing as persons (Maritain 1966, p.47).
How, then, can we bring these thoughts about persons into the economic sphere?
I want to suggest that such a discussion can be centered around the notion of human
dignity. Economic decisions, like political ones, are fundamentally moral decisions,
as they affect the individual and the common good. The personalistic norm is a
norm that can be brought into economic theory. Life in community promotes the
good of the individual, and includes many aspects, including public services, sound
economic functioning, law and governance, customs, institutions, culture (Maritain
1966, p.52). At the same time, the common good is more than the sum total of
individual goods. In Maritain’s words, it is “the good human life of the multitude,
of a multitude of persons; it is their communion in good living. It is therefore com-
mon to both the whole and the parts into which it ows back and which, in turn,
must benet from it.”
Economics is, at its foundation, a moral activity, given that it aims at some good.
Different economic theories have identied different goods to be sought. An eco-
nomic theory that looks to the good of both persons and the community, that grounds
itself in a notion of person, would be an ethical activity that takes into account the
nature and activity of the whole person, individually and in community, and this
common good as well.
There are already theoretical models of how this can be accomplished. As an
example, consider a document that weaves together the themes that have been men-
tioned here– the dignity of persons, the common good, the virtues and the question
of economics. In 1986, the United States National Conference of Catholic Bishops
published Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching
and the U.S.Economy (National Conference of Catholic Bishops 1986).24
In this document, the U.S.Bishops clearly stated that they were not offering an
economic “blueprint,” nor a particular economic theory. Their purpose, rather, was
to “discover what our economic life must serve, what standards it must meet”
(National Conference of Catholic Bishops 1986, p. vii). They present, rather, six
24 A chapter-length work does not allow the author to delve into these principles in detail. They are
presented here in their basic outline, and are developed within the document itself. http://www.
usccb.org/upload/economic_justice_for_all.pdf
J. Beauregard
71
overarching themes that are in consonance with what Homo amans has investigated,
and that can provide guidance for economic considerations:
(v) Every economic decision and institution must be judged in light of whether it
protects or undermines the dignity of the human person.
(vi) Human dignity can be realized and protected only in community.
(vii) All people have a right to participate in the economic life of society.
(viii) All members of society have a special obligation to the poor and vulnerable.
(ix) Human rights are the minimum conditions for life in community.
(x) Society as a whole, acting through public and private institutions, has the
moral responsibility to enhance human dignity and protect human rights
(National Conference of Catholic Bishops 1986, pp. viii–ix).
Recognizing that economic questions are fundamentally moral questions, they then
identify a series of moral norms in relation to economic activity. It is here that the
consonance with Homo amans becomes even more explicit:
1. “The commandments to love God with all one’s heart and to love one’s neigh-
bor as oneself are the heart and soul of Christian morality” (National Conference
of Catholic Bishops 1986, p.16).
2. “Commutative justice calls for fundamental fairness in all agreements and
exchanges between individuals or private social groups” (National Conference
of Catholic Bishops 1986, p.17).
3. “Distributive justice requires that the allocation of income, wealth, and power
in society be evaluated in light of its effects on persons whose basic material
needs are unmet” (National Conference of Catholic Bishops 1986, p.17).
4. “Social justice implies that persons have an obligation to be active and produc-
tive participants in the life of society and that society has a duty to enable them
to participate in this way” (National Conference of Catholic Bishops
1986, p.17).
5. “Basic justice demands the establishment of minimum levels of participation in
the life of the human community for all persons.”
6. “Basic justice demands the establishment of minimum levels of participation in
the life of the human community for all persons” (National Conference of
Catholic Bishops 1986, p.18).
7. “The common good demands justice for all, the protection of the human rights
of all” (National Conference of Catholic Bishops 1986, p.20).
8. “The obligation to provide justice for all means that the poor have the single
most urgent economic claim on the conscience of the nation” (National
Conference of Catholic Bishops 1986, p.20).
9. “The fulllment of the basic needs of the poor is of the highest priority”
(National Conference of Catholic Bishops 1986, p.21).
10. “Increasing active participation in economic life by those who are presently
excluded or vulnerable is a high social priority” (National Conference of
Catholic Bishops 1986, p.21).
4 Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
72
11. “The investment of wealth, talent, and human energy should be specially
directed to benet those who are poor or economically insecure” (National
Conference of Catholic Bishops 1986, p.21).
12. “Economic and social policies as well as the organization of the work world
should be continually evaluated in light of their impact on the strength and
stability of family life” (National Conference of Catholic Bishops 1986, p.22).
Love, faith, hope, justice, and a pervasive notion of both the individual and the com-
mon good are all evident in this response to the economic realities of the 1980s. One
can argue that they have ongoing relevance today as the fundamental economic
issues addressed in the letter have become more pressing. On March 26, 2020, the
NewYork Times reported in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic that applications
for unemployment benets had substantially increased, reporting over three million
people ling, compared to 200,000 just three weeks earlier (Casselman etal. 2020).
In the national and international picture, the economic struggles that began at the
end of the last decade have fueled populist movements of the right across the west-
ern world. This author suggests that the principles articulated above can provide
food for thought in addressing the larger questions of economics in light of the
human person.
In light of all of the above, brief responses to seven of the questions the authors
raised are presented here:
Question 1. How is love best dened, and how does it relate to other virtues in
general, as well as faith and hope in particular?
Love is a dynamic activity of the whole, integrated person, an action of self- donation
in which we transcend ourselves. Love is integral to all the virtues, and can be
conceived of as a manifestation of the specic virtues.25
Question 2. Are we naturally predisposed to love, and if so, how does this gener-
ate trust?
The nature of the human person, as described here, answers “yes.” We are naturally
disposed toward self-transcendence, to relationship, and it is the life of the vir-
tues, love rst of all, that stands at the root of our mutuality, in which trust is born.
Question 3. Is there any connection between trust and the virtues of faith, hope, and
love, and if so, how are they interconnected?
All of the virtues are interconnected; we cannot develop one virtue without other
virtues being included in the process. They form a crown of personhood that
guide us in the way we think and act, that help form our predispositions and
attitudes. To encourage one virtue is to encourage virtuous living in general, so
in the process, all the virtues grow.
Question 4. How can the virtue of love develop over a person’s life-time, and what
factors encourage people to promote well-being in the contexts of home, school,
and work?
25 See, for example, Pieper (2012).
J. Beauregard
73
Virtues are not a matter of one-trial learning. They develop slowly, through observa-
tion of virtuous persons, guidance by them, and our own actions. They eventually
become stable dispositions and habits of action.
Question 5. Which areas of the neural system are required to facilitate a person act-
ing intentionally to promote overall well-being?
The inevitable answer from contemporary neuroscience must be, our entire con-
nectome, the whole human brain in all its connectivity and interaction, from
individual neurons to local and to far ung networks that subserve all of our
human activity. We must, however, be cautious in looking too exclusively to the
brain, a single though important organ, to nd answers to questions like this one.
It is the whole person who intends, the whole person who acts, the whole person
who loves, has faith in and hopes for. Human ourishing and human excellence
and happiness are the results of the integrated functioning of the whole human
person. It is the role and responsibility of the state, and of its economic systems,
to promote this well-being
Question 6. Does gender make any difference to the promotion of well-being in
companies and organizations?
While the issue of gender was not addressed in this essay, the answer to this ques-
tion may be a qualied yes. Men and women are different, to be sure, but this
difference ought not to blind us to our fundamental equality in personhood and
dignity. Notions of gender have been addressed across the human sciences.
Recent neuroscientic research has been more mixed when it comes to identify-
ing gender difference, and the validity of the notion of male and female brains
has been called into question.26 It is likely that we would do better, in terms of
workplace-related issues, to give thoughtful consideration to the gender roles
that exist in any given society, and the often unconscious expectations and dis-
parities they create about men and women in the workplace.
Question 7. How can technology damage and stimulate human relationality in the
future?
Technology can help us connect to others, but it can also isolate us. There is no
substitute for in-person, human connection. Technology is a place where virtue
ethics can play a central role, as demonstrated by the philosopher Shannon
Vallor, in her book Technology and the Virtues, a comparative philosophical
study of virtue ethics across three global traditions: the classical virtue tradition
26 See, for example, Rippon (2019). Rippon, herself a neuroscientist, surveys the several centuries
of research on the human brain, especially on assumed differences between the brains of men and
women, and concludes that many of the “ndings” of the neurosciences of the past are heavily
marked by biased presuppositions that have not been veried in contemporary research. She alerts
the reader throughout the book to the existence and enduring power of neuromyths, false beliefs
about the brain, disproven by neuroscience, that often take on a life of their own, for example, the
myth that we use only 10% of our brains. This belief was disproven the rst time a functional
neuroimaging study was completed.
4 Homo Amans: APersonalist Response
74
of the West, beginning with Aristotle, Confucian ethics and Buddhist ethics.
Drawing on this comparative study, she articulates a catalogue of virtues and
argues that they can be instrumental in coping with the reality of increasingly
rapid technological change across societies (Vallor 2016).27
4.8 Conclusion
The model of Homo amans presented by Nullens and Van Nes address many prob-
lems that need to be addressed in both philosophical anthropology generally and the
specic discipline of economics in its historical context. The model of Homo eco-
nomicus is laden with numerous presuppositions, as highlighted by the authors, and
its reductionism is a severe limitation. They have created the model of Homo amans
as an alternative to the limitations of earlier economic models and visions of persons.
This essay has presented an anthropological vision which presents the human
person as a dynamic unity, active, and capable of learning and living the virtues,
including the key virtues of faith, hope, and love. Some of the strengths and limita-
tions of neuroscience were also examined as this eld has been identied as a con-
tributor to economic theory. An economic vision consistent with the Homo amans
project was presented.
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Ethical Economy 61, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84690-9_5
Chapter 5
God’s Work intheWorld: TheDeep
Compatibility ofReal Liberalism withAny
Abrahamic Religion
DeirdreNansenMcCloskey
Abstract I propose, in brief, an intimate, perhaps desirable, but anyway necessary,
connection between free will in Abrahamic theology and free action in liberal ideol-
ogy. The economy, its work, its consumption, even its banking, are not inconsistent
with a Christian life if achieved by free will. That is to say, contrary to a century-
long supposition among theologians and their enemies, belief in a just and loving
God does not entail socialism. The Christian gospels and many a Christian theolo-
gian attack wealth, surprisingly harshly by the standards of the rest of the world’s
religious canon. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the nineteenth century, a bour-
geois but Christian Europe invented the idea of socialism. But statism is by no
means necessary for a Christian community. I gesture here towards a much longer
case made earlier and recently by me and other Christian admirers of commercially
tested betterment. The great liberal era was brief, from 1776 to 1848. It established
freedom of religion. But freedom is freedom is freedom. A free-willed person
should be, in God’s eyes, free from human interference in religion and behavior and
business.
I propose in brief an intimate, perhaps desirable, but anyway necessary, connection
between free will in Abrahamic theology and free action in liberal ideology. The
economy, its work, its consumption, even its banking, are not inconsistent, with a
Christian life if achieved by free will. That is to say, contrary to a century-long sup-
position among theologians and their enemies, belief in a just and loving God does
not entail socialism.
The Christian gospels and many a Christian theologian attack wealth, surpris-
ingly harshly by the standards of the rest of the world’s religious canon. It is not
Parts of this essay are previously published in McCloskey (2010, 2013, 2019).
D. N. McCloskey (*)
University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
e-mail: deirdre2@uic.edu
78
surprising, therefore, that in the nineteenth century, a bourgeois but Christian Europe
invented the idea of socialism. Marx and Engels wrote ercely about it in 1848:
“Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not
Christianity declaimed against private property. . . ? Christian Socialism is but the
holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat”
(Marx and Engels [1848] 1988, p. 77). The co-founder of the Catholic Worker
movement, the French peasant and priest Peter Maurin, used to wander the streets
of America in the early twentieth century declaring, “The world would be better off/
if people tried to become better./ And people would become better/ if they stopped
trying to be better off” (Ellsberg 1983, p. xxv). Do good by doing poorly.
In 1919, Paul Tillich, then a 33-year old Protestant pastor in Germany, wrote
with his friend Carl Richard Wegener an “Answer to an Inquiry of the Protestant
Consistory of Brandenburg” (1919):
The spirit of Christian love accuses a social order which consciously and in principle is built
upon economic and political egoism, and it demands a new order in which the feeling of
community is the foundation of the social structure. It accuses the deliberate egoism of an
economy . . . in which each is the enemy of the other, because his advantage is conditioned
by the disadvantage or ruin of the other, and it demands an economy of solidarity of all, and
of joy in work rather than in prot (Tillich [1919] 1971).
The economy in this view is a zero sum game. As the economist and theologian
the late Robert Nelson puts it, “If the private pursuit of self-interest was long seen
in Christianity as a sign of the continuing presence of sin in the world– a reminder
of the fallen condition of humanity since the transgression of Adam and Eve in the
garden– a blessing for a market economy has appeared to many people as the reli-
gious equivalent of approving of sin.”
I gesture here towards a much longer case made early and late by me and other
Christian admirers of commercially tested betterment (McCloskey 2016, 2019, and
esp. 2006).
First, political economy.
The “real liberalism” in my title is the liberalism of, for instance, John Stuart
Mill and of the Blessed Adam Smith. I do not intend to dismiss merely by choice of
terminology the “liberalism” of the United States, which is leftish, or that of Latin
America, which is rightish. It might be a good plan by the U.S. “liberal” left to make
public universities free at Federal expense, bestowing therefore a large subsidy (as
an economist is duty bound to point out) on rich parents with college-ready chil-
dren. Or it might be a good plan by the Latin “liberal” right to support militaries
devoted to suppressing domestic dissent (as an admirer of liberty is duty bound to
point out). Perhaps you can discern that I don’t agree with either plan. But opposing
or supporting them is not the direct purpose of returning here to the original and
non-Western-hemisphere meaning of “liberal.” (Opposing both left and right plans,
though, is on the cards.)
We need now, as much as in 1776, to have a prominent word for the political
position that is wary of state power, whether exercised by left or right. In the
Netherlands and other reasonably well-run polities the state is not always the enemy
D. N. McCloskey
79
of the people. But we are framing principles for actual humans, not angelic Swedish
bureaucrats. It is surely ethically irresponsible to assume that we have easily avail-
able a government of angels. As James Madison remarked in 1788
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men,
neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a gov-
ernment which is to be administered by men over men, the great difculty lies in this: you
must rst enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to
control itself (Madison 1788)
The question is quis custodiet ipsos custodies? Who guards the very guardians?
We do, of course. And we need to watch them closely. After all, the guardians
are armed.
In the world at large, which a Christian admitting the fallen character of humans
is duty bound to note, there are very many exceptionally bad guardians, murdering
journalists and dismembering them, say, or running phony elections in which the
present government gets 95 percent of the vote. The liberal and well-managed coun-
tries, in which the monopoly of coercion is exercised with reasonable justice and
competence, under suitable guarding of the guardians, are startlingly rare in human
experience. Before 1800 there were a handful of them, ever, anywhere, locally.
Nowadays, look at the 176 countries in the world ranked in 2016 by Transparency
International for its Corruption Perceptions Index, ranging from Denmark and New
Zealand at the top to Zimbabwe and North Korea at the bottom. Suppose, gener-
ously, that we reckon the top 30 or so to be reasonably honest– worthy, say, of fresh
infusions of taxpayer dollars, and, anyway, worthy of a degree of trust in their politi-
cians and guardians (Transparency International, 2017). Portugal in 2016 was the
marginal case of the 30, ranked 29th. Italy, by contrast, though in many ways liberal,
or indeed anarchistic, was ranked at 60th out of the 176, just below Romania, which
is highly corrupt, and Cuba, which is highly illiberal, and just above Saudi Arabia,
which is both. Despite many upstanding Italian judges, prosecutors, and police, no
wise Italian (of which there appear to be too few) wants to give the extant govern-
ment more power.
The prime minister in liberal Spain (ranked 41st) arranged to build a hugely
expensive high-speed train from Madrid to his small home city. It wouldn’t happen
in Denmark or New Zealand, though in some U.S. states quite similar corruptions
do occur. In my own state of Illinois, for instance, a proposed third airport for
Chicago was corruptly sited. In the state I grew up in, Massachusetts, a corrupt Big
Dig in Boston buried a highway, making richer the rich friends of the politicians. (I
focus here on self-interested corruption alone, setting aside economic incompetence
without notable venality, such as the half-built high-speed rail between San
Francisco and Los Angeles.) The United States overall ranks 18th. But some of its
constituent states and cities would rank much lower. The politicians and guardians
in such places lack full integrity or competence, as for example the city government
of Chicago covering up torture and murder of African- Americans by the police.
Ask, then: What percent of the world’s population was governed in 2016 by the
better governments, taking countries as a whole and following the relaxed,
5 God’s Work in the World: The Deep Compatibility of Real Liberalism with Any…
80
better-than-Portugal standard, such as Japan (20th) or France (23rd)? What is the
weight of present-day human experience with honest and competent government?
Answer: 10 percent. That is, fully 90 percent of the world’s population suffered in
2016 under governments agreed on all sides to be disgracefully corrupt and incom-
petent, and mostly illiberal, being notably worse than Portugal’s.
And of course, in a fallen world, even the competent governments are not omni-
competent. The presumption, often unspoken, leading to fresh proposals for govern-
mental regulation is that the government is wise. One will hear of numerous failings
in the voluntary, non-governmental sphere. (The importance of which, by the way,
no economist has demonstrated, not ever in the century of economic policy past.)
But the question is whether the government can do better than some proffered
“monopoly” or “externality,” considering that governments are not of the angels.
We need to revive for present use a word for the anti-statism that for a century or
so characterized much of Western and then Eastern thought, such as that of Henry
David Thoreau in 1849: “I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which
governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systemati-
cally.” Thomas Paine had written in the liberal birth year of 1776, “Government,
even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one”
(Paine [1776] 2004, p.47). Better keep the power to coerce modest, said the liberals
coming into their own in the late eighteenth century. Old Adam Smith recommended
in the same revolutionary year of 1776 “the obvious and simple system of natural
liberty,” by which he meant “the liberal plan of [social] equality, [economic] liberty,
and [legal] justice.” It is liberty from literal human tyranny (Greek tyrannos, “mas-
ter”), as also in the free evolution of language or art or science. It entails not equality
of result– an unattainable goal if people have differing gifts of prophesy and speech
and height and soccer-playing ability and desirable entrepreneurship– but equality
of permission and approval from other people. Let my people go.
In its tful development after the eighteenth century in northwestern Europe
such a liberalism– from Latin liber, long understood by the slave-holding ancients
as in the words of The Oxford Latin Dictionary “possessing the social and legal
status of a free man (as opp. to slave),” and then libertas as “the civil status of a free
man, freedom”–came to mean the theory of a society consisting entirely, if ideally,
of free people (Glare 1982, pp.1023, 1025). No slaves at all. No masters. No priests.
(Liberalism is Protestant– or Early Church, before the western church took on a
reinvention of the Roman Empire). Equality of status. No pushing people around by
physical coercion. Sweet talking. Persuasive. Rhetorical. Voluntary. Minimally vio-
lent. Humane. Tolerant. Unenvious. Accepting of difference. No racism enforced by
the state. No imperialism. No unnecessary taxes. No domination of women by men.
No casting couch. No beating of children. No messing with other people’s stuff or
persons.
Liberalism is not anarchism, though we liberals look with sisterly affection on
such anarchists as Mikhail Bakunin, Prince Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, and
Murray Rothbard. Considering, though, that we are not anarchists, it does not suf-
ce to dispose of real liberalism, as did the New Liberals in the 1880s in Britain and
D. N. McCloskey
81
the Progressives in the U.S. in the 1900s, and many of our good government-loving
friends nowadays on the left and right along the usual spectrum, by remarking irri-
tably that “after all, government must have some role.”
A government of course “has a role”– as my progressive and conservative friends
put it to me, predictably, relentlessly. George Romney, the automaker and conven-
tional 1950s Republican, opposing the liberal 1.0 (I am an Abrahamic liberal, ver-
sion 2.0, if you care) and conservative Barry Goldwater in 1964, declared, “Markets
don’t just happen,” that there must be “some role for government” (quoted in Schultz
(2015, p. 77). True, governments sometimes support markets, though they more
usually tax, obstruct, outlaw, or monopolize them. And contrary to Romney’s asser-
tion most markets do in fact “just happen,” because people nd them mutually ben-
ecial, with or without governmental action. Markets just happen, to take the
extreme case, inside jails and prisoner-of-war camps, with no governmental action
to enforce the deals made. Markets just happened among pre-contact Australian
aborigines buying their boomerangs from better-skilled hands hundreds of miles
distant (Radford 1945; Berndt and Berndt 1964, pp.302–5).
Yes, government should have some role. The political question is how much. The
government, declared Max Weber in 1919, can, with justice, claim “the monopoly
of the legitimate use of physical constraint/ force/ violence/ coercion” (“das
Monopol legitimen physischen Zwanges”) (Weber 1919, p. 310). Good. Such a
monopoly is to be preferred to oligopolies of gangs, surely. Liberalism merely rec-
ommends that the monopoly be exercised gingerly. Very gingerly. It recommends a
maximum liberty to pursue your own project, free of taxing or interference for
“social” purposes, if your project does not use your own or the government’s physi-
cal coercion to interfere with other people’s projects.
Real liberalism is a noble vision, suited to free men and women. Contrary to the
charge of anti-liberals, it is not destructive of community (Deneen 2018; McCloskey
2018). Rather the contrary. It is a vision of free cooperation, as against regimented
obedience.
The left “liberalism” as understood in the U.S., and pretty much only there, is in
the classical sense “illiberal.” It recommends massive use of coercion of one class
of citizens to achieve capabilities for another class, and the massive use of coercion
to regulate all classes by our masters in the government. The ends are said to be
“social,” from which we understand the sweet-sounding word “socialism,” helping
the poor or invading Iraq, separating toddlers from their mothers at the southern
border, protecting doctors from competition.
At the scale of such social projects as pursued in, say, France, with 55 percent of
the nation’s production funneled through l’Élat, one might as well name it 55 per-
cent “socialist.” American left “liberals” such as Paul Krugman wax wrath if one
applies the word to their proposals, but there does not seem to be a difference in
kind between 55 percent and 100 percent (and there is between 10 percent and 35
percent), especially considering that even a communist economy uses prices a little,
pushing the percentage below 100, and even the 45 percent remnant not spent by the
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government in France is tightly regulated, by populist-statist demand and by regula-
tory capture. The composition of bread has been regulated in Paris since the Middle
Ages (with, it must be admitted, satisfactory results). Rents in Paris have been fro-
zen since 1914 (with not so satisfactory results). Henry Kissinger, a war criminal
but a witty man, calls France “the only successful communist country.”
The real liberal David Boas of the real liberal (not “conservative” or “right
wing”) Cato Institute notes that it is a question whether a modern nation like the
U.S. is more or less free than it was in 1776, or as Boas notes, 1919. On the one
hand, more and more people have been freed from private and some public enslave-
ments of, for example, poor men and chattel slaves still in 1776, or women and gay
men and southern Blacks still in 1919. But on the other hand, and especially since
1919, public enslavement to the will of the government has radically increased. The
cowboy comedian Will Rogers used to say in the 1920s, when the share in national
product of taxes spent by government at all levels was about 10 percent, “Just be
glad you don’t get the government you pay for.” Nowadays on TV, the congress-
people (representing a government at all levels that takes over 30 percent) are inter-
viewed in front of a statue in the Capitol Rotunda of the same eloquent cowboy. One
wonders why Will doesn’t topple over when he hears the present extent of social-
ized expenditure and bureaucratic regulation, and the proposals to do more, emulat-
ing France.
The New Liberal/Statist/Progressive has believed in a particular theory of the
economy. She has believed down to the present that the economy is above all easy
to administer, and that therefore intentional action by wise folk having no business
or technical experience does the trick, quite easily. The woman of system, to quote
Smith again, “seems to imagine that [s]he can arrange [by governmental coercion]
the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the
different pieces upon a chess-board. [She] does not consider that . . . every single
piece has a principle of motion of its own.”1 People are motivated in varying propor-
tions by prudence, temperance, courage, justice, faith, hope, and love, together with
the corresponding vices. By way of such principles of motion, you and I pursue our
endlessly diverse projects, knitting and model railroading. Let them do it. Such a
modern liberal plan ts well a society in which people are taken to be free and equal
and increasingly competent, unlike the stolid peasants or helpless proletarians of
conservative theorizing always, or progressive theorizing since 1848.
The social/socialist plan is to pass a law seizing, say, two percent of nancial
wealth for governmental projects, which is to say a third or so of the annual yield on
non-human capital. Problem solved, says the woman of system, if our masters
(including the very woman in charge) are thus enabled to spend an immense sum as
they wish rather than as we wish. The woman of system here does not appear to
believe that the allocation of capital between its human and non-human forms will
be distorted by reducing the return to one of them by a third. She does not believe
that knowledge of what we should do and how to do it is distributed locally among
1 4.2.2.17, pp.233–234.
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the people, accessible only by unregulated markets. And above all she does not
believe it is unethical to coerce people.
In fact, people, she believes, get better housing and the eight-hour day from gov-
ernmental plans and compulsions, such as the Wagner Act facilitating excellent
industrial unions, or rent controls providing wonderfully cheaper housing, or an
entrepreneurial government coming up with brilliant ideas (Mazzucato 2013).2 John
R.Commons (1862–1945) of the University of Wisconsin was the American sage of
such statism, described at length in the Irish poet Michael O’Siadhail’s astounding
epic in 2018, of which Quintet 2, still more astoundingly, sings accurately of, believe
it or not, economics and its intellectual history. Says O’Siadhail [oh-sheel, by the
way] of Professor Commons: “Empiricist, you purged the harsh / And gilded age
with labour law / And compensation, chose to side / With plans to practice price
controls; Protectionism too you saw / As trammeling a too-free trade” (O’Siadhail
2018, p.129).
Betterment, the statist says, especially if she is a labor lawyer or a labor historian
inspired by Commons, or a senator inspired by Thomas Piketty, had little or nothing
to do with private agreements in commerce directed by prots earned both by pro-
ducers and consumers, and yielding, therefore, a working class enriched 3000 per-
cent since 1800. A working class 30 times better off than its ancestors, the liberal
claims in response to the statist faith, could get beyond houses without central heat-
ing or 12-hour working days without rest. “Don’t be silly,” the statist retorts to such
a liberal account of enrichment. “We New Liberals and Continental socialists came
in the nineteenth century to see ‘intentionality’ [to use again the word favored in
New-Liberal public theology] as crucial to making a just society– easily done in
law though a struggle in politics. After intentional struggles on the picket line and
intentional votes in Parliament, the just and rich society was nally achieved. None
of your mythical invisible hand about it!” The just and rich society did not occur,
she is saying, through enrichment from creative trade and innovation, allowed to
better ourselves and others by free exchange, down in the farmers’ market or the
auto dealership– but by pure hearts and coercive regulations.
A weak reply (among many weak replies) to liberalism’s stand against coercion
supposes that the government is composed of ethical philosopher-monarchs, who
can therefore be trusted to run a government kindly, giving us wisely the monarch-
chosen stuff out of taxes– the taxes gently, sweetly, democratically extracted from
the stuff we make. Says the liberal then: Maybe it’s roughly true in Sweden or
New Zealand; but not in the U.S.When the Commissioner of the U.S.Food and
Drug Administration, Margaret Hamburg, retired in 2015, she was introduced on
National Public Radio as having regulated fully a fth of the American economy
(Hamburg 2015). The statistic is startling, but accurate (Walker and Nardinelli
2016). Food. Drugs. Was Ms. Hamburg a Wonder Woman– a wholly ethical and
wholly wise philosopher queen? It seems unlikely, though I am sure she is very
2 The idea is old, even in the United States. “You gotta go down and join the union,” as I sang in my
socialist youth.
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nice. Therefore the early-stage cancer treatment that works in Berlin, may not be
accessible to you in HoustonJ, because the useful treatment still awaits a certied
nding by the FDA, afrming that the drug or medical appliance or procedure has
“efcacy,” tested unethically by “gold standard” double-blind experiments guided
by meaningless tests of statistical signicance, and going far beyond the original
brief of the FDA to test merely for safety, not for an elusive efcacy, efcacy any-
way regularly modied in the clinic by discoveries by doctors trying out the drug
or appliance off- label.3 That last was the history of Rogaine (minoxidil), origi-
nally an FDA-restricted heart drug, now an over-the-counter treatment for male-
pattern baldness –“over-the- counter” because the politicians responded to the
middle-aged men demanding that it be made easily and cheaply available, despite
the FDA.
“Freedom,” the Latin-French “liberty,” is often extended to equality of result,
Roosevelt’s “freedom from want.” But we already have words for such “free-
doms”–namely, adequate comfort, great wealth, considerable power, physical
abilities, central heating, subsidies from taxes. To use the freedom-word to mean
all these other good things, such as in the economist Amartya Sen’s and the phi-
losopher Martha Nussbaum’s vocabulary of “capabilities,” confuses the issue (Sen
1985, 1999; Nussbaum and Sen 1993). Capabilities are very good. We should
work to assure that every person on the planet has them, chiey if not only by let-
ting a free economy enrich ordinary people, as it has regularly done by that 3000
percent. Smith declared, when a nascent science of economics was shifting atten-
tion away from the glory of the king toward the ourishing of the people, that “no
society can surely be ourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the
members are poor and miserable” (Smith 1776, I.viii.36, p.96). That’s the humane
part of humane liberalism, expressed in its goal of higher real income per head,
and greater ourishing of the heads, especially the poor ones. But developing such
good things is not itself “freedom,” unless we want to smoosh into the one word
all good things under the sun.4
To put it another way, Smith and I do claim emphatically that economic, or
indeed ethical, development is the consequence of freedom, the “obvious and
simple plan of natural liberty.” But development – contrary to the title of one of
Sen’s book– is not the same thing as freedom. A cause is not the same thing as its
consequence. No one would deny that it’s good to be developed to the extent of
being adequately rich. In 1937, Beatrice Kaufman advised a friend, “I’ve been poor
and I’ve been rich. Rich is better!”5 Yup. Yet we still need a word for a distinct
3 On the FDA see Briggeman (2015) and Bhidé (2017, p.28), and on development of drugs for
early-stage cancer see Budish etal. (2015). On the meaninglessness of tests of statistical signi-
cance see Ziliak and McCloskey (2008) and the statement of the American Statistical Association
in Wasserstein and Lazar (2016, pp.131–3). On corruption of the procedures at the FDA, see Piller
and You (2018).
4 In 2018 I discovered that Tom Palmer had reasoned before 2009in the same way I am here, to the
same conclusion (Palmer 2009, pp.32, 35–6).
5 Quoted in Lyons (1937).
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85
“freedom from physical constraint by others humans.” The constraint in political
terms is called “tyranny,” its opposite “liberty/freedom.” We need to watch out for
masterful tyranny by kings and bureaucrats and husbands and priests, and its conse-
quences in poverty. And beyond money and poverty, we need to watch out for the
consequences of tyrannical unfreedom in preventing other sorts of human ourish-
ing, such as a spiritual one. Tyranny is bad for the human soul. Nowadays, as much
as in 1776 or 1789 or 1848, we need to watch out for the tyranny of the king, hus-
band, slave owner, chief, village elder, priest, bureaucrat, police. Watch and beware.
To do so, we need a word for it, avoiding a smooshing that makes it difcult to
watch, and which indeed excuses tyrannical coercion.
So much for a sketch of the political economy of liberty. Consider then, with, I
am afraid, markedly less authority or competence, theology– leading, if combined
with the political economy, to a new and truly liberal public theology.
We are God’s creatures. God therefore owns us, by an analogy with Lockean
mixing of labor with unappropriated land, or by an analogy with the ownership of
children by parents. But He, or rather She, chooses to make us free, not slaves. She
wants us to be free adults, not perpetual children. We Jews and Christians say at
Passover/Easter that She brought us out of slavery in Egypt and then, by Christ’s
sacrice, out of death. We Jews or Moslems say that a child undergoes a bar/bat
mitzvah or instruction in the Holy Koran to become an adult, a mukallaf– in modern
English a “responsible” person (Haskell 1999).
The core of Christian theology, I need hardly say, is free will. God does not want
us to be Her pets, but individuals with autonomy (“self-governance”), able to choose
evil as well as good, and living therefore in a real world in which the Lisbon earth-
quake of 1755 can happen. If we lived in Eden, it would not be so. But, as free adults
in a real world governed by natural and social laws, we chose, as Eve in the tale
chose, and Adam, too, chose by the persuadable will of a free man.
Now the central theme of my argument: The uber-liberal “Austrian” economics,
which speaks of free will as “human action.” It is free will. Putting the two together,
I am afraid, will annoy both my Austrian economist friends, who are mainly athe-
ists, and my progressive Anglican friends, who are mainly socialists. But I can’t
help it, because human action and free will are the same. As against the Marxism I
espoused at age 16, or the Samuelsonian Chicago-School economics I came to teach
ten years later, real choice is involved in both a Christian life and in the system of
commercially tested betterment misleadingly labeled “capitalism.” It is an unhappy
fact that orthodox, non-liberal public theology nowadays wants the government and
God to treat us like obedient pets, not free wills. It is an equally unhappy fact that
orthodox, non-Austrian economics nowadays views people as entirely reactive, like
pigeons maximizing utility under a constraint, or like grass seeking light and water
optimally.
No. God made us in the imago Dei/Deae. Free.
Christian and leftish communitarians celebrate what they consider interdepen-
dence, which they think is the furthest thing from independence. Oh, no. The inde-
pendence of the individual in a liberal economy lets people converse and exchange
freely– and results in the great interdependence of modern life. It gives us by the
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grace of liberty our shoes, TVs, books, whatever come from the voluntary paid work
of thousands of people worldwide. Listen yet again to Smith:
The woollen-coat,. . . . is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen.
[and workwomen, dear!] The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder,
the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others,
must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How
many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materi-
als from some of those workmen to others who often live in a very distant part of the coun-
try! . . . . Let us consider only what a variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very
simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. . . . the workmen who
attend the furnace, the mill-wright, the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different
arts in order to produce them.
Cooperation, that is, does not by any means always require intentional direct
action on the model of the good Samaritan, and especially not the coercive action of
a taxing and regulating state. As Smith also said, cooperation in society often results
even if the good done was, as Smith noted elsewhere, “no part of his intention.”
When Jesus’ shermen sold their catch– the abundant one He arranged for them,
for example– they intended only to help their own families. But thousands ate. The
unintended consequence of specialization and trade is a social miracle analogous to
the divine miracle of loaves and shes.
The Smithian point is something Donald Trump, for example, doesn’t get,
because like his opponents on the left he thinks of the economy as a battle, not as
cooperation. Indeed, he puts the “dependence” of nationalism ahead of everything:
he wants a slavish dependence of the individual imago Dei on The Leader, who in
the Nuremberg rally usurps the place of G-d.
In saying that we should “keep away from believers who are living in idleness,”
St. Paul is not here recommending a life of work, work, work ignoring the sacred. A
young lawyer working a 70-hour a week should not draw comfort from Paul’s
words, unless indeed the lawyer’s work is infused with the Holy Spirit. Paul is warn-
ing instead against a particular type of unworldly excess, a laying down of tools in
expectation of the Second Coming. He appears to have heard that some of the
Thessalonians were withdrawing from the world to prepare for the end days, which
they thought in 53 C.E. were coming any day now.
The early Christians were of course not the last to form such expectations.
Readers of a certain age will remember the Johnstown cult. Such millenarianism
breaks out repeatedly, as it did in the 35 million copies sold of the rst of the Rapture
books. “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is
coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the
world” (John 9:4–5). By a mechanism that the sociologist of religion Rodney Stark
has described in historical detail, cult-formation is natural in any religion that
emphasizes a distinction between the sacred and the profane, the Lord’s work and
the world’s work (Stark 2001). The Church of Faith, as Stark calls it, grows restive
under the rule of the Church of Power. The holy ones repeatedly break off from the
world and form cults in expectation of Christ’s coming. One sees a similar joyous
expectation, of the First Coming of the Lord, in the Jewish Hassidim. And if they
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believe the time is late and the End is Near they stop working, as St. Paul com-
plained. One of these cults is called Protestantism, and some of the Radical
Reformation such as the Anabaptists in the sixteenth century, were willing, on
account of imminent salvation, to go to the stake singing hymns.
Thus earlier, in the eleventh century in southern France, the Albigensians, or
Cathars– the Greek katharos means “pure” – would in their last days withdraw
from Satan’s world to enter God’s kingdom as “Perfects,” as they called themselves.
The believing Cathars who were short of perfection would go about their worldly
business until their end days. As St. Paul said, “work with quietness and eat your
own [earned] bread.” But when the Cathars were called to perfection– and many
were called from the elite of Languedoc society during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries– they gave away all their goods and followed Jesus. Stark notes that in
European history, or for that matter in Islamic or Jewish history, such purifying
moves did not usually come as an upwelling from the poor and oppressed. The cults
tended to be led and staffed on the contrary by the rich, or more exactly the formerly
rich, such as St. Francis of Assisi. Compare Lord Buddha. The riches of Mammon
(the word means in Aramaic simply “wealth”) were spurned in the name of purity.
No need to work. Just pray.
The Church of Power did not look kindly on the Cathars. And their anticipation
of the priesthood of all believers. The ironically misnamed Pope Innocent III
arranged in 1209 a crusade of northern knights, led by Simon de Montfort, in which
fully 200,000 withdrawers from the world were sent out of it prematurely. The
Inquisition of later notoriety was invented by the papacy in 1284 to deal with the
persistent remnant of Cathars. So the Church of Power has always been suspicious
of what it regards as excessive withdrawal from God’s beloved world of work.
Augustine, who was not exactly easy going about worldly pleasures, nonetheless
was harsh, with re and sword, against the holier-than-thou Donatists.
The social science of worldly goods called economics could be expected to have
a similar attitude, right? Not working is bad. Stay in the world. Pump up the
economy.
But economics doesn’t. On the contrary, economists view withdrawal from the
world, a refusal to work (because what is the point of work if Christ is coming
soon?), as what they call “leisure.” “Leisure” in economic analysis is anything but
paid work. The economist views volunteer “work,” visiting the sick or feeding the
poor or just sitting there praying in expectation of the End Times, as something you
do, literally, in your spare time. Work or pray. No worries: your call, or calling.
Whatever.
What’s St. Paul’s complaining about, then? He goes on to remind the
Thessalonians that when he was visiting them, he himself worked “night and day.”
In a verse that sounds to an economist like a lesson in the budget constraint he
declares, “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” The economist would put it a
little differently: “Anyone unwilling to work,” she would say, “will not in fact eat,
unless he has support from outside the marketplace. But no blame attaches,” says
the non-Christian economist. “It’s his choice. Whatever.”
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Notice that the economist is not angry at the idle person. That’s the force of the
Valley-girl “whatever” that one feels comes after most refusals by economists to
think seriously about ethics. The idler “chooses leisure,” or, in the case that he does
not have that support from a mother or a charitable person, he “chooses” starvation.
St. Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) starved herself to death at age 33, the age that
Jesus died, by refusing to eat anything but the communion host. The French mystic
Simone Weil followed St. Catherine, starving herself to death during the Second
World War, age 34. An economist is likely to analyze such behavior as a mere
choice, like choosing between chocolate and vanilla ice cream, and leave it at that.
Whatever.
St. Paul, with some theologians such as Aquinas and up to the present, would
have taken a less neutral view of Catherine and Simone. Such radical withdrawing
from the world strikes some Christians as spiritual pride (McCloskey 2006). I am
proud that I am so humble, and Satan swoops down at the last minute to claim my
soul. An old New Yorker cartoon shows two monks walking in the cloister, one say-
ing to the other, “But I am holier than thou.” (And the Devil swoops in at the last
minute and takes his soul, for the sin of pride that he is not proud.)
What, then, is the theological gripe against the holier than thou? Why isn’t with-
drawal from the world orthodox (in Greek the word means “upright opinion”)?
What’s not upright about withdrawing from the world?
The answer I would give is that the world’s work in Christianity is dignied. If
Christianity is to be, in Nietzsche’s sneering characterization, a slave religion– we
Christians embrace the characterization with satisfaction – it cannot downgrade
what slaves do, that is, work. Paul, in requiring that people work if they are to eat,
was standing against the ethos of a slave and patriarchal society in which dignied
people, such as non-slaves and non-women and free male citizens of Rome, like
Paul, specically did not work “night and day,” or at all. St. Benedict’s Rule, in
about the 530rd year of the Christian era at Monte Cassino, uses the same word for
work in the elds and the “work of God.” The monastic formula was laborare est
orare, to work is to pray. Work in the world is a form of prayer, if done with God in
mind: “Idleness is the enemy of the soul,” said Benedict (Verheyen 1949, chap.
XLVIII). This work-praising tendency in Christianity made it easy for urban monks
in the high Middle Ages, such as Aquinas, to justify the urban work of say, mer-
chants, as creative work, like God’s.
The obligation to self-development is the obligation to use God’s gifts. The
Christian version is reformulated in 1673 by Joseph Pufendorf of Leipzig,
Heidelberg, and Lund thus:
It seems superuous to invent an obligation of self-love. Yet. . . . man is not born for himself
alone; the end for which he has been endowed by his Creator with such excellent gifts is that
he may celebrate His glory and be a t member of human society. He is therefore bound so
to conduct himself as not to permit the Creator's gifts to perish for lack of use. . . . (Pufendorf
[1673] 1991, Bk. I, Chp. 5, p.46).
Thus Comus, tempting the Lady in John Milton’s poem of 1634, argues that from
niggardliness in using God’s gifts “Th’All-giver would be unthanked, would be
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unpraised/ Not half his riches known . . ./ And we should . . . live like Nature’s bas-
tards, not her sons.”
The liberal Christian tradition of the urban friars, such as Francis and Dominic
and Aquinas, recommended working on God’s gifts. “Albert the Great and [his stu-
dent, St.] Thomas,” writes Lester K. Little, “brought about the emancipation of
Christian merchants.” They were not commending unlimited greed, but a purposeful
buying low and selling high. “The honest merchant, for all these writers, was a man
deserving of the prot he made, for they considered it as payment for his labor
(quasi stipendium laboris)” (Little 1978, p.178). Prot paid for alertness. This is
the virtue of the liberal man, in Aquinas’s words: “by reason of his not being a lover
of money, it follows that a man readily makes use of it, whether for himself, or for
the good of others, or for God’s glory” (Aquinas, c. 1270, IIa IIae, q. 117, art. 6).
The miser keeps his pile. The liberal man spends it for the three levels of ethics, self
(for lessons in the cello, so as “not to permit the Creator’s gifts to perish for lack of
use”), for others (in Jesus of Nazareth’s formulation of the Golden Rule), for the
transcendent answer to the question “so what,” quo vadis?
One wonders where the work-praising came from, because in the Greek and
Roman world any work except war-making and speech-making was so very undig-
nied, and the collection of feudal rents by the genteel was precisely why they did
not work at anything but war and courtesy. After Adam’s curse, of course, a human
was to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Yet Judaism praised work– “Seest
thou a man diligent in his work? He shall stand before kings.” Maimonides wrote in
the early thirteenth century “One who make his mind up to study Torah and not to
work but to live on charity profanes the name of God, brings the Torah into con-
tempt, extinguishes the light of religion, brings evil upon himself, and deprives
himself of the life hereafter.”6 It sounds like Paul scolding the Thessalonians. The
Christians of course go further than the Jews, praising diligence or the Muslim’s
listening to an inspired merchant of Mecca. God himself, in the form of God’s only
begotten son, became in the words of the Creed “truly human.” God was a carpenter,
the Christians say, and not merely metaphorically as among Jews and Muslims, a
maker of the world, but literally in the sweat of his brow. That is the startling
Christian story.
But wherever it came from historically, God appears to want it. He wants us to
live and choose in his created world, though not, since the Fall, in the Edenic part.
To put it economically, God wants us to face scarcity. He wants it, not because He
is a trickster who is amused by seeing us struggle with disease and the law of gravity
in our pain-lled and nite lives. He so loves us that, after Eden, he wants us to have
the dignity of choice. That is what free will means. Denys Munby said to me once,
“In Heaven there is no scarcity and in Hell there is no choice.” In the created world
there are both. The dignity of free will would be meaningless if a choice of one
good, such as apples, did not have what the economists call an “opportunity cost”
6 Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, c. 1200, quoted in Sacks (2002, p.95).
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in, say, oranges. If we could have all the apples and oranges we wanted, “living in
idleness,” as Paul put it, with no “budget constraint,” no “scarcity,” we would live as
overfed pet cats, not as human beings. If we have free will, and therefore necessarily
face scarcity, we live truly in the image of God.
Scarcity is necessary for human virtues. Humility, said Aquinas, answers among
the Christian virtues to the pagan virtue of Great-Souledness that Aristotle the pagan
teacher of aristocrats admired so much. To be humble is to temper one’s passions in
pursuing as Aquinas put it “boni ardui,” goods difcult of achievement. To be great-
souled, which in turn is part of the cardinal virtue of Courage, is to keep working
towards such goods nonetheless.7 No one would need to be courageous or prudent
or great-souled or humble if goods were faciles rather than ardui.
The virtue of Temperance, again, is not about mortication of the esh, at any
rate in Christian thinkers like Aquinas (there were others, descendants of the Desert
Fathers, who had another idea). On the contrary, this side of Christianity says, we
should admire the moderate yet relishing use of a world charged with the grandeur
of God. It is the message of the Aquinian side of Christian thought that we should
not withdraw from the world. On the contrary, as Jesus was, we should be truly, and
laboriously, and gloriously human. As the economists say, too, though they omit the
Christian claim that working is praying.
The economist Frank Knight, in an anti-clerical fury, mistook the Christian
morality of charity for a call to common ownership, the extreme of loving Solidarity,
and attacked it as unworkable. (It is said that the only time the University of Chicago
has actually refunded money to a student was to a Jesuit who took Knight’s course
on “the history of economic thought” and discovered that it was in fact a sustained
and not especially well-informed attack on the Catholic Church.) Knight wrote a
book with T.W. Merriam in 1945 called The Economic Order and Religion which
mysteriously asserts that Christian love destroys “the material and social basis of
life,” and is “fantastically impossible,” and is “incompatible with the requirements
of everyday life,” and entails an “ideal . . . [which is] not merely opposed to civiliza-
tion and progress but is an impossible one.” Under Christian love “continuing social
life is patently impossible” and “a high civilization could hardly be maintained
long, . . to say nothing of progress” (Knight and Merriam 1945, pp.29, 30, 31, 46).
It develops that Knight and Merriam are arguing that social life in a large group
with thoroughgoing ownership in common is impossible. That is what they believe
Christian love entails.8 Their source is always the Gospels, never the elaborate com-
promises with economic reality of other Christian writers, such as Paul or Aquinas
or Luther, or the 38th article of the Anglicans: “The riches and goods of Christians
are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as certain
Anabaptists do falsely boast.”
But, yes: social life without private property is impossible, at any rate in large
groups. So said Pope Leo XIII in 1891in Rerum Novarum, re-echoed by Pius XI in
7 IIa IIae, q. 161, a. 1, quoted in Pope (2002, p.311).
8 See for example Knight and Merriam (1945, p.48).
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91
1931, John XXIII in 1961 and 1963, by Paul VI in 1967 and 1971, and by John Paul
II in 1981 and 1991.9 These men were not nineteenth-century liberals– especially,
as Michael Novak explains, not in the harsh, Continental sense, the “old liberals” of
Jan Gresshof’s satiric poem of the 1930s (Novak 1989). They celebrated private
property– when used with regard to soul and community. They were nothing like
the Sermon-on-the-Mount socialists that Knight and Merriam attack.
Thus Leo: “private possessions are clearly in accord with nature” (15), following
his hero, Aquinas.10 “The law of nature , . . by the practice of all ages, has conse-
crated private possession as something best adapted to man’s nature and to peaceful
and tranquil living together” (17). “The fundamental principle of Socialism which
would make all possessions public property is to be utterly rejected because it
injures the very one’s whom it seeks to help” (23). “The right of private property
must be regarded as sacred” (65). “If incentives to ingenuity and skill in individual
persons were to be abolished, the very fountains of wealth would necessarily dry up;
and the equality conjured up by the Socialist imagination would, in reality, be noth-
ing but uniform wretchedness and meanness for one and all, without distinc-
tion” (22).
Nick Hornby’s comic novel How to Be Good (2001) shows the difculties of To
Each According to His Need, Regardless of His Property Acquired by Effort
Directed at Supplying Goods and Services That Other People Are Willing
Themselves to Expend The Effort to Acquire (“Thank you for your service”). A
graceful generosity that works just ne within a family works poorly within a large
group of adult strangers. In Hornby’s book the husband of the narrator goes mad and
starts giving away his and his wife’s money and his children’s superuous toys. He
and his guru are going to write a book:
“‘How to Be Good’, we’re going to call it. It’s about how we should all live our lives. You
know, suggestions. Like taking in the homeless, and giving away your money, and what to
do about things like property ownership and, I don’t know, the Third World and so on.”
“So” [replies his annoyed wife, a hard-working GP in the National Health Service] “this
book’s aimed at high-ranking employees of the IMF?” (Hornby 2001, p.210).
It’s a version of the Sermon on the Mount, from which many people have con-
cluded that Jesus was of course a socialist. “The love-gospel,” writes Knight and
Merriam, “condemning all self-assertion as sin. . . would destroy all values” (Knight
and Merriam 1945, p.50). Knight and Merriam are correct if they mean, as they
appear to, that Love without other and balancing virtues is a sin. Knight’s under-
standing of Christianity appears to have derived from his childhood experience in a
frontier Protestant sect, the Campbellites (evolved now into a less erce Church of
Christ and Disciples of Christ), and theirs is what he took to be the core teaching of
Christianity: “No creed but the Bible. No ethic but love.”
9 These are Pius: Quadragesimo Anno; John: Mater et Magistra and Pacem in Terris; Paul:
Populorum Progressio and Octogesima adveniens; and John Paul: Laborem Exercens and
Centesimus Annus. Michael Novak is my guide here (1989, chapt. 6–8).
10 Leo XIII. 1891. Rerum Novarum, paragraph numbers given. See Aquinas Summa Theologiae, c.
1270, IIa IIae, Q 66, quoted and discussed in Fleischacker (2004, p.35 and n40).
5 God’s Work in the World: The Deep Compatibility of Real Liberalism with Any…
92
But Love without Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and the rest is not Christian
orthodoxy– for example the orthodoxy of Aquinas or of Leo XIII.Leo in fact was
a close student of Aquinas, and in 1889 elevated him to dogma within the Church.
And, yes, such a single-virtue ethic would not be ethical in a fallen world. Economists
would call the actual orthodoxy a “second-best” argument, as against the rst best
of “if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy
cloak also.” Given that people are imperfect, the Christian, or indeed any economist
would say, we need to make allowances, and hire lawyers. Otherwise everyone will
live by stealing each other’s coats, with a resulting failure to produce coats in the
rst place, and a descent into poverty for everyone but the thief.
St. Paul himself said so, in his earliest extant letter (1 Tim. 3: 8–11):
Neither did we eat any man's bread for naught; but wrought with labor and travail night and
day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you . . . .to make ourselves an example unto
you to follow us. . . . We commanded you that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
For we hear that there are some . . . among you disorderly, working not at all.
Or to put it more positively, as Michael Novak did, “one must think clearly about
what actually does work– in a sinful world– to achieve the liberation of peoples
and persons” (Novak 1989, p. xvi). “In the right of property,” wrote even the blessed
Pope John XXIII in 1961, “the exercise of liberty nds both a safeguard and a
stimulus.”11 Frank Knight couldn’t have put it better.
Charity is not socialism. Generosity is not a system at all. It is of a person, then
two, then a few. God arranges such encounters, a Christian might say. But humans
want them, too, the gift-economy of grace above material concerns. So the great
Quaker and economist Kenneth Boulding said. To make them into a system, How to
Be Good, is to cancel their virtue. The heroine and narrator of Hornby’s novel sees
that Erasmus began all editions of his Adages from 1508 onwards with “Between
friends all things are common,” remarking that “If only it were so xed in men’s
minds as it is frequent on everybody’s lips, most of the evils of our lives would
promptly be removed. . . . Nothing was ever said by a pagan philosopher which
comes closer to the mind of Christ” as the proposed socialism of goods in Plato’s
Republic.12 Such is the rst best. But Erasmus notes, sadly, “how Christians dislike
this common ownership of Plato’s, how in fact they cast stones at it.” Many of his
4150 proverbs collected from classical and Christian sources recommend attention
to Prudence and work, if not quite with the insistence of, say, proverbs he might
have collected in his native Dutch. We are mostly not friends, but strangers, and
even in the Society of Friends property was not held in common. Knight and
Merriam are not really undermining Christian orthodoxy and Christian ethics. They
are misunderstanding it.
One owes Love to a family rst. Property, with the virtue of justice, protects the
beloved family. If any would not work, neither should he eat. Work, depending on
temperance and prudence, is desirable to create and to acquire the property. So is
11 From the encyclical Mater et Magistra, 1961, quoted in Novak (1989, p. xxii).
12 Erasmus, Adages, 1500–1533, 1508 onwards I i 1 (Barker 2001, p.29).
D. N. McCloskey
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prudent stewardship in managing it, though the lilies of the eld toil not. For societ-
ies of humans, she realizes, not lilies and families, the right prescription is bourgeois
virtue. True, she cannot quite get rid of the notion that “maybe the desire for nice
evenings with people I know and love is essentially bourgeois, reprehensible –
depraved, even” (Hornby 2001, p.218). Such is the agony of the left US “liberal.”
It is a matter of Christian ethics.
Ethics has three levels, the good for self, the good for others, and the good for the
transcendent purpose of a life. The good for self is the prudence by which you self-
cultivate, learning to play the cello, say, or practicing centering prayer. Self-denial
is not automatically virtuous. (How many self-denying mothers does it take to
change a lightbulb? None: I’ll just sit here in the dark.)
The good for a transcendent purpose is the faith, hope, and love to pursue an
answer to the question “So what?” The family, science, art, the football club, God
give the answers that humans seek.
The middle level is attention to the good for others. The late rst-century BCE
Jewish sage Hillel of Babylon put it negatively yet reexively: “Do not do unto oth-
ers what you would not want done unto yourself.” It’s masculine, a guy-liberalism,
a gospel of justice, roughly the so-called Non-Aggression Axiom as articulated by
libertarians since the word “libertarian” was redirected in the 1950s to a (then)
right-wing liberalism. Matt Kibbe puts it well in the title of his 2014 best seller,
Don’t Hurt People and Don’t Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto.
On the other hand, the early rst-century CE Jewish sage Jesus of Nazareth put
it positively: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It’s gal-
liberalism, a gospel of love, placing upon us an ethical responsibility to do more
than pass by on the other side. Be a good Samaritan. Be nice.
In treating others, a humane libertarianism attends to both Golden Rules. The
one corrects a busybody and coercive pushing around. The other corrects an inhu-
mane and soul-destroying selshness. Together they are the other-ethics of modern
liberalism. What we do not need is the reactionary version, the old spoof of the
Golden Rule, namely, “Those who have the gold, rule.” Nor do we need to follow
the Florida football player on the eve of the Florida-Florida State game, “I follow
the Good Book: ‘Do unto others before they do it unto you.’” Neither is non-
aggressive or nice.
The Golden Rule in either formulation, note, is radically egalitarian. In the
Abrahamic religions you are to treat every human soul the way you would wish to
be treated. You are to honor your one God and keep His day holy, but the rest of the
Ten Commandments are about treating other humans as you would wish to be
treated in matters such as truth telling or adultery. By contrast, in the theism of the
Hindus or in the civic religion of the Confucians you are to treat the Brahman or the
emperor as superior souls. An Untouchable or a peasant or a woman or a younger
son is not to expect equal, reciprocal treatment. Of course, it was not until the bour-
geois societies of late eighteenth-century Europe that anyone but an early Christian
radical or a late Muslim saint thought to carry out in any large society the sweetly
other-regarding theory of Abrahamic egalitarianism. Until Tom Paine or Adam
Smith, a duchess was still a duchess, a sultan still a sultan, King Herod still Great.
5 God’s Work in the World: The Deep Compatibility of Real Liberalism with Any…
94
It is liberalism, a fulllment at last of the Abrahamic equality of souls, that brings
us human ourishing and human virtue, as God wishes for Her creations.
To this the Christian statist has a series of worries, replies, indignant objections.
For one thing, she says, work is not free. We are “wage slaves.” The claim was in
fact the defense of actual slavery offered by Southern apologists before the Civil
War in the United States. The Northern factory workers, they said, were virtual
slaves. The leftish usage and its politics echo down to the present, as in The Concise
Oxford Dictionary of 1999, in which “wage slave” is dened coolly as “a person
who is wholly dependent on income from employment,” with the notation “infor-
mal”– but not “ironic” or “jocular” or, better, “economically illiterate” (Pearsall
1999, p.1610). Thus Judy Pearsall, the editor of the Concise Oxford, who lives, it
may be, in a nice semidetached in London NW6 and drives an old Volvo, is a “slave.”
You yourself are probably a slave. I certainly am a slave. We are all “slaves” –
though all of us are paid in proportion to the traded value of goods and services we
produce for others and none of us owes unpaid service to any boss (except, as Higgs
and I would observe, to the state through taxation or draft, an actual slavery admired
by most of the left and much of the right). Such progressive or conservative termi-
nology of “wage slavery” is like calling an exchange of harsh words “verbal rape.”
We need terms for the physical violence entailed in actual slavery and in actual rape,
or for that matter in actual taxation backed by the wide powers of the IRS to do
violence. We should not cheapen them by applying them to our middle-class guilt in
NW6 or Morningside Heights.
One nds Oscar Wilde in 1891 declaring that “socialism [about which he knew
only the contents of a lecture he had just heard by George Bernard Shaw] would
relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others,” by which he means charity
but also paid work: “An individual who has to make things for the use of others, and
with reference to their wants and their wishes, does not work with interest, and
consequently cannot put into his work what is best in him” (Wilde [1891] 1930,
pp.257, 270).13 Even the owner of property is not exempt, Wilde continues, because
property “involves endless claims upon one, endless attention to business, endless
bother” (Wilde [1891] 1930, p.259). Think of it. Worker or capitalist or landlords,
we are all “slaves” to supplying things for others. Frightful.
In that highly metaphorical and imprecise sense, we are indeed “enslaved,” and
to our mutual good. After Hegel, many intellectuals have declared that capitalism
makes people work for others, and makes the worker therefore an “object,” not a
“subject.” So it was said by Marx and Heidegger and Sartre, since “being for others”
is “inauthentic.” If I adopt a social role, such as selling you a deep-fried Mars bar
from my sh-and-chips shop in Edinburgh, I am treating you as an object, and you,
when you hand over your money, are treating me the same. As the philosopher
Roger Scruton puts it, to follow such a Kantian obedience to ethical law with respect
13 The editor, Hesketh Pearson, remarks that Wilde had been inspired by Shaw’s lecture, “without
bothering himself much about economics” (p. xii). The astoundingly scholarly Wikipedia entry for
“wage slavery,” by the way, gives arguments from people like Noam Chomsky against my views,
and those by people like Robert Nozick in favor of them.
D. N. McCloskey
95
to others “launches us down that path towards the ‘bourgeois’ order on which n-
icky intellectuals are so reluctant to tread” (Scruton 1994, p.468).
Or they say things like, “All right, a 3,000% increasing in material goods and
services since 1800– but humans do not live by bread alone.” Yes, certainly. If eco-
nomic growth, as many conservatives and some socialists argue, corrupts the human
soul, I will join them in attacking it. What benet is it to someone who gains the
world but loses her immortal soul? But the counter argument was the burden of The
Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce, the most theological of the tril-
ogy. “Consumerism,” for example, is a common worry. But it has an answer, chiey
that it does not corrupt and is not new and is anyway a worry only for the rich, who
are always with us.
Or they say that inequality is worrisome. Or that monopolies are prevalent and
corrupt the government. Or that the 1980s Me Decade was a bad ‘un. Or, or, or.
They all have answers that ought to satisfy a Christian or Jew or Muslim, and did
before the theologians and their enemies became confused and immune to the evi-
dence on innovism and its sad opposite in statism. The liberal era was brief, from
1776 to 1848. It established freedom of religion. But freedom is freedom is free-
dom. A free-willed person, in God’s eyes, should be free from human interference
in religion and behavior and business.
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Chapter 6
What Is theNature ofChristian Love?
Homo Amans andRevolutionary Altruism
RebekkaA.Klein
Abstract The attempt to explore human beings transdisciplinarily as beings of love
can contribute to a more realistic anthropology, with an increased practical rele-
vance for science and research. On the other hand, with its holistic orientation
towards the whole person, it leads to an improper standardization of scientic
research results. In order to avoid the problems associated with the holistic study of
man as Homo amans, this article therefore reverses the perspective. Fundamentally,
the nature of love is not discussed anthropologically on the basis of an examination
of human nature and its altruism or egoism, but on the basis of the phenomenon of
love in its ambivalence. Following Kierkegaard’s phenomenology of love, the arti-
cle shows that love cannot be clearly distinguished from selsh acts without the
reference of interpersonal relationships with a “third party.” In the Christian per-
spective, God is such a “third party,” who makes our fellow human beings recogniz-
able to us as neighbors of God and enables us to behave in the spirit of love. Christian
love of neighbor is therefore an example of the revolutionary, socially transforma-
tive dynamics of love.
6.1 Introduction
“A person can ourish only by seeking the common good, by seeking the good for oneself
and others.”
“Economics should foster the human well-being.”
These quotes from the outline of the Homo amans project are signicant for the
aspirations and hopes that our society and culture ascribe to science in the present
day. They remind us that science and ethics are subject to intense questioning these
days in terms of their usefulness and real-world orientation. This questioning of sci-
ence as a whole represents a major trend in society and politics as well as in the
R. A. Klein (*)
Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany
e-mail: rebekka.klein@rub.de
100
contemporary philosophy of science. In this respect, it is no longer regarded as suf-
cient for scientic knowledge and interdisciplinary research to seek the truth or
nd out facts and gures concerning a certain subject or question of theory. Rather,
the two processes are brought together to make a substantial contribution to solving
the real-world problems of our society (Mittelstraß 1982; Klein 2017). One slogan
that is very well known in this context is “science into society,” which is currently
very common in the design of new research projects and proposals in so-called hard
sciences.
In order to contribute to solving real-world problems– which can be said to be
the main goal of scientic research in the twenty-rst century– it is suggested that
science should take a more holistic perspective, not submerging itself in the produc-
tion of academic and scholarly knowledge, but rather it should develop concrete
insights, which can actually be proven to be orientational and useful in our everyday
lives (Nowotny 1997, 1999; Nowotny etal. 2001). A viable way to achieve this goal,
which has evolved in recent decades, is to pursue science in a transdisciplinary man-
ner, i.e., by integrating different scholarly and disciplinary approaches, methods,
and perspectives into a more comprehensive and unifying scientic endeavor
(Hirsch-Hadorn etal. 2008; Mittelstraß 2003). The rationale behind this trend is the
idea that science has the power to inuence and transform real life but that it can
only actualize this power when it becomes holistic again– as with premodern sci-
entic knowledge practices, for example. Consequently, a trend has also resurfaced
towards the antique and premodern traditions of wisdom and knowledge.
Likewise, the Homo amans project seeks to develop the idea that science should
serve the common good of society and help to solve real-world problems. In the
outline of the Project it is argued that economics must foster human ourishing
instead of merely nding out the truth about human nature (as it is). What is implied
here is that science has to prove the anthropological, psychological, societal and
political usefulness, pragmatic and ethical impact of its insights, rather than merely
safeguarding the correct methodological fabrication of scientic facts. Thus, trans-
disciplinary and holistic research prospects also represent a shift towards greater
commitment from scientists to ethical and social change, and also to political and
societal interests. A political interest which could be seen to lie behind this focus on
human ourishing in current science, especially in economics and ethics, is the
concern that people should not be broken by the wheels of late-modern capitalist
working conditions; becoming mentally or physically sick from exhaustion, for
example. Thus, the focus on human well-being as the latest goal to be served by the
economy represents a political resource, transforming contemporary society for the
better. A concrete example of the increasing relevance of this issue can be seen in
the public discussion of the retirement of German politician Andrea Nahlesin June
2019 who gave up her leading position in the social democratic party after severe
inghting. Responding to this incident, a journalist from the German newspaper
DIE ZEIT claimed that the exercise of power in politics, which was formerly a
domain of masculine virtues and cold-blooded heroism, should become more
humane and solidary (Peitz 2019).
R. A. Klein
101
A second point of reference in explaining society’s current interest in human
ourishing is the attempt to interpret it as a response to the nihilisms of late moder-
nity. As theologian Miroslav Volf has argued in his book on this topic, there are two
nihilisms in late modernity which reinforce each other: the passive nihilism of fun-
damentalists and the active nihilism of libertarians (Volf 2015, p.200f). Both have
in common an unsustainable end for our lives. The passive nihilism of religious
world-deniers and world-destroyers offers a life with strong values and a transcen-
dent foundation which imbues the order of life with “weight” and meaning. This is
illustrated, for example, in the attractiveness for young Westerners of terrorist orga-
nizations such as the Islamic State. Here, such a strict and stable order of meaning
can be a welcome alternative to the active nihilism practiced in market-driven glo-
balization movements of late modernity. The latter have given rise to a character
type which Volf calls “free spirits,” i.e. consumerists for whom nothing matters with
any sort of profundity, or who lack a constancy of meaning. Their nihilism consists
in the willingness to ght “for the pleasures and comforts of their way of life” (Volf
2015, p. 201) making the realm of values ultimately arbitrary and insignicant.
According to Volf, the plea for human ourishing in the present is therefore to be
seen as an attempt to nd a third way which– as he suggests– is the great challenge
of our time (Volf 2015, p.201).
Thus, current endeavors to reorient science and research towards human well-
being as a whole, stand on the horizon of a broader development in late modern
culture. A number of consequences follow from this reorientation of science which
can be summarized as follows: rstly, pressure to solve overall societal problems
and to present an all-inclusive solution to them means that scientists are motivated
to develop an integrative and overly harmonious picture of human society which
tends to make the solutions they are studying more plausible and approachable.
Consequently, they are inclined to disregard the fractures and ambivalences of cer-
tain phenomena or theories under investigation, for in giving attention to such frac-
tures they would make their own account more vulnerable and less efcient.
Secondly, transdisciplinary research projects ultimately create transformative
knowledge rather than picturing and reproducing the world as it is. As convincing as
this endeavor may be in times of postmodernist relativism, constructivism, and per-
spectivist visions of truth, it nonetheless shifts the focus of science away from
objectivity and independence of real-world matters, and reshapes its work into a
kind of service enterprise (which is, I believe, problematic in the long run). Thirdly,
scientists who take a transdisciplinary perspective and attempt to solve real-world
problems of a holistic nature are in danger of becoming “do-gooders”
(Weltverbesserer, in German) when participating in the scientic process. This
means that they might leave the “cool mood” of science and philosophy and become
over-engaged campaigners.
Let us now turn to the Homo amans project. The initiators of this project would
probably resist my emphasis on the major shift from investigating human nature (as
it is) to studying human ourishing (as it can be advanced by society and science).
They would certainly argue that such predestined ourishing refers directly to
human nature (as it is) and is not to be separated from it. This is rational because
6 What Is theNature ofChristian Love? Homo Amans andRevolutionary Altruism
102
they argue from an approach of virtue ethics. In this approach, ourishing and the
nature of human beings are essentially the same thing. Hence, human beings always
become what they should be, and the study of human nature is the study of human
beings’ nal destiny.
Now, my aim in this regard is not to downgrade or devalue the perspective of the
initiators of the Homo amans project in any way. Rather, I want to create a produc-
tive contrast, applying my own approach and experience (Klein 2011) from a trans-
disciplinary perspective in order to shed some light on aspects which may not have
been given enough attention in the outline of the Homo amans project. This means
that my goal is to challenge and, ultimately, complement the project’s perspective,
as well as to describe and to explore the limits and problems inherent in the argu-
ment that is presented here.
My discussion is divided into two main parts as follows: sections two and three
of my chapter critique and respond to the Homo amans model as given in the initia-
tors’ outline. I will focus on the opposition of Homo economicus and Homo amans,
critically exploring the holistic nature of anthropological models in general. Finally,
I will contrast the understanding of the virtue of love in Homo amans, taking a phe-
nomenological approach that encompasses ambivalence as well as the failure of
human love. The second main part of the paper will then develop and elaborate upon
my own understanding of the nature of love. It will effectively present a reversal of
perspective by, rstly, seeking to understand the nature of love and then questioning
the nature of human beings on the basis of this understanding. I will argue that this
is exactly the right order of thought if we truly want to adopt a Christian perspective
on the topic. In section four, this thesis is elaborated further by following the thought
of the Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard and his argument that
a (self-)critique of love is the key to love’s ourishing. Although Kierkegaard
regards love as a reality of human life and not as a purely fantastical idea that
belongs to some Christian people, he strongly resists the opinion that love could be
exercised as a virtue of human nature itself. He defends the view that Christian love
is not among the capabilities of human beings and should not be identied with the
nature of human being. Instead, he argues that love is made possible by a relation-
ship to the other as a child of God, and that it is God as a “middle term” in this
relationship who liberates human beings from their narcissism and selshness. I
will provide some support for this position and, nally, I will try to give my own
answer to the question of the true nature of Christian love. In the fth section, there-
fore, I will argue that love is to be understood as a form of revolutionary altruism.
Its revolutionary effects originate from its power to transform social relations by
reshaping them from the point of view of a new reality. Here, love can be described
as a central dynamic in human life that introduces radically new perspectives and
social practices. Beyond Kierkegaard’s focus on the presence of God, the revolu-
tionary nature of love can be seen in the interruption of the normality of social rela-
tion and interaction by introducing the relation to a third of universal nature into the
ordinary relation of self and other. Finally, it will be shown that love is misunder-
stood by focussing solely on the relationality of human beings, because the under-
standing of love also requires an understanding of the interruption of social relations.
R. A. Klein
103
6.2 The Problems andLimitations ofaHolistic
Anthropological Model
The Homo amans project attempts to collect and synthesize an assortment of devel-
opments within the study of human nature and philosophical anthropology from the
past few decades. It does so in a very inspiring manner and grounds these recent
advances in a philosophical anthropology of relationality. However, relational
anthropology, as presented here, is mainly concerned with the dynamics of becom-
ing human rather than the state of being human. It has the conviction that humans
become what they are, in and through the relations which form and inform their
lives and self-understanding. Relational anthropology, therefore, moves away from
understanding human nature as an essence or core of the human being. It conceives
it anew, not as a given but as a dynamic structure. This means, the nature of humans
is not assumed to be the same or self-identical all the time. Rather, it develops in a
certain direction out of a varied network of relationships with oneself and others.
Hence, in this approach, crucial questions concerning humankind shift from the
nature of human beings to the nature of their relationship with themselves and others.
In my view, it is not quite clear whether this approach and its shift of perspective
has been fully acknowledged and valued in the given outline of the Homo amans
project. The crux of my concern here would be the starting point of the project,
which is in strict opposition to the Homo economicus model prevalent in economics
and the social sciences. The outline of the project expressly refers to John Stuart
Mill’s denition. Homo economicus is dened as a human being capable of judging
the comparative efcacy of the means for obtaining an end, as the outline paper
says. Homo economicus thus refers to the mainly self-concerned utility maximizer
who manifests an egotistic type of rationality in his preferences, choices, and behav-
ior. In the outline of the project, this model of Homo economicus is taken to be a
mere idea or concept, which appeared at a certain point in the history of ideas. As a
result, its reality content is devalued. Furthermore, it is criticized for being too nar-
row to account for the full spectrum of human behavior, although no mention is
made of the possibility of there being at least some truth in it as far as human beings
are concerned.
In contrast, the Homo amans project, as it is outlined here, aims to introduce love
and the Christian virtues of faith and hope into the picture and form a wholly new
understanding of human sociality. Homo amans thus provides a fuller picture of
human life and its relationality, i.e. concern for the well-being of others, for the
common good, and for the crucial role given to the prevalence and protection of
social norms. As appropriate and rightful as this endeavor undoubtedly is– and I
have the utmost respect for it– there is an inherent danger in the strict opposition
between Homo economicus and Homo amans and also, very often, in the broader
discourse about changes to this model in the social sciences. When the concept of
virtues and human relationality, on the one hand, is contrasted with a mistaken
understanding of the human being as merely a rational utility maximizer on the
other, two problems can arise from this starting point: (a) the limited but
6 What Is theNature ofChristian Love? Homo Amans andRevolutionary Altruism
104
nonetheless existing reality content of the Homo economicus model could be mar-
ginalized and overlooked; and (b) the model of Homo amans could be taken as a full
and denitive representation of the reality of human beings. In sum, the Homo
amans perspective could then be implemented in the same totalitarian fashion as the
other model was before.
Both points can now be seen to endanger a correct understanding of the Homo
amans project because they could– perhaps not initially but later on– produce
negative consequences in the continuation and building of a Homo amans anthro-
pology. Whereas the rst point mentioned above could result in the Homo amans
model itself becoming ideological as it neglects and denies the reality of egotistic
and self-concerned attitudes and behaviors in the study of humankind, the second
point could imply a naïve bias, as with the Homo economics model previously,
when taken to be the sole and exclusive model of human behavior. The rst problem
leads to the question of how Homo economicus and Homo amans (or human beings
with egotistic and prosocial preferences) can coexist and/or interact with one
another or how the second one can prevail over the rst one in social interaction.
The second problem leads to the question of how the concept of love can be focused
and differentiated enough to discriminate between the ambivalent and multi-layered
phenomenology of real-world phenomena.
To put it more succinctly, my concern is that the holism indicated in the Homo
amans model could entrap and suppress the intrusions and ambivalences of sociality
phenomena in real life. Therefore, what is needed here is a dual perspective involv-
ing (a) antagonizing or conicting Homo amans with the reality of Homo eco-
nomicus and (b) differentiating the inner reality of Homo amans by exploring and
probing inner tensions and misunderstandings associated with love among human
beings. The following sections will address the second research lacuna of the Homo
amans project and the nal part of this article will elaborate further on the antago-
nism between Homo amans and Homo economicus.
6.3 The Focus onVirtues andtheAmbivalence or
Failure ofLove
The outline of the Homo amans project does not only motivate study of Homo
amans by presenting it as “a viable alternative” to Homo economicus but also by
pointing to the prosocial qualities of humans living a life of love. Thus, Homo
amans is pictured in the project as an other-regarding, cooperative, and even altru-
istic being by nature. These prosocial qualities are further elaborated to constitute a
phenomenology of human ourishing. However, at this point in the outline paper
there is a certain changing of perspective which takes place; from the level of typify-
ing and modeling human behavior to the level of an ethically informed phenome-
nology of human life. This change of perspective can be addressed by distinguishing
between the terms “prosociality” and “human ourishing.”
R. A. Klein
105
In behavioral sciences as well as in social psychology and evolutionary studies,
the term “prosociality” denotes a type of behavior which contributes to the welfare
of society as a whole insofar as it increases, for example, the cooperation level of a
certain group (Gintis 2003; Henrich and Henrich 2006). “Prosocial” behavior may
include concrete actions of helping or benetting others, but also punitive actions,
for example, the sanctioning of social norms (Fehr and Gächter 2002). Hence, the
term “prosociality” also refers to the fact that not all actions which benet the wel-
fare and ourishing of human societies have to be at the same time actions benet-
ting the welfare of concrete others. As demonstrated in the case of social sanctions,
such as the “altruistic punishment” (Fehr and Gächter 2002)1 of norm violators and
free riders, a prosocial behavior is not required to be benecial to the other in either
case. Instead, it can also contribute to the common good, for example: the enforce-
ment of social and cooperation norms by introducing severe costs at the personal
level of social interactions.
In contrast, the term “ourishing” does not refer to a certain mechanism of
behavior which can be measured and observed or to an outcome-oriented approach
to human action at all but to a psychological attitude or lifestyle of individuals that
is seen to be balanced, resilient, and orientated towards positive emotions and well-
being, in order to allow humanity as a whole to ourish (Keyes and Haidt 2007).
Taken as a psychological term, it describes the optimal functioning of human beings
or their ability to live their lives well – even in the face of suffering and frailty
(Fowers 2017). The term has recently become prominent in the context of positive
psychology but it can be traced back to the antique Aristotelian concept of eudai-
monia which means striving to live an intrinsically good life (Aristotle 2014).
As Miroslav Volf has shown in his book Flourishing, a good life has to be under-
stood as a life worth living viz. a meaningful life in late modernity (Volf 2015,
pp.1–26). Volf emphasizes that the turn towards ourishing points toward the fact
that life has to be more than just the satisfaction of needs and the initialization of
pleasures, but also has to have meaning (Volf 2015, pp.195–206). Furthermore, he
suggests that the goodness of life we are striving for should not be understood too
idealistically or transcendently, but rather that ourishing requires a unity of mean-
ingfulness, as well as the experience of pleasure and joy, in order to avoid a decline
into nihilism (Volf 2015, p.201).
Hence, the shift from the observation of prosocial behaviors to the study of
human ourishing and the phenomenology of a good and meaningful life, which is
taken by the proponents of the Homo amans project, is a step into an ethically
informed perspective on human life as well as a step into developing a holistic,
instead of a fractional, perspective. In this shift of perspective, what is called the
phenomenological constitution of Homo amans is made understandable by
elaborating on the inner reality and differentiation of human beings’ capabilities
and virtues. The latter are focused on the triadic interrelation of three core virtues,
1 For a critical commentary on the experimental studies on altruistic punishment see Klein (2011)
as well as the article published together with Christine Clavien: Clavien and Klein (2010).
6 What Is theNature ofChristian Love? Homo Amans andRevolutionary Altruism
106
which are assumed to be inseparable. Thus, the initiators of this project express their
conviction that the inner reality of Homo amans can be made understandable by
discriminating between three basic capabilities of the human being: love, hope, and
faith. These virtues can be traced back to the biblical tradition and to the epistles of
Saint Paul, who wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 that these three are the basic virtues of a
Christian community, but that love is the greatest among them. In his epistle, the
apostle makes it quite clear that neither the gifts of charismatic speech nor wisdom
nor knowledge can build up Christian community as this is done by acts of love.
In the reading of this tradition by the proponents of the Homo amans project,
faith represents the quest for meaning in human life. Hope reects the universal
human desire for a future, and love (taken as being the primary virtue) grounds all
human capabilities and virtues in relation to other human beings, making it quite
clear that human beings are social or rather prosocial beings. With regard to the
primacy of love, the initiators of the Homo amans project argue that love is a femi-
nine virtue that might lead to a complementary rather than exclusive understanding
of human nature. This then stands in contrast to the masculine virtues, which are
characterized as being more or less anti-relational or egotistic.
From the outline paper, it follows that the virtue of love is somehow seen to pre-
vail over faith and hope because (a) it is of a fundamental nature, pointing towards
the basic relationality2 of human beings and (b) it relates to secular anthropology
more easily because the core relation inherent in love is taken to be primarily inter-
personal and not divine, given that God is not the main object of love but is certainly
the main object of faith and hope. I would like to challenge the last thesis in particu-
lar, as we will see later.
For now, I want to stress another point and to question whether the virtue of love,
in a very common theological fashion, is presented in an overly positivistic manner
by the Homo amans project outlined so far. To address my suspicion, I would like to
pose some exploratory questions concerning the nature of love and its visibility and
appearance in human life: Where do we nd love in our lives and can it actually be
equated to the prosocial behaviors and attitudes of cooperation and altruism? Is love
grounded in a feeling, or is it grounded in a rational choice made by us? Is love a
capability and among the properties of human life, or rather is it a phenomenon of
contingent appearance? Is love the solution, or key, to human ourishing, or is it a
challenge that we do not normally master but which always proves to be a milestone
for failure in our lives?
These questions suggest that it is not so clear or obvious what love is and which
role it plays in our life. Furthermore, it can be said that the longing for love as well
as the desire for bonding, for reliable commitment and rootedness, is a kind of child
of the spirit of our age, and I think this should also be taken into account when we
address the problem of exploring the possibilities and limits of an orientation
towards a loving human being. Human beings have become increasingly uprooted
2 See this claim regarding St. Paul’s preoccupation with love also in Schnelle (1999, p.84).
R. A. Klein
107
and separated from their original bonds in late modern societies since the industrial
revolution and late-capitalist globalization movements. Hence, an orientation
towards relationality as well as a strengthening of other-regarding attitudes and
behaviors seem to be the solution to the pressing problem of growing anonymity
and atomization of the human being in a liquid modernity with uid identities (as,
for example, sociologist Zygmunt Bauman [2000] has argued). Not for nothing,
then, recent studies in science– for example, the social neurosciences and econom-
ics of empathy and care– have been inaugurated and conducted on the grounds that
we need to develop mental training in empathy and other caring attitudes, particu-
larly in a globalized world where we are confronted with “the stranger” every day.3
A better understanding of the neural mechanisms of empathy and care could thus
help to better position us in the advancement of human ourishing.
These remarks are given to indicate that the quest for an examination of Homo
amans is in no way a timeless or contextless project. Rather, the study of Homo
amans can be seen as an indicator of a growing uncertainty about formerly self-
evident phenomena in the era of globalization. Because traditional means of social
bonding and human relationality have been broken so dramatically and with such
intensity in late modern times, people long for a deeper understanding and maybe
also for a restoration, or for a new conguration, of these basics of human ourish-
ing. Seen in the context of the current agenda, a virtue approach to Homo amans
which is mainly elaborated in Neo-Aristotelian terminology might overlook the
opportunity to reect on this current context agenda, and, therefore, could create a
supercial impression of a romanticized fairy-tale like world instead. But I think
that this is in no way intended in the Homo amans project.
The following thoughts should not, therefore, be understood so much as a cri-
tique but as a continuation of the differentiation process of the Homo amans project.
The differentiation achieved by discriminating between love, faith, and hope must
be opened out into a differentiation process of the inner reality of love. This inner
difference of love will continue to be explored in the next section with reference to
the work of Søren Kierkegaard.
6.4 Kierkegaard: A(Self-)Critique ofLove astheKey
toLove’s Flourishing
In his later work, gathering together a collection of upbuilding discourses, Søren
Kierkegaard wrote a book on the realness and actuality of Christian love, entitled
The Works of Love ([1847] 1995). He did so because he was concerned that love
3 See “Ein mentales Training, um toleranter Weltbürger zu werden,” Interview with Prof. Tania
Singer, Director at the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 7. Oct.
2017, https://www.mpg.de/11514867/interview-singer-neue-meditationstechnik-fuer-empathie
(accessed 26 Aug. 2019).
6 What Is theNature ofChristian Love? Homo Amans andRevolutionary Altruism
108
should not be taken as an idea but as a reality, not as an ethical ideal but as concrete
work that can actually be done. At the same time, in his book, Kierkegaard directly
addresses the problem that love cannot easily be discriminated from other actions
and that it has a certain “invisibility” among human affairs. He writes at the begin-
ning of his book: “There is no work, not one single one, not even the best, about
which we can unconditionally dare to say: The one who does this unconditionally
demonstrates love by it” (Kierkegaard 1995, p.13).
This means that love is not a phenomenon which can be recognized easily and
that there is no proof or demonstration of love which safeguards its existence. Love
is not a certain type of action or a stable character trait at all. Rather, Kierkegaard
determines the relation of love and action as follows: “It depends on how the work
is done” (Kierkegaard 1995, p.13). Obviously, the view that love is a general trait
of human persons or actions is not helpful but only obfuscates the study of its phe-
nomenality. Kierkegaard emphasizes that the reality of love is, let us say, more
complicated. Its study requires a special form of phenomenology which Kierkegaard
then aims to develop throughout his book.
In recent years, there has been an extended discussion about whether
Kierkegaard’s book, The Works of Love, and the phenomenology of love that is
developed in it, can be considered to be ethical in nature. In it, Kierkegaard himself
polemicizes against certain strands of modern moral philosophy. Arguments, there-
fore, have been put forward to suggest that it seeks to engender ethical wisdom
(Grøn 1998, pp.358–68) and that it can even be interpreted as the pursuit of love as
virtue.4 On the other hand, there have also been suggestions that Kierkegaard’s ethi-
cal considerations in this book are built on a theology of sin and that he is sceptical
about seeing love as a meritorious action (Welz 2007). Hence, Kierkegaard’s inten-
tion could not have been to build an ethical theory of human virtues. Against the
view that he is not a virtue theorist, it has been argued that there is some evidence in
his book that he also thinks about the constitution of the author of loving action
(Lippitt 2013, p. 7). Or at least, that he sees love as “a divinely inspired potential
that we humans are required to actualize” (Krishek 2017, pp.3–15, esp. pp.3–4). It
has also been pointed out that he argues that “emotion-virtues,” understood as ways
of seeing the other, can be cultivated in Christian faith.5
A more moderate view regarding this debate is taken by Claudia Welz when she
argues that “Works of Love can be termed as a ‘virtue ethics’ only in a restricted
sense”, because in Kierkegaard’s view “it is not the human agent himself who natu-
rally develops the virtue of love, nor does (s)he receive a supernatural virtue for
personal use” (Welz 2007, p.272). Rather, love could be actualized by the human
being only “by acting in the spirit of God’s love” (Welz 2007, p.281). As Welz
4 An ethical theorist who has put this thesis forward in many publications is Robert C.Roberts. See
Roberts (1995, pp.142–66; 2008, pp.72–92, and many more).
5 Compare the argument that virtuists like Kierkegaard are committed to upbuilding and ethical
education, including a formation of proper concerns and dispositions of emotion, in Lippitt (2017).
The approach to Kierkegaard as an emotion-virtuist is also elaborated in Welz (2007); Evans (2008).
R. A. Klein
109
argues, the relation of the human being to the other is built up by the reality of God’s
love alone.
Against the backdrop of this debate, one’s attention should be turned to the phe-
nomenology at stake in Works of Love. The term “phenomenology” here refers to a
study of the way love comes into being and how it can be identied in its signi-
cance. In this regard, Kierkegaard emphasizes that love has a “hidden life” that we
have to explore and carefully discover (Kierkegaard 1995, pp.5–16). Very often we
invariably think we already live a life of love and we err precisely because of our
certainty. According to Kierkegaard, it is very important, then, to acknowledge that
love is not just given to us as an inherent part of our nature that can be exercised on
a whim. On the contrary, in an in-depth analysis of interpersonal relationships and
social interaction, he demonstrates that we are more often confronted with the
impossibilities of loving ourselves and others than with the experience of love in the
true sense of the word.
Kierkegaard writes parts of his book, then, to reduce his readers to despair and
release them from their certainty that love is already there in their lives. Nonetheless,
on the other hand, he also aims to encourage the reader to see that love is a way to
live one’s life before God. According to him, it is something which can manifest in
our lives although we experience all the misunderstandings, failures, and aporias
that exist in human togetherness. To experience the failure of love, then, does not
mean that we have to call off the realm of love and social bonding completely. For
him, a self-critique of love is, in the end, the key to the ourishing of love’s
true nature.
By taking this position, Kierkegaard makes it possible to introduce a critical
view of human sociality into the picture of love. Love is not automatically a repre-
sentative of the good life prevailing under all circumstances. Love is not just a token
of a certain type but is contingent in nature. The latter is made clear when Kierkegaard
develops his phenomenology of love from a decidedly Christian point of view. To
him, love is not only one of a kind but the only true way of living one’s life in the
spirit of Christian faith. In no way does this imply a glorication of the Christian
way of life. Hence, Kierkegaard develops the latter stance into a self-critical attitude
of modernity and Christian religion. A part of his phenomenology of love, therefore,
is a critical discussion of the modern ideal of romantic love as well as the Christian
denial and demonization of self-love (Lippitt 2013). Furthermore, he reviews criti-
cally the tradition of the denial of bodily love in Christianity and Western culture,
and, in the light of true selessness, questions the high esteem for seemingly altru-
istic and seless behaviors celebrating a cult of the self in the other.
Kierkegaard, hereby, again resists the view that loving action is to be seen as a
self-evident outcome of human nature (Kierkegaard 1995, Chapter III.A, IX 90–IX
129, pp.91–134). His phenomenology of love is not built on the seemingly solid
grounds of anthropology. Instead, it opens the door for social criticism and for a
critical debate on widespread preconceptions of what love is in the Christian tradi-
tion. Through the narrowly designed contrast between human love and that of true
Christian love, Kierkegaard accounts for the problem that in real life, loving
6 What Is theNature ofChristian Love? Homo Amans andRevolutionary Altruism
110
attitudes and behaviors mostly remain ambivalent and difcult in their nature.6 In
his upbuilding discourses, he argues that what true love is (or is not) can be judged
neither from the object of love or its meaning to the subject, nor from the seless
outcomes of its actions, nor the spiritual versus bodily nature of love. Rather, proper
love, as Christians understand the word, can only be identied in this world by
acknowledging that God has put love close to us, namely, in our neighbor
(Kierkegaard 1995, Chapters II.B and II.C, IX 47– IX 89, pp.44–90). The core of
concrete love, as Kierkegaard puts it, is to see others just as they are and respond
accordingly.7 Hence, love is not a distant ideal that we reach out for, but is rather a
daily concrete encounter with someone near to us (Kierkegaard 1995, Chapter IV,
IX 147–IX 194, pp.154–204). At the same time, however, it is exactly this concrete
person whom we generally neither address nor see in the right way because we all
too often account for their presence only in the horizon of selsh preferences or
even narcissistic attitudes. Hence, love is needed to open our eyes, despite the fact
that it is seldom found and exercised.
According to Kierkegaard, it is only the language and performativity of the
Christian tradition and its way of life which gives witness to the eye-opening pro-
cess and dynamic of love in our lives. It is the term, or better, the metaphor of the
“neighbor” from the biblical tradition which can help to illuminate the dynamic of
transformation taking place in love. The “neighbor” then serves as a middle term in
all our social relationships as Kierkegaard continually seeks to emphasize
(Kierkegaard 1995, Chapter II.B, IX 60, p.58). The other being seen as the neighbor
enters social relationships as a qualifying dimension, transforming the dyadic rela-
tion of self and other into a social and universal one in the full sense of the term.
Concretely, the neighbor stands for a different mode of seeing the other, i.e., of see-
ing the other as a child of God who is neither worth more nor less than me and is an
equal.8 Thus, seeing others as neighbors means to acknowledge the primacy of this
equality in all the inequalities and injustices of human relationships. Seeing the
other as an equal child of God, therefore, helps the human being to acknowledge the
nearness of love and also its practicability.
What love is and how it can be sought and found in our lives is, for Kierkegaard,
clearly committed to a Christian perspective. Here, God appears not as the object of
love but as a “middle term,”9 as Kierkegaard calls it, which helps to redirect our
relationships in order to make them more equal, more consistent, more solid, more
responsive and concrete. Consequently, these relationships will be mediated and
6 For an emphasis on the difculty of love and the rigor of its demands, see Critchley (2012,
pp.247–52).
7 This has been referred to as Kierkegaard’s “paradoxical embrace of both the universal and the
particular” which could form a model for the commitment in the context of multicultural societies
and globalism in Veninga (2018, p.122).
8 Kierkegaard (1995, Chapter II.B, p. 60): “The neighbor is one who is equal. […] He is your
neighbor on the basis of equality with you before God, but unconditionally every person has this
equality and has it unconditionally.”
9 Kierkegaard (1995, Chapter II.B, IX 60, p.58): “in love for the neighbor, God is the middle term”.
R. A. Klein
111
transformed into relationships of a new kind: relationships of love. It is this new
perspective and the actions resulting from it which mark the dynamic of love as a
dynamic of freedom. From this perspective, Kierkegaard can address the pressing
questions arising in the ethical study of human helping and other benevolent actions,
such as: Are works of love driven by feelings and emotions or by rational interests?
Are they self-concerned or other-concerned? Is sacrice for the other always a form
of love? Etc. To all these questions, Kierkegaard can give a clear answer, namely
that the crucial criterion in this regard is whether the loving action is oriented
towards the other by seeing and addressing him as a neighbor (as a fellow child
of God).
In the concluding section, I will now return to the question of what the nature of
love is and how it can be addressed best by a scientic approach. Following the
fundamental distinctions of Kierkegaard’s phenomenology, I will argue that love is
not an attitude, an action, or a virtue but a central dynamic in human life which has
the power to transform all social relations into prosocial ones with a tendency
towards universality. The structural dynamic of love, thus, can be characterized as
disruptive. Thus, I will argue, secondly, that the invoked dynamic of love is marked
by a certain kind of revolutionary potential. The nature of love, then, can be found
in its power of social transformation. It opens certain social practices, as well as
dyadic and egotistic relationships, to change by introducing a third one which works
as the initiator of a different order and establishes social bridging and prosociality.10
In the end, it will be shown that the dynamic of love will not be subsumed by social
techniques aiming at human ourishing or the ethical quest for a good life, because,
rather, it is of a non-conformist nature and aims at unmasking the ideological char-
acter of social techniques of human ourishing too.
6.5 The Nature ofLove andRevolutionary Altruism11
Besides Kierkegaard who has written at length of the inner struggles of love, there
remains the question posed earlier in this paper whether there is any valid content in
the repudiated Homo economicus model and consequently whether there is a strug-
gle for love to be won against the non-cooperative and egotistic behaviour of utility
maximizing. In this regard, it might be interesting to note some critiques of the
Homo economicus model in the eld of neuroeconomics, a research approach com-
bining experimental economics and social neuroscience (Vromen and Marchionni
2019; Glimcher etal. 2009). This newly emerging eld of transdisciplinary research
aims to overcome neoclassical economics and to “provide an alternative theoretical
approach for predicting behaviour” (Glimcher etal. 2009, p.7). Its major paradigms
for studying human social behavior are behavioral experiments designed after the
10 For a study of the role and order of the third in social philosophy, see Bedorf (2003).
11 Parts ofthis section have already been published in: Klein (2012).
6 What Is theNature ofChristian Love? Homo Amans andRevolutionary Altruism
112
paradigms of game theory, as for example the trust game, the dictator game, and the
third-party punishment game etc. (Gintis 2000). Neuroeconomics does not simply
take leave of the model of Homo economicus. Rather, it takes egoism to be a con-
tinuing challenge to the prosocial orientation of altruistic and cooperative human
beings. Hence, the research question posed here is how altruism12 and prosocial
behaviors can prevail over Homo economicus? (Fehr and Gächter 2002; Fehr and
Rosenbach 2003).13 A special focus in the eld of prosociality is placed on the study
of norm enforcement.
Several experimental studies on cooperation and prosociality in economics have
shown that altruistic punishment plays a key role in understanding the evolution of
norm enforcement in human societies.14 Altruistic punishment does not directly
benet the welfare of an individual person, but society as a whole. Therefore, it is
referred to as a “prosocial” behaviour. As already noted, the term “prosociality” is
used in experimental economics but also in other behavioral sciences to indicate a
behavior that does not directly benet others (as does cooperation), but the well-
being of group interaction as a whole.15 The behavioral pattern of altruistic punish-
ment has been clearly shown to be of great signicance for the study of prosociality
in a series of behavioral experiments in economics and neuroeconomics (Fehr and
Gächter 2002; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003; Fehr and Rosenbach 2003; de Quervain
etal. 2004).16 These have been conducted in different behavioral laboratories since
the rst study on altruistic punishment was published by Ernst Fehr and Simon
Gächter (2002).
In this study, altruistic punishment is dened as a non-selsh act of punishment
which “[provides] … a material benet for the future interaction partners of the
punished subject but not for the punisher” (Fehr and Gächter 2002, p.139). In an
experimental setup with 240 participants17 at the University of Zurich, Fehr and
Gächter tested their subject’s individual willingness to punish altruistically in a
“public goods” experiment. In this type of experiment, several people have the
option of investing a certain amount of money in a group project.18 Afterwards, the
sum of all contributions is to be shared among the group members equally. The
12 The term “altruism” is used here in a behavioral sense referring to the outcomes and not the
motivation behind this behavior. Thus, the economic use of the term has to be distinguished from
its use in moral philosophy and psychology. See further discussion in Peacock etal. (2005);
Clavien and Chapuisat (2013).
13 Compare also Clavien and Klein (2010).
14 The claim that social reciprocity (prosocial norm enforcement) provides the best explanation for
the evolution of punishing behaviors has been defended in Carpenter etal. (2004).
15 A denition of the distinction between prosociality and cooperation can be found in Henrich and
Henrich (2006). For a model explaining the cultural evolution of prosociality and cooperation see
Gintis (2003).
16 An assessment of the evolutionary origin of altruistic punishment can be found in Boyd
etal. (2003).
17 All of the participants in the experiment were undergraduate students from the University
of Zurich.
18 The money they earn is paid to them actually after the experiment.
R. A. Klein
113
experiment in Zurich was conducted in 12 sessions and the group composition was
changed after each session. The latter guaranteed that none of the subjects could
again meet the same subjects during the experiment. This ensured that the subjects’
decisions and behaviors were not based on a preference for reputation-building
among group members. The opportunity to punish group members who did not
invest in the group project, but beneted from its gain, was offered at the end of each
session. In order to test whether the subjects’ willingness to punish did include the
willingness to suffer personal cost, the punishment was not only costly for the free
rider, but also for the punishing subject himself, because he had to pay for it from
his own gain.
The results of the experiment were as follows: over 12 sessions, the opportunity
to punish social free-riding behavior was taken by 84.3% of the subjects at least
once, and 34.3% of the subjects punished more than ve times (Fehr and Gächter
2002, p.137). A minority of 9.3% of the subjects punished more than ten times.
Thus, the experimental results provide strong evidence that altruistic punishment is
a stable behavioral pattern among humans. Additionally, a signicant effect of altru-
istic punishment was shown in the later sessions of the experiment. After having
been punished, the punished subjects invested a higher amount of money in the
group project and changed from non-cooperative to cooperative behaviors in the
following sessions. Thus, altruistic punishment caused a substantial increase in
terms of the average cooperation level of the group over time. This was highly cor-
related with the subject’s investment strategies and can, therefore, be considered
among the facilitating conditions of the evolution of human cooperation. Hence, the
remarkable result of the study by Fehr and Gächter was that the opportunity to pun-
ish free riders altruistically has a signicant impact on the maintenance of the norm
of cooperation and equity, even in anonymous encounters.
With regard to the interpretation of this evidence, the researchers suggested that
the evolution of social norms has to be explained further in terms of the level of the
individual’s preferences. Thus, they asked how the willingness to punish might be
triggered on a psychological level. As a suggestion, it was hypothesized that the
subjects’ negative emotions concerning the free-riding behavior of others might be
the source of their decision to punish. Emotions such as anger and outrage could
provide a proximate mechanism of altruistic punishment.19
To elicit the correlation between punishment and the individual’s emotions, the
researchers prepared a questionnaire given to the subjects after the experiment that
asked them to indicate their intensity of anger concerning the free-riding behavior
on a seven-point scale. The results recorded that 47% of the subjects had indicated
the highest intensity of anger. Hence, it was concluded that these emotions might be
a psychological trigger for punishment. This led them to seek a research tool to
further investigate this correlation, which in turn led them to engage in a new
research eld investigating the neurobiology of prosocial and cooperative behaviors
in humans.
19 A denition of proximate causes of evolution can be found in Mayr (1961, p.1503).
6 What Is theNature ofChristian Love? Homo Amans andRevolutionary Altruism
114
In a follow-up study (de Quervain etal. 2004, pp.1254–8) to the rst experiment
on altruistic punishment in 2004, Fehr and fellow economist, Urs Fischbacher,
started to work together with neuropsychologists for the rst time. They added a
neuroimaging tool to the experimental setup of their study on social norm enforce-
ment and observed the neurological foundations of people’s choices. The idea of
combining experiments on norm enforcement with the neurological investigation of
the human mind had already come up in a study in 2003 when neuroscientists Alan
Sanfey, James Rilling and other colleagues had adapted an experimental design
from economics, and started to investigate the neural substrates of the cognitive and
emotional processes involved in decision making about altruistic punishment
(Sanfey etal. 2003). After they brain-scanned the subjects with functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI), they found an increased activity in the “anterior insula”–
a brain area associated with negative emotional feelings. They concluded that emo-
tions might be the psychological and neurological driving force behind this
behavior, a view which was still consistent with the 2002 ndings of Fehr and
Gächter.
However, the follow-up study by Fehr, Fischbacher and de Quervain in 2004 led
to a rather different neurological nding. The procedure of this experiment was as
follows: the subjects were brain-scanned during their decision to punish free-riding
behavior by using positron emission tomography (PET). They were placed in a
scanner immediately after the interaction with another player was over. The scan-
ning started when subjects learned about the free-riding behavior of the other par-
ticipant and it nished when they had determined the punishment. In the observation
of the neural circuits of the subjects’ brains, it was shown that not the “interior
insula” but a brain area linked to the anticipation of reward– the “caudate nucleus”–
played a prominent role when people decided to punish. Subjects who exhibited
stronger activation of the “caudate nucleus” were ready to incur more personal costs
to punish a free rider in comparison with subjects who exhibited low caudate
activation.
Hence, the researchers interpreted the nding as evidence that the anticipation of
“hedonic rewards” (de Quervain etal. 2004, p.1257) was considered a benet that
altruistic punishers weighed against the costs of punishing. The punishing subjects
seemed to feel relief when the violated social norm was established again through
an act of retributive justice. Thus, it was concluded that, according to the underlying
neurological processes, the subjects’ decision-making was driven by hedonic moti-
vation. Hedonic motivation is one of the key features in an evolutionary explanation
of behavior, because there is natural selection for avoiding pain and unpleasantness.
The correlation between hedonic motivation and altruistic punishment, then, might
function as a proximate mechanism with respect to the evolution of human
cooperation.
From the presentation and analysis of these pioneering experimental works it
can be seen that the ndings, in a way, renew the initial question of modern politi-
cal philosophy posed by Thomas Hobbes (1651): How can human society with
stable cooperation and norm enforcement evolve out of the nastiness and brutish
R. A. Klein
115
character of the state of nature? At the same time this question is transformed in
the laboratory setting of the neuroeconomic experiments by introducing a dual
anthropology into this so-called “state of nature”. It is no longer the question of
how a society with stable cooperation and norm following can be built out of a
bunch of egotistic individuals, but rather how it can evolve out of a group of ego-
tistic and altruistic individuals interacting with each other. The interesting thing
about this recent experimental research in neuroeconomics is, therefore, that it
stimulates the perspective of a ghting antagonism between Homo economicus
and Homo amans. This means, it regards the cooperative and prosocial orientation
not just as a viable alternative which fully replaces the view that human beings are
egotistic utility maximizers. Rather, prosociality is seen as an orientation that
must establish and sustain itself in a direct confrontation with radically egotistic
preferences and behaviors and can– under certain circumstances– be seen to
prevail.
Experimental economists have examined in their research the individual condi-
tions (of the human mind) and institutional factors (of setting and context) which
can help altruism to win against egoism (Fehr and Fischbacher 2003, 2004, 2005).
A combination of both perspectives, behavioral and neuroscientic, helps them to
determine in more detail the nature of altruism and cooperative behaviors. What
they discovered after extensive experimental research is that there is a mechanism
in human brains which helps altruists and co-operators do their job. The experi-
ments have therefore given an empirical proof that there actually exist altruists and
co-operators which are willing to sacrice their individual self-interest to safeguard
the existence of common goods (such as social norms of fairness), and that they are
naturally oriented towards the welfare and ourishing of society as whole.
What we can learn now from this research concerning a deeper understanding of
the nature of love is the following: The modern romantic view that love is fully
developed in an interpersonal relation is misleading. Instead, it can be argued from
a Christian point of view, but also from the insights of recent experimental studies,
that love has a prosocial nature insofar as it is reliant on introducing a third into the
interpersonal relation and transforming it in the light of a universal signier.
Likewise, the view is false that love is always aiming at a personal benet or at the
welfare of others. Rather, it can require personal sacrice or even loss of self and
other in order to safeguard the welfare of society and its ethical virtues such as fair-
ness, justice, and norm compliance.20
Further, what has been shown by Kierkegaard to be true for the inner struggle of
love is also shown to be true in the neuroeconomic experiments for the outer dynam-
ics of prosocial behavior: the signicance of Homo amans, a human being with a
preference for loving and cooperative behavior, lies in its potential for social trans-
formation which, in the behavioral experiments, is manifest in the establishment
and protection of social norms as a main public good of every society. Other orienta-
tions do not disappear when Homo amans, i.e. human beings with prosocial
20 This reference to the virtue of institutions or society can be traced back to John Rawls (1971).
6 What Is theNature ofChristian Love? Homo Amans andRevolutionary Altruism
116
preferences, appears on the scene. Hence, the Homo economicus has reality content
as well, but– as the experiments have shown– the love for the third, the prosocial
action, can denitely prevail due to its revolutionary nature. Thus, a convincing
model of Homo amans and the nature of love should also provide a good analysis
and explanation of the disruptive dynamic of love introducing a third that trans-
gresses interpersonal relations.
6.6 Conclusions
Love is not a stable core of human nature nor a character trait that can be educated
or trained. Rather, it should be seen as a dynamic structure at work in human atti-
tudes and behaviors, arising out of a change of perspective concerning the world,
oneself, and others. This change of perspective cannot be determined but happens
for contingent reasons. This makes it uncomfortable to account for it in the realm of
hard sciences with its focus on the measurability of love and cooperative behaviors.
As has been shown, the characteristic of the dynamic structure of love is that it is
creative in its nature because it brings into being a wholly new social reality, which
transforms the status quo and the shape of human relationality completely by intro-
ducing a horizon of universality. Crucial for the prevalence of love in its true nature
is the introduction of a notion of the third that opens the space for prosocial action
and sets the focus on the welfare of all humankind or society as a whole.
Hence, it could be fruitful in future to explore in more detail the revolutionary
potential of love– love’s potential to induce social transformation and the role it
plays in the implementation of radically new perspectives and social practices in
human life. As has been further shown, the orientation of love is an orientation
towards the third in the relationship with the other. Thus, it can be seen as structur-
ally equal to what Kierkegaard already described in the language of Christian faith
as the central dynamic of love of neighbor. The interpersonal relationship, which
can be of a cooperative or non-cooperative nature, is transformed through love by
introducing a third– in the experiments represented by a universal social norm of
fairness and in the Christian faith represented by the universal perception of humans
as children of God. Both orientations have in common that they describe the two
terms “love of neighbor” and “prosociality” as revolutionary, i.e. disruptive dynam-
ics which transgress the current social state and open it for a human sociality of a
different kind. It inaugurates the existence of universal norms (in the horizon of a
new and yet invisible social order) and overcomes the unstructured interaction of
atomized individuals. Thus, love can be seen to set up the rules by setting out the
rules rst. It distances current social practice, for example, of free riding and exploit-
ing the common good, and introduces a new one. Suspending the reigning unwritten
rules is in itself an act of non-conformity. Building new structures of interaction by
setting the rules for it in a kind of violently nonconformist act is, thus, a crucial
capability of love.
R. A. Klein
117
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Ethical Economy 61, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84690-9_7
Chapter 7
Searching fortheAnthropological
Foundations ofEconomic Practice:
Controversies andOpportunities
GerritGlas
Abstract This chapter is a comment on the contribution of Rebecca Klein in this
volume, preceded by a conceptual analysis of the argument that is developed in the
Homo Amans discussion paper.
The main question that is raised is twofold and concerns the relation between
science and worldview on the one hand, and between science and economic life on
the other. With respect to the science– worldview relationship, it is doubted that
science can play the role the authors of the Homo amans project expect it can have.
What they have in mind is that science helps in validating and legitimizing a bibli-
cally informed concept of love. This author disagrees, to a large extent. Science can
indeed orient itself on ideas and intuitions that are based on one’s worldview. But it
cannot prove the truth of these intuitions and ideas. To think so, is to commit a natu-
ralistic fallacy.
With respect to the relationship between science and economic life, the author is
also not convinced that science and philosophy as academic disciplines will by
themselves be able (and should be expected to be able) to transform deeply
ingrained, institutionally anchored economic practices. New theories, concepts, and
paradigms are a precondition for change, but they do not bring about change by
themselves. What is needed is a change in the practices themselves, a change that is
both personal and comprehensive. What is needed is a clear, succinct, and encom-
passing view on the intrinsic normativity of economic interactions between relevant
stakeholders in what we call ‘the’ economy. This is a huge undertaking, that requires
painstaking ‘phenomenological’ analyses of a wide variety of economic practices.
The chapter agrees with most of Klein’s observations and concerns with respect to
the discussion paper. These observations and concerns gain even more depth and
relief given the conceptual distinctions that are made in the chapter.
G. Glas (*)
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
e-mail: g.glas@vu.nl
122
7.1 Introduction
In this response I will rst focus on the argument in the discussion paper by Nullens
and Van Nes (Chap. 2) in this volume. I will introduce a distinction to be made
between four perspectives on economic practice and show its relevance for the con-
ceptualization of the Homo amans project. I proceed by giving some comments on
the paper by Rebekka Klein and conclude with a few more general, evaluative
comments.
7.2 The Discussion Paper: Structure oftheArgument
The discussion paper presents itself as “…a modest attempt to encourage a multi-
disciplinary dialogue on anthropology in contemporary economics by
1. rethinking human personhood
2. introducing the concept of Homo amans as a potential alternative to Homo
economicus
3. exploring some dimensions of human relationality that deserve future study.”
The paper builds on well-known oppositions such as that between mechanistic
and teleological views of humanhood; and between materialistic and other, richer
views on man. Sources of inspiration in the development of a new, relational view
on man are critical realism, as developed by C.Smith (2015); personalism, as can
be found in the work by Pope John Paul II (Wojtyla 1993); and the plea for non-
reductionism and anti-scientism that, for instance, has been voiced by C.Taylor
(1989). Nullens and Van Nes quote Smith (2010), when he describes the human
person as “a conscious, reexive, embodied, bodied, self-transcending center of
subjective experience, durable identity, moral commitment, and social communica-
tion who– as the efcient cause of his or her own responsible actions and interac-
tions – exercises complex capacities for agency and intersubjectivity in order to
develop and sustain his or her own incommunicable self in loving relationships with
other personal selves and with the nonpersonal world.” This thick notion of person-
hood grounds a eudaimonistic ethics, i.e., the understanding that the human good
can be conceived as a realization of human nature and a rediscovery of the wisdom
of old moral systems that are often already in line with our own intuitions. In other
words, the paper builds on the idea that universal traits such as love, justice, gener-
osity, and the like, should be enacted and developed for the benet of others and
ourselves and that this is made possible by the fact that they are in some way already
present in us because they are part of our nature.
This anthropological intuition is then undergirded by a wide variety of argu-
ments derived from the Bible, positive psychology (Peterson and Seligman 2004),
behavioral economics (McCloskey 2006), insights on religious behavior based on
evolutionary theory (Wildman 2009), neuroscientic insights into the
G. Glas
123
neuroendocrine ‘basis’ of prosocial behavior (Pfaff 2015), the psychology of hope
(Scioli and Biller 2009), leadership studies focusing on servant/responsible/spiritual
leadership, trust and cooperation; and on a phenomenology of multiple perspectives
(economic, philosophical, theological) on love.
7.3 Four Perspectives
Although I sympathize with the general intentions of Homo Amans as a theological/
empirical program and recognize the relevance of antireductionist ndings in con-
temporary psychology, neuroscience, and (as I now understand) economy, I still
have difculties with (a) the structure of the argument and (b) the lack of clarity of
the concept of Homo amans itself. To get a grasp on the project Homo Amans it is
helpful to make a distinction between at least four perspectives: the perspective of
one’s life- and worldview, the perspective of philosophy (core concepts; conceptual
frameworks; paradigms; argumentative structures), the perspective of theoretical
knowledge (marked by abstraction and based on methodic reduction), and the per-
spective of practical (professional) knowledge and know-how. In other contexts, I
have added a fth perspective relating to the lay knowledge and everyday experi-
ences (of a particular topic or situation). Since I will not deal here with lay perspec-
tives, I will continue with the four perspectives mentioned earlier.
Each of these perspectives offers a way of looking at the phenomenon under
study. One can, for instance, study empathy as a human capacity (or virtue) and give
an account of it in terms of one’s life- and world view (let us say, as one of the
sources of self-surrendering love or as an evolutionary advantageous adaptation);
one can study empathy from a philosophical/conceptual perspective (is empathy a
feeling, a disposition, or a form of behavior?); one may formulate scientic hypoth-
eses about empathy (mentalization is a prerequisite for the development of empa-
thy; or: empathy is a capacity that builds on “earlier” abilities such as successful
performance of perception-action cycles); and one may approach empathy from the
point of view of the professional who, for instance, is interested in the empathic
capacities of an offender or a person with personality disorder. One of the premises
on which my account is based, is that these four perspectives are more than merely
conceptual and epistemic and that they are part of, and intrinsically intertwined
with, practices of knowing, interaction, and action, that diverge in scope, aim, func-
tion, content, and role (Glas 2019a, Chapters 6 and 7). Professional knowledge is
not just a way of knowing. Professional knowing cannot be dened apart from the
practices in which it is embedded. It is, for instance, characteristic of these practices
that the relevance of a model, theory, or explanation (rational choice theory, for
instance) for the understanding of a phenomenon (behavior of consumers) is
weighed, and that different pieces of knowledge (rational choice theory versus, for
instance, theories about prosocial behavior) compete for recognition of their rele-
vance. In other words, scientic knowledge needs to be translated into relevant
practices. This translation process requires awareness of contexts, the infrastructure,
7 Searching for the Anthropological Foundations of Economic Practice: Controversies…
124
and the interactions between relevant parties. The translation process itself is not
scientic, it is not based on methodic reduction and xing and standardization of
boundary conditions. Translation requires, instead, that the relevance of a certain
theory for the understanding of a phenomenon is seen and weighed against intu-
itions about the relevance of other theoretical insights. Recognizing this relevance
requires contextual knowledge, practical experience within the eld, ‘insight’,
holistic knowledge, and so on.
The context of scientic knowledge is scientic practice, i.e., the world of labo-
ratories, technology, experiments, publishing, texts, libraries, peer competition,
fund raising, and so on. The context of economic practice is the market as the plat-
form for real life interactions and negotiations between consumers, producers, and
other stakeholders. How relevant rational choice theory is for the behavior of a
group of consumers in a segment of the market depends on the contribution of other
possible factors that inuence economic behavior. There is, in other words, no logi-
cal (deductive, straightforward ‘applicative’) relation between scientic knowledge
and economic practice. There are also no such (logical, deductive) relationships
between philosophical views on man and labor and economic theory; nor between
the images of man based on life- and worldview and economic theory.
This does not imply, however, that there are no relationships at all between the
different epistemic perspectives. There are, for instance, overarching intuitions,
analogies, and metaphors that enable communication between the different perspec-
tives. These intuitions and analogies need to be elucidated and tested in the relevant
contexts: are they creative ctions or do they really hit the phenomenon under study.
Moreover, people learn from their experiences, also in the application of scientic
insights to the practices in which they are embedded. Professionals learn when these
applications lead to something and when they lead them astray. They build up expe-
riential expertise with the concepts, the techniques, the algorithms, and other imple-
mentations of scientic knowledge. This largely tacit expert-knowledge may in turn
inform scientists when they reformulate their hypotheses and ideas.
7.4 The Four Perspectives intheDiscussion Paper
Diagram 7.1 gives an impression of the argument in the discussion paper based on
the distinctions I made in the previous section, i.e., the distinction between life- and
worldview, philosophy, scientic theorizing, and professional practice. According
to the life- and worldview of the authors, man is driven by faith, hope, and love.
These and other virtuous are constitutive of human nature (perspective 1, life and
worldview). The paper describes how this overarching idea might be supported by
philosophical analysis and by insights found in theology, psychology, neuroscience,
and sociobiology. This ‘enriched’ view leads to a relational view of human nature,
as philosophical paradigm (perspective 2). This paradigm should then be operation-
alized in terms of new economic theories (perspective 3) and lead to better eco-
nomic practices (perspective 4).
G. Glas
125
However, these expectations are based on mixed and somewhat shaky grounds.
There are, as I said, no strictly logical, deductive, or purely empirical grounds to
expect that the combined efforts of the empirical sciences will lead to a ‘richer’, or
‘more biblical’, philosophical image of man. That is to say, judging a view as richer
and/or more biblical is a value judgment that cannot be based on the combination of
empirical research and logical reasoning per se.
We are dealing with different transitions here, for instance with the transition
from philosophy to the sciences (and back); and from the sciences to theology. By
viewing these transitions as logical, deductive, or self-evident, the authors run the
risk of committing a naturalistic fallacy. By this, I mean the error of considering
scientic evidence as evidence for a normative position. Views based on, for
instance, developmental psychology do not necessarily lead to a better (richer) phil-
osophical theology or anthropology. Such theology or anthropology has obvious
normative implications that the sciences will never deliver. Scientic evidence may
be consistent or convergent with one’s life- and worldview, but it cannot serve as the
basis for it. Theories about the capacity to empathize with fellow human beings may
be consistent with (aspects of) certain philosophical views on man, but they don’t
entail the full spectrum of meanings associated with the notion of man as a rela-
tional, virtuous being. Understanding how empathy develops does not necessarily
lead to recognition of empathy as moral virtue. The rst is an empirical hypothesis
or theory, the latter is a normative valuation. There may be moral and religious rea-
sons for thinking empathy is an important phenomenon to understand. But empiri-
cal understanding of a phenomenon that we value on the basis of our moral and
other convictions, does not add to the normative force of these convictions.
Consistency is something other than validity and legitimacy.
Diagram 7.1 Structure of the argument in the Homo Amans discussion paper
7 Searching for the Anthropological Foundations of Economic Practice: Controversies…
126
One other problem of this view on the relationship between philosophy/theology
and the sciences is the risk of circularity, lack of precision, and pseudotheorizing.
The idea of the project is that a richer, relational view on man will lead to better
economic theories. However, philosophical accounts of man are typically caught in
general and abstract terms. Denitions of these terms are based on theoretical reec-
tion and discussions that are primarily philosophical and that relate to a philosophi-
cal/conceptual context. The aim of these denitions is to shed light on and articulate
the content of a term or theory in the context of a wide range of competing philo-
sophical theories and ideas. These abstract and general terms are usually not precise
enough to serve as a basis for solid empirical hypothesizing and experimenting.
They are difcult to operationalize and refer to contexts that are distant from the
experimental practice. Using them to support empirical hypothesizing easily leads
to circular reasoning, vagueness, and pseudo-theorizing. The philosophical term is
dened in terms of the phenomena it is supposed to explain; the explanans entails
the explanandum, then, which is a logical error.
With respect to the transition from philosophy to professional activities, the idea
of the paper seems to be that a richer, relational view on man will lead to better
education, better economic practice, and better working ethics. Surely, overarching
ideals and views do guide all kinds of practices. They may serve as legitimation for
one’s approach, they highlight the general perspective. But there are again a number
of risks: risk of ambiguous interpretation of the overarching ideas and concepts; risk
of ignorance of differences in the application of these ideas and concepts on varying
practices. The umbrella term itself may mean different things in different contexts;
but the term may also lead to different practical applications. A more urgent risk is
the suggestion of moral superiority that comes along when one’s own view serves
as touchstone for other conceptions. In short, to say this in a somewhat different
formulation, it is crucial to recognize that the implementation, application, and
translation of scientic discoveries are not by themselves scientic activities. They
presuppose in-depth knowledge and contextual sensitivity. But the search for mean-
ingful application and the weighing of the relevance of scientic evidence within a
particular context build on something other than scientic scrutiny.
7.5 Different Routes to‘Integration’
All this, I need to say, does not imply that I am negative about the possibility of con-
necting philosophical discussions with issues in the sciences and professional prac-
tices. Earlier, I mentioned that the implementation of scientic insights in applied
contexts requires insight and creativity to discern the potential relevance of scien-
tic evidence for a certain practice. This innovative mindset does not primarily con-
sist of deductive reasoning and logic. It does not work with the idea of a linear
process from basic research via the applied sciences to professional practices. It
does not derive distal changes from proximal causes. The innovative mindset sup-
ports the view that successful implementation is based on (circular) learning
G. Glas
127
processes and on socialization into ways of interacting and collaborating that fur-
ther and enhance insight and creativity.
Let me zoom out and briey indicate four ways to conceptualize this process of
learning, translating, and collaborating. An essential component is building a cul-
ture of interaction and collaboration that is sharply aware of the different mindsets
of scientists, philosophers, professionals, and designers. Given these differences,
there are nevertheless ways to cooperate fruitfully and to gain deeper
understanding.
Iain Barbour, for instance, who has written extensively about the interaction
between science and religion, discerns four forms of interaction: conict; parallel-
ism; dialogue; integration (Barbour 1997). Scientists and practitioners may perceive
each other as being in conict; as operating in different domains without any inter-
action (parallelism); as being in dialogue with one another; and as operating con-
jointly and moving toward integration of perspectives.
Jochemsen, Hoogland and this author have developed a so-called normative
practice approach (NPA) to medicine and healthcare. This NPA has been elaborated
for other elds too: media and communication, public administration, military eth-
ics, and philosophy of organizations. The cornerstone of this approach is the idea
that practices should be seen as responsive to clusters of intrinsic norms, rules, and/
or values. Within these groups of norms (rules, values), one needs to make a distinc-
tion between norms that form the basis for a practice; norms that undergird the
(economic, jural, institutional, and political) conditions for a practice; and norms
that qualify that practice. Qualifying norms indicate the kind of normativity that
guides a certain practice. Economic practices could be evaluated along similar lines
as being founded on a variety of norms that are foundational, conditional, or quali-
fying with respect to these practices. Economic theories function as cognitive arte-
facts in these practices, in the sense that they highlight certain aspects of the practice.
Religious and philosophical anthropological ideas inform one’s view on the Homo
economicus; they may be seen as constructs that help to articulate the ethos or spirit
that dominates economic life (Dooyeweerd 1953–1958; Glas 2019a, b, c; Jochemsen
2006; Jochemsen and Glas 1997; Hoogland and Jochemsen 2000; Verkerk et al.
2015; de Vries and Jochemsen 2019).
One other approach that is worth mentioning is the so-called actor-network
approach as developed by Latour (1987); and applied by scholars such as Callon
etal. (1986). The actor-network theory is often seen as belonging to social construc-
tivism. It suggests that a practice (technological, medical, social, economic) is not
solely determined by the acts and intentions of economic subjects, but also equally
by all kinds of contextual factors (from the physical to the political).
In terms of Barbour’s four models of interaction between science and religion,
what can be achieved with this approach is dialogue between contributions from
different elds. The next step could be convergence between the results based on the
sciences, philosophy and worldview. This would be no small result: the interaction
between the elds would lead to “richer” conceptualizations in each of the interact-
ing practices.
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In terms of the normative practices approach, one could start with an attempt to
analyze the “intrinsic” normative core of economically qualied practices. From
that point on, one could proceed with an analysis of how economic functioning
might be opened up by (analogical) references to higher order (jural, social, moral,
esthetic) norms and ideals. Another approach could consist in the analysis of quali-
fying, foundational, and conditioning norms for the interactions between economic
subjects and their micro-, meso-, and macro-environments.
In terms of the actor network approach one could analyze how economic prac-
tices develop under the inuence of technology (ICT), globalization, migration,
ecological crises, political leadership, and the like.
7.6 Response toRebekka Klein
After these lengthy introductory remarks, it is time to focus on Rebekka Klein’s
‘What is the Nature of Christian Love? Homo Amans and Revolutionary Altruism’
(Chap. 6, this volume). Let me start by saying that I agree with most of what she
says. It will come as no surprise that I agree with Kleins’s warning that the Homo
amans should not be taken as a comprehensive and denitive representation of the
reality of human being. That would lead to similar totalitarian implementations, she
says, as with the older Homo economicus model. Philosophical models should play
a role that is different from dictating scientic hypothesizing. The project seems to
require too much from scientists in this respect. They are expected “… to prove the
anthropological, psychological, societal and political usefulness and the pragmatic
and ethical impact of its insights instead of merely safeguarding the correct method-
ological fabrication of scientic facts.” I agree, that this is simply too much. The
idea that science can prove the truth of a prescientic (philosophical, religiously
inspired) view on man comes dangerously close to the idea that science can prove
metaphysical claims, whatever their content. This view could also easily drive us
into the arms of scientism.
There are, therefore, “limits and problems inherent in the argument.” I will
briey discuss another ve of these limits, problems and issues that are mentioned
in Klein’s contribution. One of them is that the holism and integrationism implied
in notions like well-being and love disregards the fracturedness and ambivalences of
the phenomena under study. Man is not the rational calculating being that traditional
economic theory has supposed him to be. He is driven by ambiguous, skewed, and
sometimes downright contradictory motives and impulses. The things people value
and are willing to invest in, emotionally, nancially, or in terms of efforts, depend
on their individual and collective histories. Identication of the fracture lines, and
the active search for issues that evoke tensions and feelings of unease, is a condition
for understanding what people avoid or strive for. I am convinced that searching for
such fracture lines and areas of unease and tension is crucial for the detection of
underlying values in economic life, values that do matter and have proven to matter
G. Glas
129
in the lives of concrete groups and individuals, also and especially in the eco-
nomic sphere.
Klein’s second concern originates from the question of how the proposal takes
notice of the independence, objectivity, and cool mood of science? What is left from
these? What is the validity and legitimacy of the concept of Homo amans? My
response is, briey, that this is a matter of concern for me too. As I have argued
above, the transdisciplinary perspective, as such, does not guarantee the wholeness
and integration the discussion paper is aiming at. In the act of abstraction, scientists
lose by denition the connection with this wholeness. They may retain, of course,
prescientic intuitions about this wholeness and they may try to do justice to these
intuitions in their hypothesizing and model-building. But they are not able to recon-
struct this wholeness and its inner coherence by scientic means (Dooyeweerd
1953, Vol. I, p.1). Attempts to do so, for instance in systems theory or (other) com-
putational approaches to a given eld of science, will by denition becolored by the
language and the perspective of the supposedly overarching and connecting science
(mathematics, for instance).
Third, Klein raises a question about the concept of love. What is love? Can it be
equated with prosocial behaviors and attitudes of cooperation and altruism? Like
Klein, I am inclined to suggest that this is not, or at best only partly, the case. There
exists a huge amount of research on empathy and altruism, suggesting that there is
continuity between animal and human behavior. However, the issue here is love in
the biblical sense, i.e., self-giving, self-surrendering, altruistic love that doesn’t
expect to get anything in return for one’s “investment”; love of one’s enemies; love
that is ready to sacrice oneself and one’s own interests. This self-giving love is not
instrumental, it is the expression of one’s deepest self, of one’s giving, caring, and
life-preserving motives.
How about love as grounded in a feeling or in a rational choice? Is it a capability?
Is love essential or contingent in the denition of who we are as human beings? Is
love a remote ideal, or should we conceive it as a fullment of a latent capacity, a
fullment that leads to human ourishing? These are again big questions, that can-
not adequately be addressed in a couple of paragraphs. But let me briey indicate in
which direction I am thinking. With Klein, I am inclined to reject all these options,
except the latter, the virtue-ethical approach to love. I feel sympathy for this latter
approach, which conceives love as an excellence of human nature and as an impor-
tant aspect of human ourishing. But there are also important differences between
the virtue-based approach to love and the biblical emphasis on love as a form of
self-surrender and as a counter-intuitive movement in the presence of often over-
whelming suffering and tragedy. Biblical love emerges against a background of
broken relations, anger, suspicion, negativity, shame, ambivalence, and deception.
Love is indeed central to our existence as human beings, but it is not what we are
inclined to do, especially not in situations in which we ourselves feel threatened,
devalued, put to shame, and so on. Love is indeed a central dynamic within our
existence, a driving force that helps us focus on doing well by our fellow human
beings; whoever this fellow human being is and whatever the difference is between
their and our situation. But this will to love is always, in a way, in opposition to
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other inclinations we also have; inclinations that manifest themselves as egotism,
lack of trust, misanthropy, lack of self-disclosure, narcissism, and tendencies to
grandiosity.
Fourth, Klein expresses as a special worry that the concept of love should be
dened by acknowledging the societal context. What love is, can only be identied
given the alienation and atomization of individuals and given the liquid society in
which we live with its increasingly uid identities of individuals and groups. By not
systematically adopting this perspective of alienation, individualization, and loss of
identity, the Homo amans project runs the risk of “dreaming away.” I agree, again,
and I am inclined to include systematic and institutional injustice as important other
contexts against the background of which acts of love gain meaning and prove to be
transformative.
Fifth, with Kierkegaard, Klein is inclined to suggest that love is not a virtue nor
an expression of human nature, but something in the concrete world, that God has
put next to us, in our neighbor. Love is a “middle-term” instead of an end-term (or
object), she says. It is that through which we reshape our relationships.
I agree that love is not a goal in itself, but a mediating power with transformative
potential. As I said, I see love as a central, transformative dynamic. Love gets shape
in the struggle with egotistic and disconnecting forces. It is accompanied by a hid-
den creativity in nding out what is good for others and for society in spite of all
sorts of resistance and animosity.
So, in sum, I agree with most of Klein’s observations and concerns with respect
to the discussion paper. These observations and concerns gain even more depth and
relief given the conceptual distinctions that were made earlier in the chapter.
7.7 Final Comments andConclusion
Let me nish by summing up my most important hesitations with respect to the
Homo Amans initiative and the role it is supposed to fulll in the context of eco-
nomic theory and economic life.
My main question is twofold and concerns the relationship between science and
worldview on the one hand and between science and economic life on the other.
With respect to the science– worldview relationship, I doubt that science can play
the role the authors of the Homo amans project expect, in validating and legitimiz-
ing the biblically informed concept of love they have in mind. Science can orient
itself on ideas and intuitions that are based on one’s worldview. But it cannot prove
the truth of these intuitions and ideas.
My strictness on this point is not based on the idea that biblical love and love in
the mundane economic sphere are completely distinct realities. It is based on the
conviction that the epistemic attitude of scientists fundamentally differs from the
epistemic attitude of believers (citizens, entrepreneurs, employees, consumers, or
experts in a certain profession). Each scientic discipline highlights a different and
distinct aspect of a phenomenon; and the combined sum of all these partial insights
G. Glas
131
does not reproduce the original coherence and holism of the phenomenon under
study. This also holds for the concept of love. The combined efforts of all the sci-
ences will not deliver us the coherence and holism of the idea of love the authors of
the Homo amans project have in mind.
With respect to the relationship between science and economic life, I am also not
convinced that science and philosophy as academic disciplines will by themselves
be able (nor should be expected to be able) to transform deeply ingrained, institu-
tionally anchored economic practices. New theories, concepts, and paradigms are a
precondition for change, but they do not bring about change by themselves.
Economy will not be changed by a new model or paradigm about human nature per
se. Nor can the economy be rescued by implementing legal, institutional, political,
or moral innovations alone. What is needed is a transdisciplinary approach guided
by an overarching and inspiring view, which is informed by a worldview or world-
views, with contributions from all relevant stakeholders and a set of useful concep-
tual distinctions. What is needed most of all is a clear, succinct, but also encompassing
view of the intrinsic normativity of economic interactions between relevant stake-
holders in what we call “the” economy. This is a huge undertaking, that requires
painstaking “phenomenological” analyses of a wide variety of economic practices.
But this new view and these analyses are worthy of being strived for, given the
needs of our time.
The idea that there exists someone like a Homo amans or a Homo economicus is
also vulnerable in a more practical and empirical sense. Does the Homo economicus
actually exist? Is it not a strawman? Are we not tilting at windmills? Does the term
refer to essences, attitudes, relational characteristics, or something else? And, has
economic theory not already recognized for quite some time the importance of col-
laboration, a certain measure of non-selshness, and sustainable interactions? All
these questions need to be addressed. The answers will determine which conclu-
sions can be drawn from the Homo amans project.
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Chapter 8
Altruistic Concern fortheOther
andtheDevelopment oftheVirtue
ofHumility
JamesA.Van Slyke
Abstract Humility is often dened by what it is not; as the antithesis to various
vices such as pride, arrogance, conceit, or vanity. This negative denition leaves
open the possibility of some underlying characteristic or trait that inuences the
formation of this virtue. Homo amans lays out the classic theological triad of faith,
hope, and love as a natural inclination in humanity. This chapter explores one aspect
of this triad, love, as a possible underlying characteristic or trait that uniquely
informs the formation of the virtue of humility: specically, love as altruistic con-
cern for the other that puts them ahead or before the self. Contemporary psychologi-
cal studies of humility demonstrate a connection between this virtue and altruistic
concern for the other. Altruistic concern becomes a part of moral schemas that
greatly inuence moral behavior and are the basis for the development of moral
identity. Holocaust rescuers demonstrate that moral schemas, which contain altruis-
tic concern as a primary component of their view of the world, cultivate a moral
identity that makes rescuing a consequence of their self-identity and naturally leads
to humility about their actions.
8.1 Introduction
Humility is commonly dened according to what it is acting against; most often
some form of pride.
Humility is most easily dened as the virtue that opposes pride, that is, the virtue which
opposes ascribing to oneself an excellence one does not possess, or wrongly thinking of
oneself as the cause of one’s own excellence, or wishing to be the exclusive possessor of the
excellence (Pinsent 2012, p.261).
Aquinas denes humility as a restriction against thinking too highly of oneself and
a type of restraint against forming an identity based on the over-estimation of
J. A. Van Slyke (*)
Fresno Pacic University, Fresno, CA, USA
e-mail: james.vanslyke@fresno.edu
134
oneself (1912/1981). Humility is foundational to the formation of virtue, generally
through the actions and resistance it takes against pride.
Wherefore, the rst step in the acquisition of virtue may be understood in two
ways. First by way of removing obstacles: and thus humility holds the rst place, in
as much as it expels pride, which “God resists,” and make man submissive and ever
open to receive the inux of Divine grace (Aquinas 1912/1981, ST II-II.161.5.ad 2).
Both of these denitions focus on a type of negative claim, the presence of
humility is the absence of some other sort of vice. Humility is present when some-
thing else is regulated or restricted.
Roberts and Wood (2010) argue that humility is best described by paying atten-
tion to its vice counterparts because it has a negative character. They list a number
of its opposite vices including “arrogance, vanity, conceit, egotism, hyper- autonomy,
grandiosity, pretentiousness, …” among many others (p. 236). Humility is ulti-
mately dened by being opposed to vanity and arrogance. Vanity is excessive con-
cern or anxiety with how one appears to others, which can be focused on a number
of personal qualities such as intelligence, attractiveness, or social status. Thus, a
humble person is one who is unconcerned or inattentive to their appearance to oth-
ers, based on these qualities (Roberts and Wood 2010). Arrogance is dened as a
type of entitlement that is afforded to oneself based on some quality (real or imag-
ined) where a person sees himself or herself as superior to others and thus deserving
of special treatment. The humble person may accurately perceive a special quality
in themselves (a skill, a strength, or some other asset), but the difference is that they
do not use that information to see themselves as superior or requiring special
treatment.
Descriptions of some property using contrasts are certainly helpful, and aspects
of the virtue of humility contain elements that are antithetical to its corresponding
vices. Roberts’ (2003, 2013) overall method of focusing on detailed descriptions of
virtues, using a Wittgensteinian family resemblance approach, is very helpful to
understanding virtue formation. However, denitions focused on absence or restric-
tion seem to indicate the possibility that there might be a separate property or char-
acter trait that lies underneath, which actually plays an essential role in the
overcoming of vice. My suggestion is that altruistic concern, which views the other
as intrinsically valuable, is the ultimate foundation or bedrock of the virtue of
humility.
The idea of Homo amans uses St. Paul’s tripartite view of the theological virtues
of faith, hope, and love as a new paradigm for understanding certain predispositions
in humanity and argues against the typical idea of Homo economicus as a founda-
tion for human anthropology (See Chap1, this volume). One aspect of this view,
love, understood as altruistic concern for the other, is foundational for the develop-
ment of the virtue of humility. Part of the development of this virtue is dependent
upon a certain view of other people, a view that sees intrinsic worth and value in the
other. When this altruistic view of the other is present, humility becomes a natural
consequence because the temptations to various vices related to selshness no lon-
ger take hold in the virtuous person.
J. A. Van Slyke
135
In this way, a certain sense of relational connection and identication with the
other provokes the various cognitive states and behaviors associated with the virtu-
ous state of being humble. Humble people have moral schemas that include a dis-
tinctive valuation for the other and places a high value on those relationships. Their
moral identities are partially constituted based on this altruistic view of other peo-
ple, which inuences their actions and view of the world. Other people have an
inherent value simply based on their status as fellow humans and this perspective
promotes many of the factors commonly associated with the virtue of humility. This
view of Homo amans is a helpful starting point for reconsidering human nature and
the possibility of developing humility as a virtue.
8.2 Human Nature andAltruistic Concern
Selshness is often perceived as a core aspect of human nature. Theologically, origi-
nal sin and the doctrine of total depravity describe human nature as fully corrupted
by sin (Augustine 1961/1996; Calvin 1559/1999). Philosophically, Hobbes viewed
the essence of human nature as egoistical, eventually leading to a brutal competition
among people, absent a proper monarch to rule over them (1651). More recently,
Dawkins’ idea of a selsh gene has been interpreted as evidence that human nature
itself is also inherently selsh (1976). De Waal (2006) has argued that a popular
view among many biologists is that human morality and culture are just a façade
that covers the selsh core of human nature. The view of Homo amans is a helpful
corrective to the assumptions of human selshness presumed to be foundational to
human nature. By emphasizing the aspects of human nature that are searching for
meaning, projecting the self into the future, and focusing on the inherent worth of
human relationships, it is possible to re-imagine the basic characteristics of human
nature and highlight the most positive attributes rather than relegating them to a
secondary or cursory status.
Elsewhere, I have argued that this focus on the inherent worth of others or, as I
have dened it here as altruistic concern, is not antithetical to the evolution of
human nature. Rather, the evolutionary or natural processes that produced human
nature as we know it today actually allows for the possibility of altruistic concern
and behavior (Van Slyke 2010). The altruistic concern that is such a noteworthy part
of many forms of moral exemplarity is actually based on the everyday evolved char-
acteristics of human nature (Van Slyke 2012). Sociality is a basic aspect of many
mammalian species and is most prominent in the primate lineage (de Waal 2005).
Attachment processes establish a trajectory of care and concern for offspring that
can later inuence altruistic concern in other relationships (Shaver etal. 2016).
Neuroeconomics has shown in a variety of experiments that people often prefer
various types of transactions that emphasize cooperation and fairness rather than
self-interest (Camerer and Fehr 2006; Fehr and Camerer 2007). When one person
experiences empathy for another, similar areas of the brain are activated in the two
people, thus each feels a facsimile of what that other person is feeling, based on
8 Altruistic Concern fortheOther andtheDevelopment oftheVirtue ofHumility
136
shared neural circuitry (Singer and Lamm 2009). Neural systems underlying empa-
thy in concert with human mirror systems involved in imitation and specialized
circuitry for theory of mind encompass a natural human propensity towards under-
standing another (Van Slyke 2014).
These human characteristics (along with a host of others) make the development
of altruistic concern a very natural part of human nature. It is not so much working
against a selsh core or intrinsic self-interest, rather it is an emphasis and develop-
ment of the parts of human nature related to cooperation, trust, attachment (among
others), toward the end of viewing the other as intrinsically valuable. The develop-
ment of altruistic concern is foundational to the development of humility, in that
showing humility seems to be dependent upon viewing the other as having an intrin-
sic worth simply by being a fellow human being. Thus, part of the development of
this virtue will be dependent upon developing the relational or love facet of the
Homo amans triad.
8.3 Recent Denitions ofHumility
Recently, there has been a revival in the study of humility, both as a virtue and as a
positive character trait associated with optimal human ourishing. Although humil-
ity has historically been dened in terms of low self-esteem, unworthiness, and
self-deprecation, more recent denitions focus on the positive contributions it
makes to human relationships and individual psychological functioning. Three
components stand out as important characteristics of humility that have taken center
focus in recent denitions of this virtue. Those components are (1) accurate self-
assessment, (2) openness, and (3) low self-regard. Each of these components is
related to how a person views the other and their relationship to other people in
their lives.
Emmons initially identied accurate assessment as one of the primary compo-
nents of a humble person.
To be humble is not to have a low opinion of oneself, it is to have an accurate opinion of
oneself. It is the ability to keep one’s talents and accomplishments in perspective … to have
a sense of self-acceptance, and understanding of one’s imperfections, and to be free from
arrogance and low self-esteem (Emmons 2000, p.7)
Humble people are able to understand the limitations to their own knowledge; an
understanding of their intellectual accomplishments without the belief that they are
somehow all-knowing (Templeton 1997). Humble people are able to perceive them-
selves accurately, both their strengths and weaknesses, without defensiveness
(Exline and Hill 2012).
Part of their accurate assessment is related to their understanding of dependence
on others. Humble people realize that their accomplishments and relationships are
not produced in a vacuum, but are dependent upon others. Humble people recognize
that the formation of any virtue occurs in particular groups with unique
J. A. Van Slyke
137
characteristics that help to foster the relational conditions necessary for virtue for-
mation. It is through social formation that we begin to acknowledge our dependency
on others for moral formation and virtue, even though dependency is not often
acknowledged especially in academic circles.
Dependence on others is of course often recognized in a general way, usually not as some-
thing that we need in order to achieve our positive goals. But an acknowledgement of any-
thing like the full extent of that dependence and of the ways in which it stems from our
vulnerability and our afictions is generally absent (MacIntyre 1999, p.3).
This view of virtue demonstrates that dependency on others is an essential element
of overall ourishing; each of us is indebted to our parents, teachers, siblings, etc.
for the type of formation they bore in us (Boyd 2014).
The second primary component in humility is a sense of openness, both towards
others as well as in regard to taking advice from others, hearing new ideas, and
graciously receiving criticism. Humble people are often open-minded and willing to
admit their mistakes in different areas while also interested in learning from and
seeking advice from others (Tangney 2000; Templeton 1997). They are able to see
and acknowledge their own imperfections and refuse to use their own inuence or
power to control others (Sandage 1999). Humble people recognize the importance
and need for others based on an accurate appraisal of their own limitations and gaps
in their knowledge, often in regard to some form of a higher power or spiritual truth
(Tangney 2000). This openness to others is foundational to their development of
altruistic concern because so much of their life is built upon and sustained by rela-
tionships. When relationships are valued at that level and the openness to the other
includes emotional availability, the development of altruistic concern is a natural
outcome.
The third primary component of humility is related to the stereotypical denition
of humility in terms of low self-regard; humble people lack a strong focus on the
self. However, this focus on others does not include the types of self-effacement
often associated with the stereotypical denition. Humble people show empathy,
respect, and kindness toward others; they value others in such a way as to promote
equality and compassion (Sandage 1999). Humble people are not preoccupied with
themselves and are willing to share the spotlight with others. They do not have an
exaggerated sense of self-importance, but are able to forget themselves while recog-
nizing that they are one part of a much larger universe (Exline and Geyer 2004;
Tangney 2000). They are much less likely to distort information about themselves,
because of, in part, the type of security experienced by them both in terms of their
estimation of themselves and their self-esteem deriving from more stable sources
(such as unconditional love in relationships; devotion to meaningful causes) rather
than transient sources such as physical attractiveness, climbing the social ladder, or
projects focused on self-enhancement (Exline and Geyer 2004; Peterson and
Seligman 2004).
Nadelhoffer and Wright (2016) condensed these three components along two
primary dimensions, low self-focus and high other focus. Their denition assumes
a “particular psychological positioning of oneself … one that is both epistemically
8 Altruistic Concern fortheOther andtheDevelopment oftheVirtue ofHumility
138
and ethically aligned” (Wright etal. 2017, p.4). Epistemically aligned refers to the
proper knowledge of oneself as but one person that is a part of a much larger uni-
verse and all the limitations and imperfections this imparts on one’s singular per-
spective. Ethically aligned refers to the recognition of the moral value of the other
who is worthy of dignity, respect, concern, and compassion. As other denitions
have emphasized, low self-focus does not necessitate an overly negative or dimin-
ished view of the self, rather the attention is directed to a low level of “self-
prioritization or self-importance” while high other-focus refers to an “increase in
one’s orientation outwards– towards other morally relevant beings” (Wright etal.
2017, pp.5–6). This suggests a type of re-orientation in which a person does not
necessarily need to diminish or downplay the self in order to focus on the other but
adjusting the balance between emphasis on self and other towards more of an inte-
gration between the two.
8.4 Humility andConcern fortheOther
Recent research on the psychological functions of humility demonstrates a relation-
ship between humility and concern for the other. Humility is related to a host of
pro-social relational variables including generosity, helping behavior, repair of
social bonds, forgiveness, and gratitude. These types of pro-social variables would
seem to include a component of concern for the other in that they naturally involve
showing affection (at some level) for another whether through giving generously,
showing gratitude or extending forgiveness to another. I would argue that altruistic
concern and humility actually build on each other such that displays of humility
engender more closeness and connection between people and the feeling of rela-
tional connection induces more humility towards others. People are more likely to
show humility and contribute to a common purpose when they know and experience
a sense of afnity with particular individuals. Thus, altruistic concern creates the
context in which humility is more clearly experienced and displayed among persons
of similar character and conviction.
Exline and Hill (2012) found that humility was often associated with generosity.
Humility predicted higher levels of charitable donations as well as mailing back an
extra survey to the researcher. Humble people most often passed on anonymous
donations to future participants, and this form of generosity was positively corre-
lated with a lack of self-focus. Humility was also associated with greater levels of
self-reported motives to be kind to others, such as close friends, strangers, and ene-
mies. Humility played a larger role in the generous acts in contrast to other indi-
vidual variables such as self-esteem, entitlement, religiosity, gratitude, or social
desirability.
LaBouff etal. (2012) found that humility was associated with different instances
of helping behavior. Both explicit and implicit measures of humility were used to
analyze the presence of humility as a character trait in participants. Humility was
most strongly correlated with a self-reported measure of helpfulness and was also
J. A. Van Slyke
139
correlated with agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and impression
management (IM), however the effect of humility on helpfulness remained even
when IM was statistically controlled. In a second study, participants who scored
high on an implicit measure of humility (IAT) were more likely to offer help to a
fellow student in need. The same effect was found when agreeableness was added
as a covariate, and there were no gender differences in the amount of help offered.
In a third study, two different conditions were introduced one with high social pres-
sure to help (ve out of seven confederates had already agreed to help) and a second
with low social pressure to help (two out of the seven confederates had already
agreed to help). Although humble people did not help out more than others in the
social pressure condition, they did offer more help in the low social pressure condi-
tion (76.9%) in comparison to the non-humble group (47.8%).
Gratitude is the recognition that something of value was received from another
person, which was given and received openly and freely. Grateful people are less
likely to engage in hierarchical comparisons with others, which often leads to envy
or resentment (Emmons and Mishra 2011). Being in a state of gratitude toward
another is incompatible with feeling envy and resentment toward them, thus this
type of state in a sense blocks out negative comparator judgments and emphasizes
the good qualities of another person (Smith etal. 1996). Psychological measure-
ment scales of gratitude have been shown to be negatively correlated with envy (Ger
and Belk 1996; McCullough etal. 2002). Gratitude also has a reciprocal relation-
ship with humility. Participants who wrote a gratitude letter demonstrated a higher
level of state humility in comparison to those who wrote a neutral one. Persons
identied as being humble felt higher levels of gratitude after writing a gratitude
letter and in a 14-day diary study, humility and gratitude mutually predicted each
other (Kruse etal. 2014). Thus, gratitude is another form of relational connection
that may be related to concern for the other and may help to develop altruistic con-
cern over time for a wider network of social relationships.
8.5 Humility inRelationships andOrganizations
Not only is humility associated with a host of prosocial variables, it is also associ-
ated with the maintenance and repair of social relationships. It is a preference in
potential romantic partners, business leaders, and coworkers. I would argue that part
of the reason for this is that humility is related to the perception of care and concern
in others. A humble relationship partner demonstrates that they value the perspec-
tive of the other and a humble business leader demonstrates that they value the
contributions of those in their charge. Although this may not be full-blown altruistic
concern, it sets people on a trajectory toward valuing the other beyond a mere
instrumental relationship. It allows for the development of a concern that goes
beyond self-interest toward a type of humility that tips the scales away from the self
toward the other.
8 Altruistic Concern fortheOther andtheDevelopment oftheVirtue ofHumility
140
A longitudinal study of couples that had experienced some sort of hurt or offense
in their relationship rated their feelings of unforgiveness as signicantly less over
time when they saw their partner as more humble rather than viewing their partner
as superior (Davis etal. 2013). Thus, perceiving a romantic partner as more humble
is associated with greater levels of forgiveness on the part of the romantic partner
who was hurt in some way. In a second study, groups of participants who were told
they were part of a leadership workshop were also measured based on relational
dynamics and humility. Based on ratings of individual members by the group, the
trait of humility was positively associated with group acceptance and status. A sec-
ond analysis also demonstrated that the same effect occurred over time, in that as
people demonstrated more aspects of the humility trait during the group activities,
they were rated higher in terms of acceptance. There was also some evidence that
the group was able to discriminate between genuine and feigned humility, in that
there was a negative relationship between people who scored themselves as higher
in humility in comparison to observer scores who scored them lower.
In the initiation and maintenance of romantic relationships, Van Tongeren etal.
(2014) found in an initial study that potential romantic partners who were consid-
ered very humble were rated more favorably and people were more likely to initiate
a romantic relationship with them in comparison with less humble people. In a
replication of the rst study, participants found humble potential dating partners as
more attractive in comparison to arrogant dating partners. Humility also had a dem-
onstrated effect on the maintenance of long-distance relationships, by helping to
facilitate greater levels of forgiveness and relationship satisfaction, especially in
connection to higher levels of commitment in romantic relationships (Farrell
etal. 2015).
Humility has also recently been identied as a helpful factor for various business
organizations and a character trait sought after in corporate leaders. Among students
who participated in ten-week-long project teams, those identied as expressing dif-
ferent cognitive and behavioral traits of humility were signicantly related to iden-
tiable positive traits including overall contributions to the team and individual
performance (Owens etal. 2013). Humility was also shown to help compensate for
lower mental ability on tasks, presumably by helping to better facilitate different
social factors involved in group dynamics. Honesty-humility, as a unique personal-
ity trait, was strongly predictive of positive ratings of job performance by supervi-
sors especially in jobs that involve some form of care taking (Johnson etal. 2011).
Vera and Rodriquez-Lopez (2004) argue that humility actually offers a competitive
advantage for organizations because humility helps to foster more realistic perspec-
tives on a number of different factors related to organizational effectiveness.
Humility has been identied as a primary contributor to leadership effectiveness,
too. Humility expressed in leaders, which was identied by group members, was
positively correlated with job engagement (individual investment in work-related
activities) and job satisfaction, while being negatively correlated with voluntary job
turnover (Owens etal. 2013). Through an analysis of 55 in-depth interviews of lead-
ers who implement humility in their organizations, these types of leaders were iden-
tied as effective by acting as role models for growth over time and creating space
J. A. Van Slyke
141
for team members to express their own areas of growth and uncertainty, leading to
more positive organizational outcomes (Owens and Hekman 2012). Additionally,
humility is able to counteract certain negative effects of narcissism. Among a large
health insurance organization, survey data revealed that interactions between the
traits of narcissism and humility were actually associated with more positive per-
ceptions of leader effectiveness, increased job engagement by followers, and both
subjective and objective measures of job performance in members of the organiza-
tion (Owens etal. 2015).
Psychological research on humility demonstrates its association with a number
of different types of relationships at various levels of intimacy from co-workers and
friends to both potential and current romantic partners. This indicates that humility
is part of a general suite of relational pro-social capacities at the heart of which, I
would argue, is the general foundation of relational connection to, and value of,
another human being. In the formation of humility in individuals, it would be impos-
sible to separate out the valuation of the other from humility itself, both would be
highly intertwined and interdependent in their workings toward the development of
this virtue. It would seem that a part of us prefers or seeks out individuals who dem-
onstrate these qualities because we believe they will be better relationship partners,
leaders, and coworkers. This intuition is connected to our own need or desire for
relationships that value others and the opportunity to show love, care, and concern
for another person. The next section explores different cognitive and psychological
mechanisms involved in the development of altruistic concern and humility– spe-
cically moral schemas and morality identity. Finally, these two mechanisms will
be eshed out in Holocaust rescuers, exposing how they demonstrated humility and
altruistic concern for Jews during the Holocaust.
8.6 Moral Schemas
Schemas have been used in a variety of different domains such as social psychology,
perception, and cognition to demonstrate how expectations and learned information
can affect current interpretations of a context or visual scene. Schemas are based on
“general knowledge or expectations, which is distilled from your past experiences
with someone or something” (Matlin 2013, p.152). Schemas decrease cognitive
load by creating expectations for familiar contexts and people by encoding in mem-
ory the regularities of various situations so that each time the situation is re-
experienced the entire scene does not need to be re-encoded. Piaget (1970) originally
suggested that schemas play an important role in learning through assimilation
(encoding bias based on current schemas) and accommodation (adjusting schemas
to t new information). Brewer and Treyens (1981) demonstrated that when remem-
bering a scene (in the case of this experiment the contents of an ofce), people will
use an ofce schema to help remember different items. Items often associated with
this schema (i.e. desk, chair, pencils) are easier to remember than items not consis-
tent with the schema (a skull placed on the desk). People will also mistakenly
8 Altruistic Concern fortheOther andtheDevelopment oftheVirtue ofHumility
142
remember items consistent with the schema that were not actually present in the
setting. Schemas are not limited to perceptions of a visual scene; the actions associ-
ated with different contexts are also present in memory through the use of a particu-
lar schema often referred to as a script. For example, going to a restaurant has
specic actions to be performed in a particular order, which is widely shared in
particular cultures without the need for detailed conscious recollection (Bower
etal. 1979).
Based on their general usage in human cognition, several authors have suggested
the importance of moral schemas for understanding the factors associated with
moral action in children and adults (Narvaez and Lapsley 2009). Moral schemas
primarily involve social information, especially regarding the self in relation
to others.
Schemas are structured parcels of knowledge from memory situating the self in relation to
others. Schemas can give rise to scripts or conceptual representations of action sequences
associated with particular social situations (Reimer etal. 2011a, p.72).
Moral schemas are the ethical lenses people use to perceive the world and their
place in it. Moral schemas contain perceptional content in terms of how different
situations are interpreted as well as potential action sequences to be enacted.
Several lines of research indicate that moral formation is signicantly dependent
on relational ties and variables in the formation of a self-concept. This self-concept
would be at least partially substantiated and demonstrated in a particular moral
schema that viewed the self in connection to other important social relationships.
Adolescents from an urban neighborhood were selected based on their identication
as care exemplars who embodied several moral traits including community involve-
ment, responsibility toward family, helpfulness toward others, emotional maturity,
leadership, and others (Reimer 2003; Reimer and Wade-Stein 2004). Using compu-
tational analysis, it was identied that a signicant proportion of their understand-
ing of the self was based on the integration of peer and parental representations into
their own internalized representation of the self in comparison to matched controls
who did not demonstrate this tendency. These representations would be a part of the
moral schemas that these adolescents used in their development as care exemplars.
Among L’Arche caregivers (people who willingly volunteer to live with and serve
the mentally and physically disabled) who have served for more than three years,
aspects of their moral schemas were related signicantly with expectations regard-
ing close intimate partners who may act as models for moral action (Reimer etal.
2011b). Among spiritual exemplars, adolescents who are actively involved in a spe-
cic religious group report more resources in terms of social capital (including posi-
tive peer and family relationships), which led to higher levels of positive views on
various moral perspectives (empathetic concern, perspective taking, and altruism)
(Ebstyne, King and Furrow 2008).
Several perspectives in psychology demonstrate the importance of relational ties
to moral development and character formation (Narvaez and Lapsley 2014). Parental
socialization plays an important role in the development of self-regulatory functions
and the development of moral emotions and, ultimately, conscience (Kochanska and
J. A. Van Slyke
143
Aksan 2006). From birth, parental interaction plays a vital role in the development
of the physical, emotional, and cognitive systems of the infant, while many forms of
dysfunction in these systems is at least partially attributable to decits in parental
interaction and regulation (Narvaez and Gleason 2013; Schore 2001, 2002). Insecure
attachment styles (anxious and avoidant) negatively affect pro-social emotions,
motives, and behaviors while secure attachment styles are positively related to
increases in empathetic concern, compassion for others, and different forms of
altruistic behavior including gratitude and forgiveness (Shaver and Mikulincer
2012). Although some perspectives have argued that young infants and children
have little to no interaction with moral concerns, new perspectives seem to indicate
a wealth of different social and moral information that is being processed and used
by children throughout their early development (Narvaez and Lapsley 2009;
Thompson 2012).
This evidence suggests that moral behavior generally is related to representations
of relationships that are a part of the self-concept and, ultimately, facets of a moral
schema. How other people are perceived within their moral schema is at least par-
tially constituted by past relationships, which form the expectations that are so criti-
cal to moral perception in the present. Thus, our relational connections, both from
our past and our current relational ties, inform the way that we view the world and
others as well as modifying the ability for someone to develop certain aspects of
humility. As altruistic concern and valuation of the other increases, the ability to
exercise and sustain humility increases because these two aspects of both cognition
and behavior are so highly intertwined. Our ability to show altruistic concern is
based on the relationships from our past but can also be modied based on new
relationships and new experiences. Thus, moral schemas can be adaptive and trans-
formed over time and lead to greater levels of humility. Related to moral schemas is
the concept of moral identity, which also plays a key role in moral development
generally and humility specically. This will be discussed in the next section.
8.7 Moral Identity
Generally, moral identity refers to the importance of morality to the self-conception
of the individual (Hardy and Carlo 2011). Thus, moral identity increases as a par-
ticular moral perspective becomes more central to the way in which a person under-
stands themselves and identies with the moral perspective. Morality and
self-identity become more closely linked such that a person with a high moral iden-
tity, a moral exemplar for example, tends to prefer or purse personal goals that are
morally right (Colby and Damon 1992). Moral schemas are foundational to the
development of moral identity; having a moral schema that is readily accessible to
process current social situations in terms of their morality would be key to proper
accounts of moral action (Narvaez and Lapsley 2009). Thus, moral identity forms
as the moral schemas used to instantiate moral actions become solidied and con-
sistent over time such that certain forms of moral action become part of one’s iden-
tity (Van Slyke 2015).
8 Altruistic Concern fortheOther andtheDevelopment oftheVirtue ofHumility
144
Several areas of research indicate that moral identity has an important effect on
moral actions in a variety of different domains. Aquino and Reed (2002) found that
the importance of moral identity for self-identity had a marked effect on moral
behaviors. Participants with a strong internalized sense of moral identity donated
more food and had an increased commitment to various forms of volunteerism. For
each step upwards on a measure of internalization of moral identity there was a cor-
responding increase in the probability of some form of volunteer work such as
working in a homeless shelter, mentoring troubled youth, or visiting patients in a
nursing home. In a second study, among high school students, higher scores on the
same moral identity internalization measure (which was second only to gender dif-
ferences) was associated with more donations of food to an end-of-the-year food
drive that was conducted three months after the instrument was originally given to
the students (Aquino and Reed 2002).
Moral identity was found to play a mediating role between adolescent religiosity,
empathy, and aggression (Hardy etal. 2012). Using structural equation models to
analyze an online survey of 502 participants, religious commitment was indirectly
related to aggression (through decreased scores on the measure) and empathy
(through increased scores on the measure) through the variable of moral identity.
Religious commitment and involvement also predicted scores on the moral identity
measure, which suggests that the pro-social behaviors often associated with religi-
osity may be closely associated with moral identity. Similarly, religious identity has
been shown to be associated with a variety of prosocial personality factors including
empathy, perspective taking, helpfulness, and personal responsibility (Furrow etal.
2004). Adolescents who were highly committed to their religion were involved in
twice the national average of acts of service to homeless and needy people in com-
parison with non-religious people (Smith and Denton 2005).
In terms of humility, moral identities become formed in such a way that the value
of the other person becomes a dominant theme of the way a person interacts with
and views the world, and engenders the types of humility demonstrated in moral
exemplars and others. Several areas of research show a close association with moral
identity and concern for out-group members. This would suggest that an important
aspect of moral identity is developing a proper concern for other people, especially
people who are different or represent different groups and ethnicities.
From a national online database, it was demonstrated that activating moral emo-
tions associated with in-group solidarity increased negative associations with out-
groups (Smith et al. 2014). Moral foundations theory, which suggests intuitive
moral categories that function as the foundational building blocks of different cul-
tural moral systems, has identied three categories primarily involved in binding
groups together: loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and purity/degradation
(Graham etal. 2011). Reliance on the three binding categories strongly predicted
low support for helping out-groups through the sharing of water, and negatively
predicted condemnation for torture of out-groups. However, moral identity actually
mitigated this effect in that for those who relied heavily on the binding foundations,
if they also had a strong sense of moral identity, they were more supportive of
J. A. Van Slyke
145
offering water to out-groups and showed more condemnation for torture of out-
groups (Smith etal. 2014).
An earlier study also demonstrated similar results in that a strong sense of moral
identity was associated with a more positive view of out-groups (Reed and Aquino
2003). Those who scored high on a measure of the self-importance of moral identity
(meaning those individuals whose moral identity was central to their self- conception)
also scored higher on a measure of moral obligation toward out-groups (while also
controlling for gender and ethnicity variables). The same measure of moral identity
also showed a positive relationship with perceived worthiness of relief efforts for an
out-group (Afghanistan, which at the time was identied as one of the countries
related to the 9/11 attacks). This was studied further by directly comparing support
to in-groups (New York police, re widows, and children’s benet fund) vs. out-
groups (UNICEF for Afghan children and families). The self-importance of moral
identity also predicted higher levels of donation to the out-group in this situation as
well. In a nal study, higher levels on the self-importance of moral identity scale
were signicantly related with lower levels of acceptable collateral damage to civil-
ian Afghanis, negatively correlated with the morality of killing the perpetrators of
9/11 attacks, and positively correlated with the morality of forgiving the perpetra-
tors of the 9/11 attacks (Reed and Aquino 2003).
Moral schemas are foundational for the development of moral identity, which
ultimately effects developing prosocial behaviors such as volunteerism, donating
food, and donating time to various agencies working for the needy. Additionally,
moral identities are related to more positive views of various types of out-groups in
a variety of contexts. Both of these areas of research suggest that how a person
views the other affects the types of positive moral actions they will initiate on their
behalf. Thus, the development of altruistic concern is an essential component of
moral schemas that view the world in such a way that others are perceived as having
intrinsic value. This value becomes important to a sense of self-identity, which links
this value to how one sees the self and one’s natural inclinations toward treating
others. Once this viewpoint is a part of the self-identity, moral actions on the behalf
of others are not perceived to be extraordinary, but simply a natural outgrowth of
altruistic concern for others. Thus, people can more easily be humble about their
moral actions because they don’t see themselves doing anything beyond what each
person deserves based on their intrinsic worth. This becomes apparent when look-
ing at the moral exemplarity of Holocaust rescuers who demonstrate altruistic con-
cern, heroic acts of compassion, and humility.
8.8 Moral Exemplars
Moral exemplars provide a unique window into the virtue of humility through the
minds of people who have performed incredible acts of moral courage. Biographical
investigations of moral exemplars often cite humility as one of their primary quali-
ties (Colby and Damon 1992; Oliner and Oliner 1988). One particular group,
8 Altruistic Concern fortheOther andtheDevelopment oftheVirtue ofHumility
146
Holocaust rescuers, is an example of people performing astonishing acts of bravery
and compassion on behalf of Jews being persecuted, tortured, and exterminated at
the hands of the German Nazis. Monroe (2004) has conducted extensive interviews
with these people in order to begin to understand the rationale behind their extraor-
dinary behavior. For example, Otto was an ethnic German who lived in Prague and
saved 100 Jews before ending up in a concentration camp. John was a Dutchman
who was placed on the Gestapo’s most wanted list, yet was able to organize an
escape route to Switzerland and Spain. He was ultimately captured and tortured by
the Gestapo, but never revealed any information about his collaborators or their
escape route. Irene was a Polish nurse who was forced into slave labor under the
Nazis, but was able to rescue 18 Jews by hiding them in the basement of the Nazi
general whom she was forced to work for. Knud took part in the rescue of 85% of
the Jews who were living in Denmark, but was captured by the Gestapo. He was
eventually able to escape from his captors and re-joined the underground rescue
effort (Monroe 2004).
Despite the fact that these people put themselves and their families at enormous
risk of retaliation from the Nazis (and in fact, many of them experienced retaliation
in the form of violence and torture), most of them didn’t feel like they had done
anything that extraordinary. One of the rescuers remarked during a long interview
about different factors involved in his actions that he didn’t do anything that extraor-
dinary, he simply did what anybody would do (Monroe 2004). Thus, despite incred-
ible acts of bravery, courage, and compassion, these people showed astonishing
amounts of humility in comparison to the type of moral actions they took on behalf
of the Jews during The Holocaust. Yad Vashem, one of the primary organizations
involved in remembering and documenting the atrocities of the Holocaust, has done
considerable work to identify and reward Holocaust rescuers for their actions.
However, many of the rescuers often refuse the monetary rewards and medals or
give the money to charity. These types of moral exemplars demonstrate several dif-
ferent forms of virtue, including courage and compassion, while displaying an inor-
dinate amount of humility in comparison to the moral acts they performed. Their
form of humility is uniquely intertwined with their altruistic concern for other
(which is a part of their moral schemas) and ultimately their morality identity, which
made their actions during The Holocaust a natural outcome of their self-identity.
8.9 Moral Schemas ofRescuers
Monroe conducted several long-form interviews with Holocaust rescuers to investi-
gate different components of the moral schemas used by rescuers to understand the
reasons behind their actions (Monroe 2004, 2008, 2011b). Interestingly, many of
the features of the moral schemas of Holocaust rescuers match some of the primary
characteristics of humility discussed earlier (accurate self-assessment, openness,
and lack of self-focus). They demonstrated accurate self-assessment in that they did
not unduly elevate themselves because of their heroic actions; they recognized the
J. A. Van Slyke
147
importance of the contributions of others to their rescue efforts. They often worked
in groups and underground organizations to accomplish their goals and viewed
themselves as part of a network of rescuers, rather than as solitary heroic individu-
als. In fact, rescuers did not see themselves as doing anything spectacular, they
simply did what they felt was right. Rescuers thought it was simply natural to help
others, not necessarily deserving of merit or praise, because each person was
assigned a sense of common dignity and worth, simply by being a human being
(Monroe 2011a).
Rescuers demonstrated an openness to others and considered themselves to be a
part of a common humanity that did not discriminate against others, even the Nazis.
One rescuer, Tony, remarked,
I was to understand that you’re part of a whole; just like cells in your own body altogether
make up your body, in our society and community, we all are like cells of a community that
is very important. Not America. I mean the human race. You should always be aware that
every other person is basically you. Always treat people as though it is you. That goes for
the evil Nazis as well as for Jewish friends in trouble. Always see yourself in those people,
for good, or for evil both (Monroe 2008, pp.711–2).
Tony even extended humanity to the Nazis, despite their terrible violent actions.
Rescuers placed a high value on the sanctity of life and their denition of what it
meant to be human was wide and expansive and included many different types of
people and points of view. Rescuers did not make strong in-group vs. out-group
distinctions (which is consistent with research discussed previously on moral iden-
tity and views of out-groups), but rather saw themselves as part of a common uni-
versal humanity with each person being granted dignity and worth based on the
sanctity of life (Monroe 2008).
This leads naturally into the nal component of their moral schemas that matches
one of the components of humility, lack of self-focus. This is clearly demonstrated
in their moral actions of courage and compassion on behalf of the Jews. They per-
ceived Jews as having a common humanity and worth that required action, and they
sacriced themselves, their families, their fortunes, their health, and risked the
potential for capture, torture, and even death, which some of the rescuers, unfortu-
nately, actually had to experience. This kind of forgetting of the self in the face of
danger indicates that they lacked many of the features of selshness and conceit
common in the vices of pride. In contrast, bystanders during the Holocaust per-
ceived the potential costs to be too great and the threat of loss of possessions, dig-
nity, or life too severe to be pursued.
Thus, rescuers demonstrate many of the common features of contemporary de-
nitions of humility. My contention is that their humility regarding their actions dur-
ing the Holocaust was a natural consequence of the moral schemas of these types of
exemplars, moral schemas which placed such a high value on the inherent worth of
other people. It would seem strange to them to display the various vices of pride by
bragging, showing arrogance, or being conceited about performing actions neces-
sary to save something as precious to them as a fellow human being. It did not occur
to them that their actions deserved abundant praise because their behavior and cog-
nition were simply consistent with their moral schemas and the way they saw other
8 Altruistic Concern fortheOther andtheDevelopment oftheVirtue ofHumility
148
people, the world, and their role in it. Thus, displaying the vice of pride was simply
not within their current repertoire of potential actions. Their humility was a natural
extension of their altruistic concern for other people and the value they placed on a
common humanity represented in their moral schemas and moral identity.
8.10 Importance ofMoral Identity
The primary thesis of this paper is that altruistic concern or love is a primary under-
lying factor in the trait of humility. Humility is not simply the contrary to several
different vices, but is an outgrowth of altruistic concern for other persons. Humility
as a virtue is not detachable from an underlying altruistic ethic that consistently
values others. In Monroe’s study of Holocaust rescuers, she found that moral iden-
tity was the primary causal factor in the moral actions of Holocaust rescuers during
World War II (2011a). This moral identity was uniquely intertwined with an ethical
perspective that saw unique value in other people, expectations about how they
should be treated, and an emotional connection that created a sense of responsibility
toward Jewish people.
It is this ethical perspective that helps us make sense of the ethical situations presented to
us. The way we categorize and classify others, our perceived relationship to the person in
need, our idealized cognitive models, and our canonical expectations about what constitutes
appropriate behavior all work through the ethical perspective to produce both a cognitive
menu of choice options we nd available and a sense of moral salience, the feeling that the
suffering of others is relevant for us and therefore demands action to help, not just a gener-
alized sense of concern or sympathy (Monroe 2011a, p.5).
Monroe’s theory of moral choice highlights the importance of a bundle of character
traits that facilitate the kind of moral actions exhibited by rescuers, primarily their
view of the other.
The care, concern, courage, and compassion of rescuers toward the Jews was tied
up in their moral schemas, identity, and views of others, which ultimately informed
their humility in terms of the courageousness of their actions. Because they viewed
the moral situation in Nazi Germany from a particular ethical perspective, it con-
strained the action possibilities that came to mind when faced with the situation.
This was part of the reason for their humility because they viewed their actions as
the norm, not something heroic or extraordinary. As one rescuer commented, “But
what else could I do? They were human beings like you and me” (Monroe 2011a,
p.3). Thus, their humility cannot be separated from their underlying view of other
people; in fact, it is a consequence of that view.
J. A. Van Slyke
149
8.11 Conclusion
Homo amans provides a new foundation for understanding human nature that argues
against the assumption that humans are inherently selsh. In this chapter, I have
argued that one aspect of Homo amans, love, understood as altruistic concern for the
other is foundational for the development of the virtue of humility. Research dem-
onstrates that humility is related to a variety of pro-social variables, which at their
core seem to revolve around some sense of concern for the other. Similarly, humble
people seem to be preferred in both romantic and business relationships, based in
part on the concern they show for others. This association reveals the importance of
a relational connection for developing humility in people. Humility develops best,
not in opposition to the vice of pride, but through the development of relational
values and connection that provide the bedrock for forming this virtue. This type of
concern for the other is the foundation for a more developed sense of altruistic con-
cern that is demonstrated in moral exemplars such as Holocaust rescuers.
Humility is not merely the absence of the various vices associated with pride.
Instead, altruistic concern is the bedrock or foundation for the development and
sustainability of humility. Those who value the intrinsic worth of other people are
less likely to express the various vices of pride and will more readily demonstrate
humility towards others. Moral exemplars, especially Holocaust rescuers, embody
moral schemas that contain particular views of others, specically their value and
worth simply by being a member of the human race. Holocaust rescuers demon-
strate many of the characteristics associated with humility and it is my contention
that their humility is a consequence of those characteristics associated with their
moral identities and schemas, especially the altruistic concern they show for others.
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J. van Nes et al. (eds.), Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics,
Ethical Economy 61, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84690-9_9
Chapter 9
Trust, Faith, andSocial Imaginary:
Prolegomena toanAnthropology
ofPersonhood
EmilioDi Somma
Abstract Amidst the many problem that our societies are facing today, there is
acknowledgment of the fact that the current economic system is unable to create and
foster a just and stable society. This becomes increasingly true the more we continue
to rely on the paradigm of the Homo economicus, which reveals itself as a fragile
basis for a just and functioning society.
The paradigm of the Homo economicus does not allow us to build a workable
society; but then, the rst question remains, what is the fundamental feature of the
Homo, what does it mean to be human? And how can we build a just and function-
ing society?
The theme of this work focuses on nding an answer through the paradigm of the
Homo amans, that is, a paradigm in which we take into account not only human
self-interest but also of those other features that are strongly linked with human life:
the need for a meaning in our life, our relationship with our future and our relation-
ship with other human beings. However, to change an anthropological paradigm,
there is a necessary step that has to be addressed. To say that the paradigm of Homo
economicus has been the dominant one so far, means that we have had a society that
was imbued within a specic framework of customs, values, and traditions. Our
society has been developed on a set of assumptions about human behavior, and on
these assumptions have been developed institutions and procedures in which
we trust.
The attitude of trust is the main topic of this essay. To develop a society on the
paradigm of Homo amans and to further develop the debate, one should ask what
kind of expectation we should encourage in people, and what should the founda-
tions for such expectations be. What, then, is the foundation of this sensible assur-
ance? Why do we trust people and institutions? This chapter aims to analyze this
fundamental requirement for the development of any kind of society: the need for
trust between persons and communities.
E. Di Somma (*)
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
e-mail: Emilio.disomma@etf.edu
154
9.1 From Homo Economicus toHomo Amans
Amidst the many social and nancial problems that our societies are facing today,
there is growing acknowledgment of the fact that the current economic system is
increasingly unable to create and foster a just and stable society. This becomes
increasingly true the more we continue to rely on the paradigm of the Homo eco-
nomicus, which reveals itself as a fragile basis for a just and functioning society and
more of a theoretical instrument to justify the existing balance of power, with
unpleasant consequences for the life of the majority of citizens. As Fleming (2017)
has argued, the current social and economic landscape can be likened to the destruc-
tion left after a tsunami, where people make the catastrophic error of believing that,
after the crisis, things will return to normal. All the while a new, much more cata-
strophic wave, is making its way toward us.
The more our societies have displayed disfunction and contradictions during cri-
ses, especially in recent years, the more the paradigm of the Homo economicus
reveals itself not as an analytical tool, but as an a-rational assumption to justify the
contingent, historical, structure of society. Robert H.Nelson (2001, pp.2–8) offers
us a good preliminary description of the problem we are facing. Nelson afrms that
a suitable value-foundation for the market should approve the pursuit of self-interest
only in those instances that it is expressed legitimately. The problem, that is a moral
as well as a theological one, lies precisely in this denition of legitimization. Much
like any theological/political/moral system, economics requires a normative foun-
dation for the market that involves a dual attitude with respect to self-interest. We
are presented with strong cultural inhibitions against the expression of self-interest
in many areas of society, but, at the same time, strong encouragement for another
powerful form of self-interest in the individual pursuit of prot that is specic to the
connes of the market. According to Nelson, to avoid this conundrum, modern soci-
ety developed a surprising solution: It may be that economists have themselves been
acting in the requisite religious capacity. In fact, in the moment of policy making,
economists try to advocate for the ethical assumptions and consequences of the
system they are supporting, they do not just propose a set of technical assumptions
for the scientic evaluation of reality. In this way, the role of the economist in gov-
ernment already assumes an ethical normative dimension. Another interpretation of
a theological function in economic assumptions has been provided by D.S. Grewal
(2016). He argues that the idea of self-love, channeled through commerce, produc-
ing a collectively optimal result, rst appeared in seventeenth-century French
debates about grace and redemption in interpretations of Augustine. Eighteenth-
century socio-economic thought made this assumption its own, transforming a theo-
logical problem into a secular model of commercial sociability. The idea that an
invisible mechanism– the market functioning according to providential design –
makes private vices conducive to public benet suggests an account of social order
generated through essentially non-political processes.
Critiquing the paradigm of the Homo economicus, then, should be treated simi-
larly to a theological debate, not just an economic, scientic one. While we can
E. Di Somma
155
accept Mill’s (1844) denition of the economic human being as a being who desires
wealth, and who is capable of judging the comparative efcacy of means for obtain-
ing that end, we should ask ourselves whether that is what it means to be Homo, to
be human, and, furthermore, whether such a foundation would allow us to build a
stable and just society. Seeing the economic and social upheaval of recent years, we
could assume that the answer to the latter question is negative. The paradigm of the
Homo economicus does not allow us to build a workable society; but then, the rst
question remains, what is the fundamental feature of the Homo, what does it mean
to be human? And how can we build a just and functioning society?
The theme of this work focuses on nding an answer through the paradigm of the
Homo amans, that is, a paradigm in which we take into account not only human
self-interest (the desire for wealth and material benets), but also those other fea-
tures that are strongly linked with human life: the need for a meaning in our life, our
relationship with our future and our relationship with other human beings. In this
sense, then, the paradigm of the Homo amans wishes to re-discuss the fundamental
concepts through which we establish a sense of personhood. While Homo eco-
nomicus limits human personhood to its capacity to have and satisfy desires, the
paradigm of Homo amans takes into account those elements of human life that can-
not be described trough a paradigm of desires, costs, and benets. The need for a
meaning, the love toward our families, neighbors and communities, the need for
hope and a clear vision of the future to foster and inspire human action, all these
elements, that do exist in the life of a person, cannot be subsumed within the bound-
aries of the Homo economicus.
However, to change an anthropological paradigm, there is a necessary step that
has to be addressed. To say that the paradigm of Homo economicus has been the
dominating one so far, means that we have had a society that was imbued with a
specic framework of customs, values, and traditions. Our society has been devel-
oped on a set of assumptions on human behavior and on these assumptions have
been developed institutions and procedures in which we trust. The attitude of trust
is the main topic of this essay. In fact, to become the foundation of a social structure,
the paradigms of both Homo economicus and Homo amans need to stress the impor-
tance of actions, traditions, customs, and institutions that are supported and nur-
tured by the trust of the people participating in them. A social convention, or an
institution, that does not have the trust of the people involved in it, is in fact unable
to sustain itself to the point of becoming a historical factor. Trust, however, should
not be mistaken for a feeling or sentiment. One does not need to love, or be affec-
tionate toward the person or institution in which one trusts, one only needs the
sensible expectation and assurance of a determined outcome from them.1 At the
same time, however, to develop a society on the paradigm of Homo amans, and to
further develop the debate, one should ask what kind of expectation we should
encourage in people, and what the foundations for such expectations should be.
1 The fact that the paradigm of Homo economicus could impose itself as the explanatory paradigm
of modern society, thus reinforcing the model of society to which it was connected, is proof that
trust does not necessarily need love.
9 Trust, Faith, andSocial Imaginary: Prolegomena toanAnthropology ofPersonhood
156
What, then, is the foundation of this sensible assurance? Why do we trust people
and institutions? This chapter aims to analyze this fundamental requirement to
develop any kind of society: the need for trust between persons and communities.
9.2 The Need forTrust, aShort History oftheConcept
To be claried and encouraged, the paradigm of Homo amans requires clarication
of what trust is, and of what it means to trust someone. As Nullens and Van Nes have
indicated, Homo amans needs to be founded on the three virtues of faith, hope, and
love. A rst tendency would be to subsume trust within the category of faith. In this
sense, trust would be faith of a different order. After all, the technical denition of
trust is the assured reliance of one character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or
something. However, the act of trust, to be meaningful, has to rely on a sense of
consistency possessed by the person (or institution/situation) in which we place our
trust. We do not trust someone or something because of a future expectation, but
because of the actions/events that have already happened. These allow us to build
the sense of consistency and coherence we need to enter into a relation of trust. On
a social level, the act of trust is possible because we all adhere to what Taylor has
called a social imaginary.
As he explains in his work (Taylor 2004), we can understand a social imaginary
as an epistemic structure through which human beings interpret their relations with,
and within, their society. It is not only a simple scheme of relation, a collection of
beliefs about the common life. It incorporates some sense of how we all t together,
both on a social and a normative plane. Through our social imaginary, we have a
sense of how social things go and how should they go. This generates in us the per-
ception of what steps are acceptable, and which ones, instead, go against social
practice, both in a factual and normative way (Taylor 2004, pp.25–6). The frame-
work is something we are born into, it is a system in which we trust because it is
imbued with a sense of coherence and consistency provided by its past. It is because
things have been done in a certain way in the past that we feel compelled to keep the
system going on as it has always been. It is because we engage, from the moment
we are born, with related sets of values and institutions that we can perceive their
history and draw on that past, which is part of our story, to build our sense of trust
in them. Faith and trust, then, are certainly related, although it would be incorrect to
subsume them within the same sphere of consciousness. If we espouse Taylor’s
theory of the social imaginary, it would be much more precise to say that trust is
embedded within all the three virtues required to develop a paradigm of Homo amans.
Trust, then, is not only a necessary component of faith, but also of hope and love.
We can say that all our relations require an underlying component of trust, to make
sense both socially, ethically, and existentially. The necessity of a foundation of
trust is something that, if we explore the history of the concept, has been evident
since ancient times. Much more interesting, however, is to note how, in the classic
tradition, the vocabulary for expressing faith was the same as the one used to express
E. Di Somma
157
trust. In the Greco-Roman tradition, we lack a meaningful distinction between faith
and trust at a conceptual/linguistic level, to the point that the same term (pistis in
Greek and des in Rome) were used in a multiplicity of instances to express differ-
ent relations of trust or faith.
For examples, in the Iliad and Odyssey we see the appearance of the adjective
pistos (Seidl 1952, pp.21–32), especially in the form pistos etairos that indicates
the trustworthy companion, usually the closest companions of the hero. Moreover,
pistos also appears together with xenia in the context of ritualized friendships and
hospitality, thus marking its centrality in the aristocratic ethos of ancient Greece.
(Faraguna 2012) Another example can be found in Theognis. Being trustworthy was
the quality that allowed the aristos to establish reciprocal relations of hospitality
and friendship, thus marking their radical difference from the common people.
Pistis was one of the fundamental qualities that made them agatos, better than the
people of lower classes, apistos, who were unworthy of trust and were deceitful.
With the change of political order in the Greek polis and the establishment of
democratic regimes, the concept of pistis also undergoes some etymological
changes. As Faraguna tries to show us, the concept of pistis is made democratic. Its
meaning transformed to indicate the fundamental prerequisite for the good func-
tioning of society and its prosperity (Faraguna 2012, p.363).
It becomes the fundamental attitude that makes every social activity possible.
Pistis, in the Greek democratic stage, becomes the mutual trust and condence that
allows the citizens to undertake agreements in good faith and preserves the social
stability of the community. Another useful source of information on this topic can
be found in Angelica Taglia’s (1998) work. In the context of Greek democracies,
Pistis was related to peitho, the persuasion, as the fundamental pre-political quality
that allowed any kind of agreement within the social body. If pistis, born from
peitho, is the benevolent and rational consensus obtained through an act of persua-
sion, peitho, as the act in itself, is only possible and meaningful precisely because
the good Greek citizen has a natural tendency to adopt pistis. Without pistis, any
kind of agreement or act of persuasion becomes impossible and we regress to a state
of bia, a state of violence. Pistis, therefore, not only indicated the process through
which the democratic system of the polis could work properly, it also preserved its
aristocratic, pre-political value. Precisely because the citizens of the polis were
capable of pistis, could the polis keep itself united and function properly. In an ideal
polis, pistis was the fundamental human feature that allowed any collective action
(Taglia 1998, pp.14–27).
In the Greek context, pistis was more similar to a form of knowledge– a form of
awareness– than an act of abandonment. In Plato’s Laws, pistis is described as the
sensible acknowledgment, by the wise man, of the presence of a higher order in the
cosmos, an order of which the polis is just a fraction. This rational acknowledgment
would allow the wise man to guide his fellow citizens into the creation of a harmoni-
ous political order that would complement and emulate the higher order of the uni-
verse. It is the acknowledgment of, and submission to, a fundamental hypostasis
that provides the existential background for everything that happens within the
9 Trust, Faith, andSocial Imaginary: Prolegomena toanAnthropology ofPersonhood
158
cosmos, and by consequence, would allow for the submission to the laws of the
community (Taglia 1998, pp.39–44).
It is a fundamental acknowledgment of the Greek worldview that allows the
Greek citizen to make sense and nd meaning in the web of social relations and
institutions in which they were involved. The Greek citizen could submit to the laws
of their city because they were aware that they represented, locally, a state of being
afrmed throughout existence as whole. It was because things were in a certain way,
that social actions should have gone in a certain way and hence, that things
made sense.2
If we move our examination from the Greek context to the Roman concept of
des, we will see that the historical analysis of the idea becomes even more com-
plex. The Roman concept of des presented an enormous variety of elds of appli-
cation spanning the categories of politics, morality, the divine sphere, and legal
principles. Lombardi (1961), in his study on the Roman word-group of the term
des, described how it is impossible to determine one predominant meaning to
ascribe to the constellation of contents referred by the concept.
However, a fundamental meaning of des traced by Lombardi indicated the fun-
damental, practical virtue that allowed stable social relations within Roman society.
Friendships, associations (socii), families, and the range of different Roman groups
were sustained and sustainable because of the fundamental value of des that
allowed the single Roman citizen to navigate through the world with stable points
of civil and social reference. In this sense, then, we see a similar scenario to the
Greek pistis (Lombardi 1961, pp.26–7). We see that faith is a social virtue inherent
in human sociality and always connected to it. It is only because the single indi-
vidual had the capacity to have faith that it was possible to establish meaningful
social relations.
A similar interpretation is given by Freyburger (2009), in his work Fides, where
he afrms that a fundamental meaning of conance (trust) can be found in all the
successive applications of the term, and it should, then, be considered equivalent, if
not related, to the Greek pistis. Even more, says, Freyburger, we should consider the
concept of trust in the Roman vocabulary as the fundamental basis that sustains all
the other meanings of des (Freyburger 2009, pp.30–2). Building on this theory, we
can afrm, then, that without this fundamental trust, we could not have all the suc-
cessive acts of des in the Roman sense. Pre-political trust was considered a neces-
sity for any social act in Roman society.
The concept of faith/trust, independent of specic given contexts, seems to imply
a relational value in the strong sense. It may be between two different people,
between an institution and its members, or about the individual and the world/divine
2 An example of how the law of the community must align, in a more general way, to universal
laws, can be found in Sophocles’ Antigone. In the play, Antigone wishes to bury his brother
because of the unwritten laws of the world. While king Creon forbids it by virtue of his legal role
as a king. It is true that king Creon had the legal right to order that the body of Polynices be left
without burial; however, Antigone tries to remind him that there is a higher order of things to which
the legal order of the polis should always conform.
E. Di Somma
159
sphere, but faith preserved the meaning of a relationship based on a form of aware-
ness and legitimate expectation (the degree and mix of these two aspects changing
according to the context). Pistis and des denoted trust and loyalty/promise. The
basis for this sense of trust, however, had to be something solid enough to give
legitimization and sustenance to the acts of relationality in such societies. To borrow
Taylor’s vocabulary: what was the social imaginary that gave sustenance to the
ancient forms of sociality?
At this stage, Jacob Taubes comes to our aid. In his work on Pauline theology,
Taubes (1993) presents the argument that the different components of society in the
Roman Empire all shared a common hypostasis, a sort of hidden conspiracy.3 For
Taubes, this common hypostasis was carried through in adherence to the Law, the
nomos, the ius, as a foundational structure of all the different societies under the rule
of Roman authority. It could be constituted specically to suit the needs and lan-
guage of a specic group (thus, for Taubes, we had a Hellenistic, Roman, and Jewish
version) but all shared a foundational character through which the different groups
could nd a common ground of agreement. For Taubes, this is one of the most
important reasons that Judaism, despite refusing to recognize the divine gure of
the emperor, was still considered as religio licita and allowed to exist. It shared with
Roman society the foundational acknowledgment of the nomos as hypostasis. Thus,
it was still possible to integrate it within the social structure of the empire (Taubes
1993, pp.23–5).
In Taubes’ presentation of the nomos as the fundamental hypostasis of the Roman
Empire, we are seeing the socio-ontological character of the relation of trust and
the strong socio-existential character of the social imaginary described by Taylor.
According to Taubes, in fact, we should not interpret the law just as a legal instru-
ment, but as a cultural/ontological awareness. It was because existence was orga-
nized in a certain way, that the authority of the city, or of the empire, made sense. It
was, then, not just a legal agreement, but also an ontological understanding of the
world that Romans and Greeks shared, and that Judaism, was at least not willing to
call into question. We are not talking about a specic source of value, but of a more
implicit acknowledgment of a whole structure of existence. In this sense, the rela-
tionship of trust always refers to a metaphysical hypostasis, a sense of implicit order
in which the things that have value nd their own position and structure.
With the advent of Christianity, the concept of faith began to be distinguished
from the concept of trust and was used to describe only religious faith. On this topic,
in her short work on the medieval concept of des, Weijers (1977) has demonstrated
how the Christian concept of faith was the result of two different processes that
affected the related word-group. First, there was the expansion of the use of des as
it was developed within the Christian faith. Alongside this rst process, Weijers
assumes a second development. The same universal extension of the authorized use
of des as Christian faith caused the gradual decline of other meanings of the word.
3 I am not using the term conspiracy in a negative sense, but in the sense of hidden or silent agree-
ment between the parties involved.
9 Trust, Faith, andSocial Imaginary: Prolegomena toanAnthropology ofPersonhood
160
At a time when des was primarily associated with Christian faith, the word prob-
ably grew less apt for designating quite different concepts.
Yet, the features presented above were not relinquished. The Christian individual
retained a sense of trust in the institutions around him (the church, the king, etc…)
because of his social/cultural framework. Of course, such frameworks were con-
nected to the eschatological promise of the nal salvation in a universal sense and,
on a particular level, the Christian was enveloped in various relationships of delitas
and condentia that guaranteed respect of the promises made in his social context.
All these relations made sense because they were connected and structured through
the divine order of the universe that was emulated, on an immanent level, by the
divine authority of kings, popes, and the nobility. In this sense, then, while the con-
cept of faith became more and more connected to the religious sphere of human life,
the need remained for a more fundamental concept of trust connected to a sense of
the world, an ontology, if we want, that worked as the foundational binding of soci-
ality and relationality.
9.3 Trust, Social Imaginaries andtheOrigin ofPersonhood
To be Homo amans we have to develop a model of society in which we evaluate
human beings, not in their capacity to take rational economic decisions that aim to
maximize their prot, but in their capacity to develop relationships and social bonds,
together with their capacity to nd meaning and seek meaning in their own life. The
amans adjective can only have a positive4 meaning in the extent to which this love
is directed toward other human beings, not just towards the activities and interests
of an individual. As Nullens and Van Nes have argued in their essay, the Homo
amans is found at the crossroads between hope, faith, and love. Only when we are
able to develop a concept of society and of human being that envelops these three
virtues, can we meaningfully propose a functioning moral framework and ask its
implementation in society.
However, to be able to do so we should discard the concept of individual,
assumed within the concept of Homo economicus and, instead take into account the
concept of person. The difference, in adopting this conceptual stance, is radical.
When we dene a human being as an individual, we are assuming such a human
being in its own separateness from the other: as a lonely monad within a cosmos
that is only mechanically and instrumentally related to it. The paradigm of the Homo
economicus can work with such an assumption only because it assumes that all of
human relations have a utilitarian and instrumentalist nature, that a human being
undertakes activities and relationships with other human beings only to gain some
measure of benet, be it pleasure or material wealth. Instead, when we take into
account the being person of a human being, we assume the fact that this person is
4 In the sense of being descriptive, but also in the sense of being morally right.
E. Di Somma
161
always immersed in a web of relations that cannot be reduced just to instrumental
economic calculations. A person is always socially, culturally, and historically situ-
ated; what we are as persons is the fruit of our own experiences and relationships
with the human beings around us. It is always the result not only of our own actions,
but also the result of the actions of other people (and of the cultural inuence of
society) on us. It is certainly not an easy, or comfortable process. A person may,
through their own free will and capacity of self-analysis, be at odds with the society
or the people around him, but this would still not deny the inuences that are exer-
cised by these cultural factors, instead, it is a re-afrmation of such inuence.
In this sense, in his work on Hegel (Taylor 1975, 1979), Charles Taylor has
already afrmed that, when we are talking about a person, we are talking about a
culturally and historically situated phenomenon. Taylor describes how, for Hegel,
the fullment of morality is reached when society reaches a superior state of
Sittlichkeit. Taylor focuses on the fact that, when we discuss human identity, we
always discuss a culturally situated phenomenon. We can think about a single indi-
vidual in abstraction from his community only as an organism, but when we develop
thoughts about a human being, we also think about related sets of ways to experi-
ence the world, which are culturally produced and that form his identity. What we
are as human beings, Taylor says, we are only in a cultural community (Taylor
1979, pp.85–7).
In Hegel, the concept of Sittlichkeit indicates the moral obligations we possess
toward an ongoing community of which we are members. The Sittlichkeit refers to
a common life that already exists. It also contributes to the constitution of the sit-
tlich5 of an individual. It is by virtue of this ethical order being an ongoing affair that
the individual possesses these obligations. The fullment of these obligations is
what sustains the ethical order and maintains its existence. Therefore, this ethical
order is different from Moralität, in which the individual has an obligation to realize
something which does not exist, that may even be in contrast with the existing moral
order. The obligations provided by moralität bind the individual not by virtue of
being part of a larger community, but as an individual and rational will (Hegel 1991,
p. 193). For Hegel, Sittlichkeit, the world of common customs or shared life, is
extremely important for the development of an ethic of duty, a philosophical trait
5 With the term Sittlich, we mean the ethicality of the single individual. For a discussion of the
Hegelian Sittlichkeit see: Ferrarin (2001, pp.325–72). Also, Singer (1983, pp.24–44). Particularly
interesting is Singer’s use of Hegelian categories in his criticism of the principles of the neo-liberal
economy.
9 Trust, Faith, andSocial Imaginary: Prolegomena toanAnthropology ofPersonhood
162
that Taylor has inherited. The Ethos of the individual has its source in custom.6 For
this reason, custom is described by Hegel as a zweite Natur, a second nature that
permeates the purely natural will and creates the substance of the ethical mind. This
train of thought is vital for the development of a paradigm of Homo amans as it re-
afrms the fact that values, and the good, can be objectively identied outside of the
subjectivity of a single individual. In the development of liberalism, which led to the
development of the Homo economicus paradigm, something has value only insofar
as it belongs to someone– it has no universal meaning or signicance. Its own meter
of judgment is exclusively what is or could be of benet to its owner. In the Homo
economicus paradigm, economic theory does not need a theory of ethics and value
outside of itself; it is, in itself, a value-theory, although an extremely dysfunctional
one. To afrm the paradigm of Homo amans means to go against this cultural trend.
In this sense, if we afrm that the human-that-loves is found at the crossroads
between hope, faith, and love, then this human being is not a lonely component,
abstracted from their own community; it is immersed within it and has to recognize
a good outside of themself, something that can describe as objectively good, to be in
a meaningful relation with their fellow citizens and neighbors. In this sense, then,
Taylor’s connection of the sense of the self with the moral framework is well placed.
In his philosophical work, Taylor has discussed how this relationship inuences
the formation of our own identity, and he focuses especially on the historical pro-
cess that allowed the development of the modern western identity (Taylor 2001). In
his work, Taylor focuses on how the modern concept of identity has reached its
present form and what its social function is in western civilization. He afrms that
the concept of self is strictly intertwined with the concept of morality (Taylor 2001,
p.3).7 Our identity is strictly connected with the social background that surrounds
us, our framework. It involves the problems of our strong evaluations, namely, the
6 This because the ethos, the ethical consciousness, can be realized only in the social life and nd
its highest objective, in Hegel’s philosophy, in the state system. Hegel aims to criticize the Kantian
concept of individual morality, as it considers only the moral intention, not the actual reality of
moral facts, creating a conict between being and have- to- be, making morality like a duel in front
of a mirror, in which the existence of the person is always in conict with a tyrannical duty imposed
by abstract rationality. Against this interpretation, Hegel re-afrms the importance of an ethics
developed in the here and now, through the interaction of the person with the ethicality of its own
community. Ethics, therefore, can be conictual, but can also a much more pacic process of
negotiating personal ethics through the ethos of the community. For this reason, Hegel denies that
there is a natural law, a law that is pre-existing in respect to the laws set forth by the state. According
to Hegel, morality is not a personal matter; it is not a relationship with an absolute law nor a rela-
tionship with a Destiny. Humans can achieve an ethical consciousness only through the dialectical
process that starts in the category of the family, nd its antithesis in civil society and is fully real-
ized in the state, as synthesis. According to Hegel, we reach ethical achievements only through
social phenomena.
7 Taylor tries to understand how western modern civilization achieved its peculiar concept of the
self and its (allegedly) unique features. He analyzes three great fundamental sources as the founda-
tion of modern self-conscience: the rst is the modern inwardness (sense of ourselves as beings
with inner depths), the second is the afrmation of ordinary life and the third is the expressivist
notion of nature as an inner moral source.
E. Di Somma
163
fact that we engage in moral dilemmas in order to dene our own identities. For
Taylor, morality has two facets. An instinctive one, which is tied to our spontaneous
feelings of right and wrong, and a second facet tied to a given ontology of the human.
An important strand of modern consciousness has tried to diminish the ties that
morality has with this second facet: mainly because of the risks involved in discuss-
ing the characteristics of this ontology of the human that history has presented to us.
Taylor aims to criticize the naturalistic and secular assumption that it is possible to
create a set of moral values based only on universal assumptions, abstracted from a
community of reference. For Taylor, instead, it is impossible to create morality
without a social framework. In addition, our strong evaluations are deeply con-
nected with a moral source, or constitutive good, that is, a center of value which
receives the greatest importance in our framework and is considered as the ultimate
source of our moral reasoning (Taylor 2001, pp.28–32).
As Abbey (2004) has argued, Charles Taylor is attempting to open up a non-
anthropocentric perspective on the good, to allow us to see the sovereignty of good
over the moral agent. In moving the philosophical argument in this direction,
Taylor’s philosophy aims to be explicitly a retrieval of this non-anthropocentric
perspective that philosophy, since the Enlightenment, has been motivated to occlude.
To achieve this outcome, Taylor has to postulate, in my opinion correctly, a strong
connection between the source of moral good and the individual identity con-
nected to it.
At this stage, we can return to Taylor’s concept of social imaginary as a founda-
tion for building the necessary trust to create a coherent and functioning society. I
have referred to this concept of social imaginary several times in the previous pages.
With this concept, to which Taylor will dedicate a whole work (Taylor 2004), he
indicates something much more broad and deeper than just an intellectual or mental
scheme. A social imaginary is more like a common framework or reference for
explaining and justifying social existence. It is different from a social theory, accord-
ing to Taylor, because of three fundamental features:
1. it is not used to explain social realities; it is used, instead, to imagine social sur-
roundings. It does not necessarily work through theoretical categories, instead it
relies also on images stories and legends that are relevant to the community. It
relies then, equally on feelings and sentiments as much as on intellectual
faculties.
2. A theory is, usually, the eld of a restricted circle of experts. A social imaginary,
instead, is available to all members of the community. It is shared by all the per-
sons belonging to the same society.
3. A social imaginary is tied to common sense more than to complex knowledge. It
instils, within the community, a wider sense of legitimacy for social practices
and institutions; it allows for customs, traditions, and institutions to make sense
within a community (Taylor 2004, pp.23–7).
A social imaginary, however, is never a simple thing. Instead, it reveals various
levels of complexity. It involves a sense of normal and legitimate expectation around
our own social actions and the actions of the people that participate in society along
9 Trust, Faith, andSocial Imaginary: Prolegomena toanAnthropology ofPersonhood
164
with us. It provides a sense of normalcy and meaning on how we all t together in
our common practices, both at a factual and at a normative level. Not only, then,
does it make sense of our immediate particular practices, it also offers a wider meta-
physical or moral background through which we make sense of how we stand in
relation to each other, how we relate to each other and with other groups.
The relationship between this background and our practices is not one-sided. A
social imaginary is not a cultural, untouchable, authority that prescribes all of our
actions. Instead, it is a framework of reference that help us to make sense of our
relations and actions towards other human beings. However, such understanding,
while inuencing our actions, is also is also inuenced and reinforced (or ques-
tioned) by the actions themselves.
It can be likened, as Descombes (1994) implies, although not referring directly
to the concept of social imaginary, to Hegel’s objective spirit. According to
Descombes, Taylor retains a sort of positivist Hegelianism, a baggage of Hegelian
concepts freed from their theological/ontological value and now used as sociologi-
cal instruments. The fundamental assumption behind Taylor’s Hegelian interpreta-
tion of social events is that social life is not reducible to the necessities of common
life, but that it has a meaning. The individuals that partake in any social life derive
a fundamental something, a meaningfulness, from it. The problem, then, would be
to understand properly the effective social reality of this meaningfulness, dened by
Descombes as the objective spirit of a society, in a Hegelian sense. He afrms that
to understand Taylor’s philosophical proposal correctly, we must interpret this con-
cept of objective spirit as a sharable state of mind or a rule to follow. That is, a
condition for the social exercise of intelligent activity, a condition to which indi-
viduals would be subject in a manner that does not require their expressed consent.
According to Descombes, Taylor’s strategy is twofold, he shows how any social
practice presupposes common (as opposed to merely shared) meaning. In addition,
he argues that institutions express the ideas and meanings mentioned that resemble
the Hegelian objective spirit. The functions of institutions, therefore, can be com-
pared, to those of a language (Descombes 1994, pp.97–106). We could interpret the
concept of social imaginary as the full, conceptual, inheritance of the Hegelian con-
cept of objective spirit and its complete assimilation in Taylor’s social theory,
although devoid of any ontological cosmic reference to the absolute spirit. The
social imaginary, then, would an immanent objective spirit, a framework of refer-
ence that does not need, necessarily, a connection with an absolute being; although
many social imaginaries in western history did rely on this connection.8
The social imaginary can be described as one of the cultural-ontological founda-
tions of trust. We can develop a sense of trust in the institutions and traditions in our
surroundings because, as I argued in the previous pages, we can base our trust on a
8 The topic of debate, at this point, would be to evaluate the eventual success or lack of it of such
social imaginaries. Did social imaginaries connected to a spiritual source achieve a stable and just
society more successfully than those social imaginaries that did not? This chapter, obviously, does
not aim to answer this question, or even debate it, but the question is left here to stimulate the
reader’s thoughts.
E. Di Somma
165
sense of consistency. The social imaginary is the foundation on which this sense of
consistency is built. Therefore, if the Homo amans can be so only socially, that is,
within a society and a set of shared values with his community of reference, then we
need to investigate how we can structure a new social imaginary on which the rela-
tion of trust between persons and between persons and institutions, within a com-
munity, can be born and developed. It is only because we trust other human beings
that we can entertain them in social relations. It is only because we start with a
fundamental attitude of trust towards our neighbors, that we do not fear to relate
with them and have relationships with other human beings. It is vital, then, to pro-
vide a strong sense of consistency and meaning on which we can build such trust
and foster it in our own communities.
9.4 Trust, Faith andHomo Amans, theNeed foraNew
Social Imaginary
In the Reith Lectures of 2002, philosopher Onora O’Neill admitted that our society
is facing a crisis of trust. I believe it is not hard to nd evidence that conrms this in
our current social landscape. The crisis of trust does not involve just the loss of
legitimacy and the increase of suspicion with which citizens look upon their govern-
ing institutions. It involves the whole of a society that is becoming increasingly
fractured by more and more restricting boundaries, tied by subjective identities and
the wishes of restricted groups. Today, in western societies, we witness the increas-
ing impossibility of the citizenry as a whole standing together behind a common
position, political or moral.
It becomes immediately clear that, clear though the concept may be, the concrete
reality of the act of trust cannot be so easily identied. So far, I have described trust
as the necessary foundation for building any successive relational act. In this sense,
love, hope, and faith would be possible only when trust has been built into a
relationship.
However, when we want to examine the concrete relationship between these con-
cepts (and in so doing, how they reveal themselves in human action and in social/
cultural reality), the phenomenon appears much less clear. It may well be a chicken
or egg dilemma: does sociality starts with trust (that then allows successive rela-
tional acts that foster the virtues of hope, faith, and love) or are those virtues prac-
ticed on a gradual scale that can then give birth to social customs and wider
relational forms?
The only thing we can be sure of is that we are born when the social game has
already started and is ongoing. Our personal social interactions may well start with
our birth, but society (and sociality) is already in progress when we make our
appearance in the play. In this sense, it may be in our more immediate interest to
understand the ongoing rules of meaningful social interaction, rather than focus on
the origin of said interaction.
9 Trust, Faith, andSocial Imaginary: Prolegomena toanAnthropology ofPersonhood
166
The ongoing rule of this game, as we have assumed at the beginning of this essay
and building on Taylor’s work, is that a social paradigm is built on a social imagi-
nary. I believe the best denition of social imaginary, as suggested by Taylor, would
be that of epistemic structure. In A Secular Age, Taylor further expands the concept
by also describing its role in developing the modern, scientic and liberal social
imaginaries. It was the transformation of the social imaginary that allowed the birth
of modernity. According to Taylor, the processes involved in the transformation of
social imaginary are not necessarily linear and do not need, at least at the moment
of their origin, institutional support. A social imaginary can start as a set of claims
belonging to a restricted niche group and then expand to embrace the whole com-
munity. This is what happened in the modern age, for example, with the theories of
Locke and Grotius. Thanks to Locke’s philosophy of nature and Grotius’ view of
normative order, modern society acquired, slowly but steadily, the sensibility that
society exists for the mutual benet of the individuals and to protect their rights. A
new picture of society was, thus, developed, one in which individuals come together
to form a political entity against certain pre-existing moral backgrounds and with
particular ends in view. In modernity, the moral background was one of natural
rights, where people already have certain moral obligations toward each other, while
the ends sought were certain common benets, of which security was the most
important. In the specic case of modernity, the new social structure – with its
underlying concept of moral order– inuenced the development of modern society
along three axes. First, in extension– starting from a restricted niche of thinkers and
philosophers, it inuenced the social discourse in other niches until it encompassed
the whole of western society. Second, in intensity– the demands people made on
society became more complex and ramied. And lastly, in the demands society
itself made on the people– while making our demands, it is incumbent on us to take
some kind of action or attitude as a counterpart, as a duty. These three axes of modi-
cation also involved a separation of the modern moral order from any kind of con-
nection to a transcendent source of good. The pre-modern understandings of moral
order (egalitarian, such as the law of the people, or hierarchical, inspired from the
platonic/Aristotelian philosophy) were connected to a transcendent order of the cos-
mos, such that a breach of the law was equivalent to a breach of the order of the
cosmos itself. According to Taylor, the modern moral order had no such ontic or
cosmic reference, it was an order made for the here and now (Taylor 2007, pp.4–15).9
It is within this enormous transformation of social imaginary that Taylor identi-
es three, very specic, forms of social self-understanding as social imaginaries
born from Locke’s and Grotius’ theories of moral order. The rst one has been
Economy, which came to be considered as an objectied reality. Taylor nds the
greatest example of this new development in Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible
9 The difference is a great one, while the previous concept of moral order stated that the individual
is complementary to the whole, so that the rst task of the individual is to work to preserve the
community, with the modern concept of people and moral order, the relationship is reversed. It is
now the individual that should be preserved, and the purpose of the society is to guarantee
his safety.
E. Di Somma
167
hand. Where economy becomes the fundamental model of society,10 not only as a
metaphor, but also as the dominant end of human activity.
The second social imaginary was the public sphere. This concept indicates not
only the ofcial sphere of government, but communication in society as a whole.
The public sphere is a common space in which members of society meet through a
variety of media. In addition, communication is not only present between members
of society, but also between media themselves. The public sphere is so important
that, even in conditions where it is controlled or abolished, its existence is still faked
to retain control over the population. We have come to consider this space as distinct
from the political space, and, at the same time, a benchmark of legitimacy for the
political authority (Taylor 2007, pp.86–99).11
The nal social imaginary has been popular sovereignty. The two great revolu-
tions of the eighteenth century (French and American) created the conditions for the
interplay of social imaginaries, new and traditional, that helped determine their
respective courses and culminated with the afrmation of popular sovereignty.
According to Taylor, revolutionary brutality made it possible for ideologies that
found support only in minor circles (such as the republican theory of Rousseau), to
spread among the people. This generated the development of the new social imagi-
nary in which the legitimization of the power resides in the population (Taylor 2007,
pp.109–41). In this way, we shifted from a vertical society to a horizontal society.12
To build a society on the paradigm of Homo amans, then, we should, with plau-
sibility, assume that western society has to go through the same, painful, process of
transformation. The plight of our contemporary society, and the social crises it is
currently facing, can no longer be addressed through the modern liberal presupposi-
tions of an absolute individual, completely independent and separate from other
human beings and from its societies of reference. It is born out of a cultural assump-
tion that spatial and temporal separations are an absolute that has to be taken for
granted. That our physical separateness from our neighbors translates into an
10 Economy was obviously linked with the self-understanding of polite civilizations as grounded in
a commercial society. However, the eighteenth century adds an appreciation of the way human life
is designed to produce mutual benet. Emphasis is put on the invisible hand factor. With this,
Taylor means the theory in which we are supposed to be programmed to commit to specic actions
and attitudes that systematically have benecial results for the general happiness. Adam Smith, in
the Wealth of Nations, provide us with the better example of this mechanism. This new understand-
ing of providence is already evident in Locke’s formulation of natural law theory in the Second
Treatise; we can see how much importance the economic dimension is taking on in this new notion
of order. The two main goals of an organized society become, therefore, security and economic
prosperity. This leads to a study of economics as an objectied reality with its laws and mecha-
nisms, as an object of science; but this also determines the complete independence of economy
from the political plane.
11 Taylor describe the public sphere as a meta-topical common space; a topical common space is a
space where people come together in a common act of focus for whatever purpose (a ritual, a con-
versation, the celebration of a major event, etc…). A meta-topical common space transcends such
topical spaces; it knits together a plurality of such spaces into one larger space of non-assembly.
12 Taylor examines the shift that led to a society in which the order was guaranteed by a transcen-
dental order, to a society in which the order is achieved by common action, as in the secular age.
9 Trust, Faith, andSocial Imaginary: Prolegomena toanAnthropology ofPersonhood
168
impossibility of developing a relationship with them, that it is impossible to build a
bridge over such division; or that, maybe, this bridge has always existed, we have
just conveniently ignored it to avoid the responsibility it brings with it. Every cul-
tural framework always develops a metaphysical image of the world, a social imagi-
nary, which helps society to structure its own political and social institutions. The
ontology of the world goes hand in hand with what a society consider acceptable as
political/ethical organization. In this sense, then, if we wish to build a society on the
paradigm of Homo amans and re-build a sense of trust within our own communities,
we cannot simply acknowledge that faith, hope, and love can be good virtues. We
have to nd the courage to afrm their objective goodness, that they can be good
virtues to be cultivated by all who have a stake in our society. We need to reclaim,
then, a social imaginary that can be a stable foundation for the Homo amans.
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J. van Nes etal. (eds.), Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics,
Ethical Economy 61, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84690-9_10
Chapter 10
Homo Amans intheEconomy: AUtopia?
HendrikOpdebeeck
Abstract A Homo amans oriented transition economy is not a utopia. In essence,
the transitional economy we so urgently need today concretely involves assigning
an inter-cultural and inter-religious interpretation to responsibility within the econ-
omy. This means providing a response (transition) to social-economic questions
based on a form of trust (transcendence). Effectively, this means responding to a
form of trust or admiration that has been received. It involves concrete attitudes
emerging from reasonable rationality within the economy. An economy in which
the Homo amans takes the Homo economicus by the hand, becomes, step by step, a
responsible economy. In its turn, a responsible economy corresponds to the ethics
of virtue, which connects the rational to the reasonable. As a virtue, responsibility is
that positive characteristic of trust that focuses on providing the proper response to
the social-economic questions that we encounter. In this chapter we therefore call
for concrete, here-and-now economic changes throughout the world. Instead of a
u-topia or a dys-topia we can witness today the emergence of what we refer to as a
‘u-globia’. It therefore does not involve a polarization between Homo economicus
and Homo amans, or between the economy and ethics.
10.1 Meaningfulness andReasonableness Behind theQuest
toDene andUnderstand theNeed forLove Within
anEconomic Context
Dictionaries generally formulate meaningfulness in terms that involve us “assigning
meaning to something.” At the heart of the economy is the quest to satisfy our needs
using the scarce resources available. If we consider this in the light of meaningful-
ness, the economy essentially boils down to assigning meaning to the fullment of
needs. Compare this with Mill’s denition of Homo economicus in the discussion
paper (Nullens and Van Nes, Chap. 2, p. 10, this volume): “a being who desires
H. Opdebeeck (*)
Universiteit Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium
e-mail: hendrik.opdebeeck@uantwerpen.be
172
wealth, and who is capable of judging of the comparative efcacy of means for
obtaining that end”.
For the average citizen or business manager, however, to speak of meaningful-
ness in relation to the economy readily calls to mind the involvement of ethics. On
many occasions during recent decades we have seen entrepreneurs make cheap use
(or abuse) of ethical values. For example, consider the “Dieselgate” scandal at
Volkswagen, and Starbucks that sells its “fair trade” coffee while evading taxes. The
marriage of convenience between the economy and ethics is not evident. Both the
economy and ethics proceed from rationality, as well as from reasonableness– a
concept that is all too frequently confused with rationality. Both the economy and
ethics can be elaborated from an exclusively intellectual judgment (known as ratio-
nality), as well as from an inclusive human judgment (known as reasonableness).
Rationality approaches labor, technology, and nature from an exclusively intellec-
tual perspective. The economy thus entails a risk of extremes, as with the elabora-
tion of a free market economy or a communist economy which could theoretically
be rationally justied purely in terms of freedom and equality, respectively. In eth-
ics, pure rationality can lead to an exclusively materialistic ethic or to an ethics of
utility: acting in order to acquire the greatest possible material comfort or utility,
respectively. The perspective of reasonableness, however, offers a different stand-
point from which to consider labor, technology, and nature. This perspective of a
more human judgment, which also allows for feelings like fear, hope, empathy, and
love, is a standpoint that goes beyond an exclusive rationality. For example, it could
bring us to a social or ecological economy, or to an ethics of care or happiness. In
the discussion paper by Nullens and Van Nes in this volume, it is interesting to read
how behavioral economists, together with neuroscientists, today insist more and
more on the importance of this reasonableness.
Both the economy and ethics can thus proceed along paths that either are or are
not laudable from a humane perspective. The solution thus cannot simply be to
adopt an ethical approach to problems arising in the economy. Moreover, it means
that both the economy and ethics can evolve into either dystopia (in which every-
thing will backre) or utopia (which is allegedly not feasible). Today all over the
world we hear people warning of the risks of a so called neo-liberal economic dys-
topia, with negative outcomes such as the climate crisis, burnout phenomena, nan-
cial disruptions, and excessively unequal income distributions. Another common
interpretation equates an ethics of happiness with utopia (for example, as translated
into Gross National Happiness in Bhutan).
However, as noted by, for instance, Stephen Toulmin (2001), both the economy
and ethics originally emerged from within a broad sense of reasonableness such as
that of Aristotle. With regard to progress, scholars up until the Enlightenment also
called for moral recovery. The reasonable ethics underlying the economy would
nevertheless degrade into the ever more dominant ethics of rational utility proposed
by Jeremy Bentham. This occurred along with the breakthrough of the economic
sciences in the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. As proposed
today by Martha Nussbaum, however, one path that could bridge this tension
between rationality and reasonableness might indeed involve the acknowledgement
H. Opdebeeck
173
of human feelings. From the perspective of reasonableness, the identication of
emotions, which transcend exclusive rationality by denition, can also generate
knowledge concerning what is important to our actions– and, more specic to our
topic, economic action. Think of current altruistic leadership theories such as ser-
vant leadership, as mentioned in the discussion paper by Nullens and Van Nes.
It is important to rediscover that emotions like fear and suffering, but also hope
and desire, have been shown to have played at least some role in the foundation of
the gradually emerging economy, as well as within the realm of ethics. On the one
hand, consider the emergence of welfare economics, arising from the fear of not or
never having enough, and the ethics of care, with its view to transcending feelings
of suffering. On the other hand, consider the economics of well-being and the ethics
of happiness, which express such feelings as hope and desire. One could even imag-
ine that economic scarcity (the lack of resources with which to satisfy our needs)–
the very heart of economics – arises from emotions. More specically, scarcity
emerges from both our fear of never having enough and our desire and hope of sat-
isfying our ever-increasing desires. Our economic scarcity, or our lack, thus emerges
from our fears concerning our desire for food and clothing, as well as from our
desire for money (as argued by Locke) and for private property (as referred to by
Rousseau 1755) and last but not least, from our fear of not being seen, or our endless
desire to be loved (as discussed by René Girard 1978). The origin of the economy,
you could say, is our endless need to be loved. This is expressed by feelings like fear
and hope. The Homo amans within an economic context, started thus as a Homo
economicus looking forward for recognition, for love.
10.2 Justice andtheNatural Predisposition toLove
What could be a feasible principle for spanning the described tension between dys-
topia and utopia, or between rationality and reasonableness? Since the beginning of
philosophy, the concept of justice has offered a solution in this regard. Justice is a
virtue. It essentially consists of granting to others that to which they are entitled in
order to survive. Also, Nullens and Van Nes in their discussion paper insist, with
Christian Smith, that virtues are important. In the description of the virtue of justice,
we can recognize the rational judgement that, if we rationally want to avoid dysto-
pia in society, one arrives at the notion that each person has the right to survive. Just
as plausibly, however, in justice we can recognize the reasonable judgment– which
is connected to our feelings– according to which we must thus grant this to the
other, if the human right to survive is not to become a utopia. Here Homo amans
comes to the fore.
Like Joseph Torchia in the discussion paper by Nullens and Van Nes, the
twentieth- century French personalist Ricoeur (1990) arrives at this point. Proceeding
from his assumption of free human individuals, Ricoeur states that individuals are
able to achieve full success in their freedom and attempts to be happy, only through
a natural predisposition to love. It is through encounters with other people that an
10 Homo amans intheEconomy: AUtopia?
174
individual becomes a person. Each time, we do indeed feel called to respond to the
invitations or challenges of the other– whether the other is our partner, an employee,
a refugee, or that other who is regarded as strange, like nature around us. The desire
to articulate freedom is also recognized in the other. Freedom should thus emerge
from intersubjectivity, from the relational. However, according to Ricoeur, this
should clearly be understood as an “option” with respect for the other (whether
person or nature) an act of granting to the other. We know that we cannot live
decently unless we promote that which is unique in ourselves and in others. This
option does mean (compare with the view of Dennis Krebs expressed in the discus-
sion paper by Nullens and Van Nes) that I must choose to restrict myself to some
extent, in the sense of restricting my natural urge to see everything as an object of
my endeavors. One aspect that is of fundamental importance in this regard is that
Ricoeur opens this intersubjectivity to the entire world. Ricoeur thus rejects an indi-
vidualistic ethics, as a human being is not merely an individual, but is rather consti-
tuted as a person, and this in the various layers of the “we,” anchored within the
whole of such entities as economic structures and institutions.
Since time immemorial, people have adopted two possible criteria for the con-
crete realization of this justice or granting to others that to which they are entitled in
order to survive. We elaborate this justice either by emphasizing “to each according
to his or her merits” or by focussing on “to each according to his or her needs.” If
we attempt to realize justice through the principle of “to each according to merit,”
the market takes center stage. If we attempt to realise justice through the principle
of “to each according to need,” however, the government takes center stage. With
the market, we risk more individualism and inequality. With the government, we
tend more towards collectivism and an equality that might be too strict. An exces-
sive impact of the market within society is currently confronting us with the utopia
of the free market, which ultimately risks transforming into a dystopia. We need
only consider the climate crisis, burnout phenomena, and excessively unequal
income distributions. When excessive place is reserved for the government in uto-
pian and unaffordable plans, this also ultimately results in dystopia. It is therefore
no coincidence that Joseph Amato (2002) describes a personalistic economist as a
person who, out of respect for the human person, seeks to safeguard human beings
from the consequences of such extreme individualism as well as from those of
extreme collectivism.
Given the risk and the reality of all these excessively utopian and dystopian
effects, along with the failure of the alliance between the market and the govern-
ment, it looks like it is now up to the citizen to take the lead within our society.
Consider the ideas of young people throughout the world who are taking to the
streets to protest about climate change, or what we call the “yellow vests” who are
challenging economic injustice in France and elsewhere. Not to forget the rise in the
percentage of voters during the last European elections. It might refer to citizens
attempting (in a personalistic way) to develop their own (economic) freedom but
however in solidarity with others and the planet in search for adapted economic
institutes: what we call an economy in transition. This means acting no longer rather
as egocentric individuals (as in the pure Homo economicus) but at least as human
H. Opdebeeck
175
persons (as in Homo amans). Only in such a circumstance can we speak of citizens
who consider that– economically– everyone is of equal value with regard to our
common lack of food, warmth, and recognition. It appears that the oor belongs to
Homo amans: the human as an involved person expressed in compassion, love, and
hope, rather than only as an egocentric individual or Homo economicus.
10.3 Factors that Encourage thePromotion ofHomo Amans
intheEconomy
Which points of departure do we need to develop if we want to promote Homo
amans in the economy?
10.3.1 Responsible, asinResponsible Economics
First of all, we can no longer consider data such as nature, labor, technology and,
last but not least, our so-called innite needs as neutral data that we can just use in
our economic models. We discover that this cluster of data happens to contain the
most important factors that cause the economy to degenerate into dystopia. Starting
with compassion we can transform this cluster of data into a cluster of
responsibility.
There is thus increasing talk of what one calls Responsible Economics, or a
responsible economy. With regard to the ecosystem, labor, technology, as well as
our innite needs, one no longer escapes one’s responsibility. The worldwide CSR
(Corporate Social Responsibility) approach in the economy also illustrates this
abundantly.
10.3.2 Inter-relational, asintheSocial Economy
A result of this cluster of responsibility, which is receiving attention from the per-
spective of Homo amans, is that there is a greater emphasis on the inter-personal,
the inter-human, than on individualism. The satisfaction of fundamental human
needs– for respect and self-development– depends primarily on the quality of the
inter-human relationships concerned. Only by way of a qualitatively rich personal
relationship with the other do you encounter human needs at a deeper level. Whereas
in the present economy, competition is steadily increased, the satisfaction of essen-
tial human needs demands co-operation and solidarity with the other. The other can
be a colleague or client, a patient, the poor, a foreigner, the disabled, and so on. The
Social Economy attempts to convert this into practice.
10 Homo amans intheEconomy: AUtopia?
176
10.3.3 Enough, asintheCircular Economy
Subsequently, the choice for a Homo amans attitude in the economy calls the inni-
tude of human needs and desires into question. It is important to recommend a limit,
a nitude, to human needs, if only for the sake of yet another element of the afore-
mentioned cluster of responsibility, to wit, the environment. Thus, we will talk
about an economy of enough, rather than our dystopian economy of
dissatisfaction.
This is reected in what we call a Circular Economy. Central to a circular econ-
omy is the prevention of the exhaustion of scarce resources, the recycling of waste,
and the use of energy sources such as the wind and the sun. Actual applications
include, among others, Cradle-to-Cradle projects, in which one produces on the
basis of components that can be reused after their cycle of life has run out. A more
radical form of a circular economy is what one calls an Economy of Frugality
(Bouckaert et al. 2008). Here, far more than in a circular economy, moderation,
temperance, is paramount.
10.3.4 Balanced, asintheHappiness Economy
Furthermore, the distinction in the economy between the means (such as labor or
technology) and the ends that must be achieved (prot, for example) has to be criti-
cized because this distinction detracts from our respect for the other. To receive the
other as they are cannot be reconciled with using them as a means towards an end.
On the contrary, in a sensible way, means and ends have to be balanced relative to
each other in view of man’s happiness.
In the Happiness Economy, we see that certain aspects of this view have been
developed with, among others, Richard Layard (2005) as a pioneering thinker and
Gross National Happiness as an application. Money is then a means and not an end.
Through adapted forms of technology that do not undermine human happiness, we
are given the opportunity not to regard machines as merely a means of achieving
maximum efciency. When labor as a means is too drastically reduced in favor of
capital, we will feel the need to re-emphasize the neglected value of qualitatively
rich and rewarding labor as an end in itself.
10.3.5 Authentic, asinthePurpose Economy
A fth offshoot of the transition in the economy is the fact that the principle of
rationality, according to which the economic subject takes those decisions that max-
imize utility, is put in perspective (Wilkinson 2008). In light of the cluster of respon-
sibility and, among others, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the emphasis has shifted
H. Opdebeeck
177
towards the more authentic needs of man. Think of the need for respect and self-
development that we discussed earlier.
It is this emphasis on authenticity that is also central to the Purpose Economy in
which one embarks upon the search for meaningfulness. Not just through personal
achievements, but at least as much through meaningful contacts with others and
contributions to the bonum commune, the common good. Thus, economic growth is
focused not so much on the further increase of the consumption of material goods,
but much more on services that are useful for the ethical and cultural enhancement
of living standards or happiness.
10.3.6 Meaningful, asintheEconomy ofCommunion
Finally, from the perspective of Homo amans, an economy in transition will adopt a
different attitude towards the price presupposition of the prevailing economy. This
assumption makes it all too easy for individual utility seekers to co-ordinate their
respective preferences. However, it is not because something or someone doesn’t
yield an immediate utility that it is therefore without value, or needs to be priced
through some method of assessment.
By proposing that things can only be partially expressed in money, we can avoid
reducing values that cannot be expressed in money to a common denominator of
“price.” We don’t just reduce elderly people to a cost. The same goes for the daily
labor of a spouse at home, for nature, and for human life in general. We do not
merely propose so-called solutions such as an affordable retirement home, potential
wages for homemakers, or cost–benet analyses.
In all of this, we stop reasoning in terms of pure prices in the service of our self-
interest. On the contrary: as in the worldwide Economy of Communion, the focus is
on sharing. The prots of an enterprise of the Economy of Communion ow not
only to sustainable investments, but also to meaningful work and concrete support
for those who are on the edge of society, on whom it is hard to simply put a price.
10.4 The Interconnection withTrust
We have described justice as granting to others that to which they are entitled in
order to survive. It is a fact that the transitional economy just described– that we
need but that also is already appearing all over the world– attempts to substantiate
this being entitled to survive. Think of the Circular Economy, the Social Economy,
the Happiness Economy, The Economy of Communion, CSR, the Purpose
Economy, and so on. If we wish to prevent this transitional economy from being
labeled a utopia, however, we must also consider the question of how the granting
to others that to which they are entitled in order to survive can be realised effec-
tively. We therefore should actually question– as in the discussion paper by Nullens
10 Homo amans intheEconomy: AUtopia?
178
and Van Nes– whether we are not in need of the lung of transcendence, in addition
to the lung of the contemporary social-economic transition. What do we mean by
this? At the start of this chapter, I described the current economy in the light of
meaningfulness as assigning meaning to the satisfaction of our needs (which for an
entrepreneur often amounts to turning €1 into €2 as quickly as possible). In the
economy, therefore, meaningfulness has traditionally meant using the market and
the government to address our lack of food, money, and possessions, along with our
desire for recognition. If the current generation behind the developing transition
economy is also open to transcendence, the most prominent role is no longer played
only by the act of making meaningfulness yourself (turning €1 into €2), but at least
equally by the act of discovering meaningfulness outside of yourself. In the econ-
omy, discovering meaningfulness outside yourself thus refers to the situation in
which citizens – however much in cooperation with the market and the govern-
ment– truly acknowledge the common lack of and hope for food, money, posses-
sions, and recognition all over the world and the planet. Moreover, this situation
proceeds from compassion– from sharing in the suffering and hope of everybody,
inclusive nature.
However, such an emerging evolution from a making of meaningfulness (turning
€1 into €2) towards a discovering of meaningfulness within our current transitional
economy is more than simply a pious return to a sort of religious transcendence that
calls you to compassion. The origins of the transitional movement– the all too
expansive dystopian effects of our economy– invite us to a re-interpretation of the
mimetic desire that helped to bring about the economic dystopia. What does this
mean? The eighteenth-century French philosopher Rousseau (1755) speaks of the
important distinction between amour propre and amour-soi. Amour propre refers to
the self-love of the individual, which imitates or mimetically desires that which is
desired by another human (for example, consider the world of advertising). Rousseau
distinguishes this amour propre or self-love from what he refers to as the amour-soi
of the human person. The individual discovers– Ricoeur explains in Soi-même
comme un autre (1990)– that only in a respectful relational context with the other
in adapted institutions, can he truly develop his love for freedom. This amour-soi
renders humans open to external models to be imitated. Humans today indeed seem
again attracted by external models to be imitated. Not the internal models that we
“like” or not via Facebook or Twitter, but external models as an expression of a
transcendent desire that today’s society needs so much. An external model to be
imitated that has gained fascination today is the Dalai Lama with his compassion
and the empathetic appeal of the Buddha; or Pope Francis, with his call with Christ
for a new humanism, applied within what he refers to as a prophetic economy. Not
to forget, of course, in this era of fake news, the external model of the philosophical
admiration of truth. As it comes to the fore, we want to know the truth and we want
and try to act in consensus with it.
The described receptiveness in the nding of meaningfulness ultimately amounts
to trust. Trust indeed involves being open to the possibility that something (like
truth) or someone (like the Buddha, Christ, or the o(O)ther) is ultimately to be
H. Opdebeeck
179
trusted. With this trust, we surround ourselves with a relationship of love or equal
value, which– and this is crucial– also calls us to see the concrete other as actually
being of equal value. This trust replaces the fear or desire that leads us to treat the
other – including nature– unequally or to enter into competition, to exploit the
other, whether it’s my employee or nature. In the discussion paper Christian Smith
speaks about “loving relationships with other personal selves and with the nonper-
sonal world” (Nullens and Van Nes, Chap. 2, p. 15, this volume). The reception of
this trust is tangible in the uniqueness of nature, in the admiration of truth, in the
loving gaze that we feel from the Buddha, in the mystical consolation that we expe-
rience through Christ, and, last but not least, in an authentic meeting with the o(O)
ther. In this context, the tension between the economy and ethics is surpassed by the
transcendental dimension– in other words, by trust. As argued by another twentieth-
century personalist Emmanuel Mounier in his Manifeste au service du personnal-
isme (1936), such openness to transcendence does not depend upon an exclusively
Christian inspiration. But according to Mounier, a personalistic culture and econ-
omy are possible only when we are open to the transcendent. If we are not, we will
not be able to move beyond modernity, with all of its technocratic awareness, he
explains (Abicht and Opdebeeck 2015, p.89).
10.5 Conclusion
In this reection with reference to the discussion paper, I have tried to outline that
a Homo amans oriented transition economy is not a utopia. In essence, the tran-
sitional economy we so urgently need today concretely involves assigning an
inter- cultural and inter-religious interpretation to responsibility within the econ-
omy. This means providing a response (transition) to social-economic questions
based on a form of trust (transcendence). This amounts to providing an ultimate
response to a form of trust or admiration that has been received. In an article,
Dries Deweer describes this art of receiving as follows: “the deep-seated aware-
ness that life is given to us– that we receive it– which makes us willing to bear
responsibility” (Deweer 2016, p.716). In all cases, it involves concrete attitudes
emerging from what we have previously elaborated as reasonable rationality
within the economy. The core of the current economic dystopia– inequality– is
called into question because, proceeding from trust, each person is indeed per-
ceived as being of equal value, thereby giving rise to empathy, compassion, or
mercy. Our era thus corresponds to what was emerging throughout the world even
during what Karl Jaspers (1949) called the axial period (Achsenzeit) between 800
and 200BC, and was expressed by such gures as Socrates, Confucius, Buddha,
or Jeremiah: empathy, compassion, or mercy are a conditio sine qua non when a
context is dystopian.
We can conclude that an economy in which Homo amans takes the Homo eco-
nomicus by the hand, becomes, step by step, a responsible economy. In its turn, a
10 Homo amans intheEconomy: AUtopia?
180
responsible economy corresponds to the ethics of virtue that connects the rational to
the reasonable. The justice, hope, compassion, and love of which we speak are all
virtues. As a virtue, responsibility is that positive characteristic of trust that focuses
on providing the proper response to the social-economic questions that we encoun-
ter. I therefore call for concrete, here-and-now economic changes throughout the
whole world that can bring a sense of peace, as it were– on the part of humans in
relation to their fellow humans and nature. It thus does not involve a polarization
between the Homo economicus and the Homo amans, or between the economy and
ethics, or between rationality and reasonableness– or between dystopia and utopia.
Instead of a u-topia or a dys-topia we can witness today the emergence of what I
refer to as a ‘u-globia’: a concrete, worldwide development of transition and
transcendence.
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Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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J. van Nes et al. (eds.), Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics,
Ethical Economy 61, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84690-9_11
Chapter 11
Out withtheOld, InwiththeNew?
FromConceptual Reconstruction
inPhilosophical Anthropology
toaRealistic Theory ofChange
WesleyJ.Wildman
Abstract Philosophers have solid analyses of defective understandings of the
human condition and regularly propose inspirational alternatives that would seem to
have the promise of changing the fortunes and fate of our species. But philosophers
sometimes over-generalize in their criticisms, attributing to a vast cultural complex
a specic anthropological understanding when in fact any large culture plays host to
a large variety of mutually inconsistent anthropological visions. Moreover, philoso-
phers rarely demonstrate that a culture-level change in anthropological understand-
ings would have the effects they claim and they virtually never spell out a theory of
change by which such a culture-level transformation could ever be realized. This
paper begins in philosophical anthropology, spelling out two specic problematic
aspects of contemporary western human self-understanding: individualism and cog-
nitive error; two corresponding correctives: relationality and self-awareness; and
two spiritual translations of these corrective measures: love as agape and karuna
and wisdom as knowledge and humility. The argument then transitions to practical
questions about what differences the envisaged transformation in ideas about human
nature might be expected to make on socioeconomic conditions and how such
changes might be implemented to realize the envisaged changes. The conclusion is
that the anthropological insights of philosophers would be best served by a partner-
ship with education and policy experts that would add realism about the conditions
for social change to the generative creativity of philosophical analysis.
W. J. Wildman (*)
Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
e-mail: wwildman@bu.edu
182
11.1 Pinning Down aSlippery Problem
Philosophers aren’t very important as agents of social change. Maybe they never
were. After all, Confucius was reportedly frustrated at not being able to realize his
vision for ancient Chinese society and Plato’s Republic never made it off the page.
Even Karl Marx’s socioeconomic vision was realized very differently than he had
intended, in every instance. If there were past eras when philosophy had a large
voice in social organization, philosophers certainly seem to have little impact on
socioeconomic realities these days. The great idea brokers of our time are public
intellectuals who blend a dash of philosophical insight with impressive depth and
breadth of knowledge and a formidable talent for communication. We call them
thought leaders and opinion makers because they inuence the way regular peo-
ple think.
Yet, philosophers have always had great ideas, and that’s as true today as it has
ever been. The danger of people blessed with splendid ideas is that they can overes-
timate the social inuence of great ideas in the past. They can also harbor unduly
optimistic estimations of the social potential of their own ideas today. Just as moral
reasoning for most people is a process parallel to and somewhat independent of
nearly automatic moral appraisals and actions, so philosophical reection on what
society most needs appears to be a process parallel to and somewhat independent of
the reexive operation of a society. Philosophy happens but with uncertain causal
inuence, at best.
For example, did John Stuart Mill’s understanding of human beings as what his
critics would later call Homo economicus– “a being who desires to possess wealth,
and who is capable of judging the comparative efcacy of means for obtaining that
end” (Mill 1836)– have any determinate effect on the way regular people behaved
in society? I think few people ever bought into it back in the nineteenth century nor
at any time since. An informal survey of my acquaintances reveals that most people
think of it as ridiculously reductive and contrary to the way they behave– and that’s
true even of those among them who are personally oriented to wealth accumulation.
Even Mill treated the denition as an abstraction intended to indicate the scope of
the emerging science of economics, as the preceding part of the sentence demon-
strates: “Political economy ... does not treat the whole of man’s nature as modied
by the social state, nor of the whole conduct of man in society. It is concerned with
him solely as a being… [etc.].” He’s giving a denition of political economy, not of
human beings; his view of human beings as such was far richer. To my way of think-
ing, Mill was postulating the abstracted denition of human being as a premise for
further analysis and reection specically within the science of economics. Not
many people are perfectly rational actors, solely concerned with accumulating
wealth, yet that assumption can found a science of economics that generates a urry
of new and powerful insights. This hypothetical, almost experimental, limitation on
the scope of economics became a pillar of economics textbooks for decades after
Adam Smith and Mill but even that didn’t cause most regular human beings sud-
denly to conform to that denition of their economic nature. There are so many
W. J. Wildman
183
more pressing issues impacting economic behavior than what a bunch of nineteenth-
and early twentieth-century economists and philosophers said about the best
abstractions for leveraging insight-generating analyses of economic systems.
I’m not arguing that all causes for socioeconomic behavior are proximate and
none distal. On the contrary, a large body of well replicated experimental work in
social psychology has demonstrated that people unconsciously react to awareness
of nitude and death with aspirational life projects that bolster self-esteem, with
investments in close relationships for comfort and material support, and with vigor-
ous defense of worldviews (for an overview, see Solomon etal. 2015). These are
distal effects and they are not detectable until some time passes after experimental
subjects are primed with thoughts about death. But they are powerful contributing
factors to a host of socioeconomic realities, from building up a business to maintain-
ing safe family neighborhoods, to xenophobic reactions toward refugees taking jobs
that locals might have had. Those unconscious behavioral strategies for managing
death anxiety no doubt partially underwrite the kind of single-minded wealth acqui-
sition and rational maximization of means to that end that Mill had in mind. I feel
condent that such real-life motivations, conscious and unconscious, dwarf in mag-
nitude whatever inuence Mill’s understanding of the scope of the science of eco-
nomics may have had on western socioeconomic practices.
Nevertheless, I think there’s a broad consensus that contemporary western soci-
eties confront daunting threats, some global in scope, that seem to be traceable in
part to a deeply awed operative understanding of human nature implicit within our
societies and economies and politics. I doubt that these aws can be traced back to
the conceptual model of human beings as rationally choosing, wealth-maximizing
economic actors, because that was never much more than a premise for limiting the
scope of the discipline of economics in its early years and has been routinely con-
tested ever since, inside and outside of economics. Moreover, there are countless
examples of economic cultures that operate very differently, on principles of reci-
procity, or honor, or morally inected indebtedness that underwrite very different
visions of the economic aspects of human being. It follows that the problem of
awed anthropological concepts does not lie in the science of economics, however
awed that may or may not be as a science, and it won’t be the same problem in
every culture, because cultures vary rather colorfully in their visions of human
nature, even though every culture has some operative means of economic exchange.
Focusing on North Atlantic cultures and the associated democratic, capitalist socio-
economic systems adds some welcome and needed specicity.
In western settings, the deep aws in the operative understandings of human
nature implicit within our societies and economies and politics relate primarily to
individualism and cognitive error, in my view.
By individualism, I refer to a structure of rationalization, a pattern of thinking in
forms of socioeconomic coordination that easily leaves vulnerable people behind in
ways that might seem cruel to an outsider. Within the cultures where this occurs,
individualism effortlessly rationalizes such behavior with an emphatic assertion of
rights, rewards, and responsibilities articulated primarily at the individual level.
That is: I as an individual have the right to as much wealth as I can or want to
11 Out with the Old, In with the New? From Conceptual Reconstruction…
184
accumulate; I as an individual deserve whatever wealth and privilege I can amass; I
as an individual am responsible primarily for myself and only secondarily, in circles
of attenuating intensity, for my family, my neighborhood, my society, my nation,
and my planetary habitat. Most western nations have taxation systems and
government- funded safety nets designed to mitigate the problem of the marginaliza-
tion of the vulnerable to some degree. In some nations– the United States in par-
ticular – indignant, individualistic moral rationalizations for neglecting and
oppressing poor and vulnerable human beings are pervasive. Such individualistic
rationalizations express a particular understanding of fairness: not fairness as “From
each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” which was a slogan
popularized by Marx, but fairness as “people who are the most talented and the most
hard-working should be paid the most,” which is constantly on guard for freeloaders
who would benet from social goods without contributing. Individualism is a cru-
cial rationalizing adjunct to this understanding of fairness.
By cognitive error, I refer to our cognitive limitations in the face of the enor-
mously complex socioeconomic systems we have built. We have terrible difculty
understanding the causal processes driving the emergent features of these complex
systems and cling to simple but false explanations to ease cognitive load when anal-
ysis and prediction would be better served with a cognitively more demanding
approach to complexity. The result is bafing and frustrating. Good-hearted people
can end up perpetrating devastating socioeconomic violence on others and really
have no idea how to stop, even though they would never willingly harm people in
that way if they had greater control over their situation. Even generally selsh peo-
ple wouldn’t normally harm themselves in the manner of human-abetted climate
change, but the climate system is formidably complex, the links to socioeconomic
systems incredibly tangled, the cognitive challenge seemingly insurmountable, and
solutions profoundly disruptive and painful. It is easier to deny the problem or to
satisfy ourselves with simple actions such as recycling, telling ourselves that we are
doing our part, even though such actions are largely irrelevant to solving the under-
lying problem.
If the line of my reasoning to this point is sound, then philosophers face an inter-
esting puzzle. We certainly should not stand idly by and fail to engage with threats
such as climate change or economic injustice, particularly since philosophers can
offer potent alternatives to the unhealthy prevailing concepts of human nature that
directly address the problems of individualism and cognitive error. But the threats
are urgent enough that there is little point in thinking philosophically about recon-
structing concepts of human nature in these two dimensions if we don’t also have a
practical plan to change the socioeconomic practices that most concern us. If we
ignore the need for change, philosophers pondering human nature may end up being
the philosophical equivalent of Wallace Hartley’s band playing soothing music on
the Titanic even as the great boat lled with water and everyone scrambled to
escape. Thus, I believe we need both conceptual reconstruction and a theory
of change.
Typically, philosophers are very good at conceptual reconstruction and very bad
at generating feasible theories of change. Fortunately, educators and policy
W. J. Wildman
185
professionals arguably need help with conceptual reconstruction and are often
excellent at generating practical methods for social change. A strategic partnership
seems called for, as a result. Admittedly, philosophers may need educators and pol-
icy professionals more than those two groups need philosophers. After all, without
professional help, the best philosophical ideas remain inert outside of specialized
communities of philosophical debate, whereas educators and policy professionals
may feel that philosophical niceties run a distant second to creating literate human
beings and leveraging positive social change. Nevertheless, I nd a partnership
between philosophers and educators and policy professionals to be an intriguing
possibility and well worth pursuing.
The June 2019 Homo Amans symposium in The Netherlands represented an
opportunity to move from conceptual reconstruction of “human nature” to a feasible
theory of socioeconomic change. Perhaps the downstream consequences of that
symposium will include philosophers working with educators and policy profes-
sionals on shared goals for worldview restructuring, synchronized with socioeco-
nomic transformation. Arguably, in the era of the Anthropocene, which is already
manifesting perilous socioeconomic side effects of climate change, nothing could
be more important.
11.2 Conceptual Reconstruction
Let us begin in the domain of philosophical anthropology, asking about ways of
thinking that we imagine might improve human life if they were incorporated into
the living imaginaries of our time. For now, we can set aside the realism-drenched
question of how any concrete changes might actually be achieved.
11.2.1 Framing Considerations
There are numerous denitions of the human being, each attempting to capture the
essence of our species. In my own work in philosophical and theological anthropol-
ogy, I have declined the temptation to offer an essentializing denition, instead
focusing on species-wide characteristics and patterns of individual and cultural
variation (Wildman 2009). The species-wide characteristics are a rich array of evo-
lutionarily stabilized features ranging from cognitive capacities, including cross-
cultural tendencies to cognitive error, all the way to recurring cultural features, such
as means of exchange and regulation of sexual activity. Individual variations stretch
from gender and sex to personality and intelligence. Cultural variations extend from
language to religion. Species-wide characteristics might be thought of as essential,
in the sense of almost universally present, and could be the basis for an essentializ-
ing denition if you wanted one, but the individual and cultural variations are just
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186
as important for generating a reliable understanding of the nature of our species, and
they tend to be masked when the focus is on assertions of a human essence.
For this reason, I prefer a multi-vocal approach to articulating human distinctive-
ness, one that keeps the biological and cultural dimensions of human life tied closely
to one another, and human beings in their complex bodily reality rmly rooted in the
rest of physical nature. Doing this well demands the participation of numerous uni-
versity disciplines– in fact all disciplines that have anything to say about human
beings. It may not be possible always to harmonize everything that academic disci-
plines say about human beings but, all in all, I nd there is an impressive conver-
gence of angles of analysis in what I have called the “modern secular interpretation
of humanity.” This relative (not perfect!) consensus begins to break down as we
move to richer levels of interpretation, where we grapple with human beings as
meaning-making animals whose adventures in meaning are borne within cultural
trajectories of world exploration. This is where we see profound and probably irre-
solvable disagreements about the origins and destiny and meaning of human beings,
expressed in potent stories that enliven various cultural forms even as those stories
slowly mutate over time to accommodate new socioeconomic and cultural realities.
And yet, these days, the modern secular interpretation of humanity exercises a pro-
found regulative effect on these stories, causing some to die if they pass too far into
the territory of implausibility, and others to adapt so as to maintain plausibility for
those who nd the stories to be life-giving.
With those framing assumptions in place, I’ll take up the two themes of individu-
alism and cognitive error, in light of the modern secular interpretation of humanity.
I’m interested in the implications of these two concepts for our self-understanding
as socioeconomic beings. I’m equally interested in what would happen if new ways
of thinking supplanted these aspects of our self-interpretation as human beings and
were incorporated into living imaginaries, from where they could impact socioeco-
nomic behavior. The attendant changes are critical for the human future. I’ll defer
discussion of that until the next section. In this section, attention is on philosophical
anthropology.
11.2.2 Individualism, Relationality, andLove asAgape
andKaruna
Individualism in the sense I give it above is somewhat novel in the history of our
species. Other hyper-social species, such as bees, consist of individual bees, in a
sense ultimately underwritten by physically distinct bodies that are born, move, and
die– this despite their profound dependence on one another in everything from the
microbial to the social dimensions of bee life. Despite similar connections and
dependencies among human beings, the complexity of human minds, the hidden-
ness of our thoughts from others, and the way we hold individual human beings
responsible for their actions, jointly invite an intensication of individualism. Most
human cultures balance that individualizing tendency with religiously and
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politically enforced moral norms about obligations toward others that bind individ-
ual identity to satisfying those obligations. What’s interesting and exceptional about
western cultures after the solidication of capitalism and democracy is the partial
severing of individual identity from social obligations, permitting individualism to
attain degrees of intensity rarely or never seen in the long history of our species. For
instance, young people in western cultures are now expected to become indepen-
dent of their parents, nancially, emotionally, and in terms of end-of-life care.
Western individualism is not so extreme that we dispense with social obligations;
after all, laws are enforced, schooling is a social-hive activity, and the vast majority
of parents teach their children to be other-regarding. But individualism is still
unusually powerful in the west, not least because of its function in articulating and
justifying a particular understanding of fairness, as noted above.
Running counter to western individualism, insights from the modern secular
interpretation of humanity assert a profound relationality with the power to contest
and correct the socioeconomically inspired hyper-individualism of western cul-
tures. Numerous disciplines attest to the presence of intensive relationality at the
root of life in general, and within human life in particular, but they do so in very
different ways. Philosophical anthropology is a useful venue in which to attempt to
assemble an interpretation of relationality that can benet from and respond cre-
atively to those varied disciplinary perspectives. These insights have the potential to
transform human self-understanding, both in terms of the way we conceive our
relationships with one another and in terms of the way we picture our relationship
with the wider world of nature. Here are a few of those worldview-transforming
insights, from the domain of the very small and very old to the domain of the very
human and very recent.
• From physical cosmology and elementary particle physics, we learn that every
aspect of material reality comes from the same source. Very early in the history
of our universe, even the forces we now think of as separate– the gravitational
force by which mass-energy warps space-time, electromagnetism that under-
writes atomic structure and chemistry, the weak force associated with radioactive
decay, the strong force that binds atomic nuclei– were indistinguishable. We are
all related by virtue of coming from the same matter-energy.
• Though the early universe could only create light atoms (isotopes of hydrogen,
helium, lithium), stars formed from those elements were able to generate a range
of heavier but still relatively light elements, explosions of those stars produced
enough energy to forge still heavier elements, and a second generation of stars
with solar disks containing those heavier elements formed planetary systems and
ultimately all of the lifeforms teeming over our planet. We are all related by vir-
tue of coming from the same star-born atoms.
• The geological formation of planet earth is intimately related to the emergence
of microorganisms, which both adapted to the planetary environment and trans-
formed ecological conditions. Just as geology and microbiology are intimately
bound, so that union is the condition for the possibility of more complex organ-
isms to emerge. We are all related by virtue of the intimacy of organic and inor-
ganic matter.
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• Biochemistry has revealed the mechanisms of intergenerational genetic trans-
mission and protein expression, through which it has become clear that all earth
organisms share the same deep biochemistry even when cellular chemistry
changes among large classes of organisms. We are all related through participat-
ing in the same biochemical nexus of DNA and amino acids.
• Evolutionary biology has taught us about the intricate process by which complex
organisms emerged from simpler lifeforms, uncovering a range of mechanisms
of genetic change, including natural selection, which crafts adaptive bodies from
environmental constraints, including social realities that underwrite stunning
exhibitions of gene-culture co-evolution. We are all related by virtue of the evo-
lutionary process.
• The energy processing factories within cells exist because of a symbiotic rela-
tionship with primitive bacteria, which were absorbed into cells and brought
their ATP engineering capacities in with them. We are all related by virtue of
sharing evolutionarily stabilized metabolic processes.
• The study of organism microbiomes shows that the life of any given plant or
animal critically depends on a network of living organisms. No organism exists
without intricate relationships with other organisms, including for food, and
human beings die without the microorganisms that live in and on them. We are
all related by virtue of being dependent on other life forms for our very existence.
• Attachment theory within psychology has revealed the potency of relationships
between parents and their offspring, particularly within mammals and especially
in primate species. Those formative attachments are critical for physical wellbe-
ing and mental health. We are all related by virtue of our strong emotional links
with other people.
• Life in social species is all about adapting to and thriving in novel environments
through cooperation and problem solving. Group selection effects within evolu-
tion incentivize groups to minimize free-riders and embrace ritual strategies that
encode group norms and bind us to one another for the sake of survival and pro-
tection. We are all related by virtue of our commitment to group-dening
moral norms.
• Human beings are intelligent enough to tell and remember stories and to orient
one another to life challenges by means of those stories. Such stories convey his-
tory and knowledge, hopes and dreams, cultural practices and social norms. We
are all related by virtue of our investment in and reliance on culturally con-
structed imaginaries.
• Crossing back into physics, quantum entanglement has demonstrated that the
commonsense view of local realism– that particles have denite properties and
causes operate locally (no faster than the speed of light)– contradicts experi-
ment. All viable interpretations of the quantum formalism, whether deterministic
or indeterministic, are non-local, which entails a subtle and strange form of con-
nectivity beneath the surface appearances of the ordinary world. We are all
related by virtue of entanglement.
• Cognitive science of human beings has demonstrated cross-cultural similarities
in cognitive operations. The stable species-wide character of human cognition is
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the basis for a signicant degree of intelligibility and translatability despite nota-
ble differences in language, culture, religion, morality, personality, and ideology.
We are all related by virtue of our evolutionarily stabilized brains.
The modern secular interpretation of humanity has generated an impressive con-
sensus. By itself, this suggests that the relationality inherent in human life is multi-
dimensional, consistent, irreducible to a single perspective, and extremely profound.
Western hyper-individualism seems a particularly extreme and ultimately unsus-
tainable adventure in the social construction of human nature in light of this rich
perspective on relationality. We might regard the conception of socioeconomic fair-
ness that hyper-individualism rationalizes– people who are the most talented and
the most hard-working should be paid the most, and freeloaders should be identied
and penalized for betraying their individual responsibilities– as similarly extreme.
Arguably, that extremity is a sign of western cultural greatness. But maybe it is also
the great weakness of western forms of socioeconomic cultural organization. I think
the historical record demonstrates that extreme ideas often function as both enablers
of novelty and seeds of self-destruction.
Moving beyond the powerful consensus within the modern secular interpretation
of humanity to the more controversial territory of metaphysics, this depiction of
relationality leans heavily away from the Aristotelian vision of “things” as sub-
stances that bear properties and toward the relational vision of “things” co-
constituting one another in webs of mutually dependent co-arising. This radically
intimate vision of relationality at the ontological root of every part of reality, if
correct, would powerfully reinforce the relationality afrmed within the modern
secular interpretation of humanity (Scaringe and Wildman 2020). In any event,
there seems to be no question that the modern secular interpretation of humanity
demands some kind of relational ontology (Wildman 2010). Relational ontologies
do not outrightly contradict western hyper-individualism, but they do make hyper-
individualism fundamentally implausible as a way of conceiving human nature, and
thus offer conceptual resistance to the socioeconomic enshrinement of hyper-
individualism whenever and wherever it occurs.
Within the moral and spiritual domains, an apt expression for the kind of rela-
tionality portrayed within the modern secular interpretation of humanity and its
metaphysical extensions is love. Now, love is a famously complex and multi-faceted
concept, so a word of clarication is in order. To begin with, human beings have
three distinguishable neurological love systems: sexual attraction (mediated espe-
cially by testosterone), infatuation (mediated especially by dopamine), and bonding
(mediated especially by oxytocin) (see a summary of these systems in Wildman
2019). These are something like the atomic components of the molecular forma-
tions of love in the evolutionary realities of reproduction and parental investment in
offspring. There are also higher-order, phenomenologically distinguishable types of
love, from love of friends to love of animals and from love of music to love of
sports. Longstanding traditional typologies of love often begin at this level, under-
standably silent on what we have discovered about the neurology of love in recent
decades.
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The morally and spiritually most profound types of love are of two main types.
One is resolute benevolence, an alignment of intention and action for the benet of
others. The other is universal compassion. The rst kind of spiritual love, often
called agape, is more a matter of virtuous will than emotion. It rst presupposes and
then actualizes a profound relationality between persons that bets underlying rela-
tionality, conceived differently in the varied spiritual worldviews of our planet– this
is the very relationality disclosed in reality through the modern secular interpreta-
tion of humanity. The second kind of spiritual love, often called karuna, is the fruit
of spiritual practices that express a profound awareness of relationality, an aware-
ness that can becultivated in meditative states. Importantly, while the two types of
spiritual love overlap, they are distinguishable. Agape does not require karuna,
though feelings of empathy and compassion can be powerful motivators toward
realizing the unconquerable benevolence of agape. Similarly, karuna does not
require agape, but ordinarily universal compassion should lead outwards to pre-
cisely the kind of benevolent actions that agape prizes.
I contend that cultivating these two types of love is the spiritually most relevant
and profound response to the disclosure of relationality within the modern secular
interpretation of humanity. The vision of the human person expressed in the union
of karuna and agape goes well beyond anything envisaged within that consensus
interpretation from the contemporary university disciplines but they are conceptu-
ally consistent and mutually resonant.
11.2.3 Cognitive Error, Self-Awareness, andWisdom
asKnowledge andHumility
Let’s turn to cognitive error. The human brain is phylogenetically dependent on a
long process of brain evolution in other species. Critical tasks for the brains of most
species include keeping the body running (e.g. autonomic nervous system), making
sense of situations quickly enough to take effective action (e.g. rapidly changing
bodily function in response to life-threatening dangers), and managing procreation
(e.g. nding mates and protecting offspring). In human cognition, an overlay of
higher cortical functions launches cognition into unprecedented realms of complex-
ity. Memory is more powerful, simulation of future situations is more extensive, and
information processing to interpret a situation is more intricate. For many pur-
poses– indeed, for most purposes within the small-scale cultures of the era of evo-
lutionary adaptation– human cognitive capacities were well suited to the natural
hazards and social demands that human beings had to navigate. In complex cultures,
however, where cognitive demands are much higher, our memory, our interpretative
abilities, and our decision systems are often stressed. That’s when we make mis-
takes, mistakes that we often don’t recognize and typically can’t avoid or x.
These all-too-human tendencies to cognitive error have been studied exhaus-
tively during the last century of research in cognitive psychology and documented
voluminously (see Fig.11.1 for the Codex of Cognitive Bias, which I prefer to call
W. J. Wildman
191
Fig. 11.1 Cognitive Bias Codex, aka the Codex of Tendencies to Cognitive Error, presenting a variety of empirically conrmed biases in the human cognitive
system, categorized by similarity of cognitive operation. (Reproduced under a Creative Commons license (“attribution and share-alike”))
11 Out with the Old, In with the New? From Conceptual Reconstruction…
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the Codex of Tendencies to Cognitive Error, emphasizing tendencies). Some of
them are amusing: think of a magician taking advantage of the way human beings
are known to interpret sensory information and doing something that appears impos-
sible but in reality is merely deceptive. Other tendencies to cognitive error can be
deadly: picture one group of people settling for cognitively easy negative general-
izations about another group in lieu of detailed person-to-person information and
then using those oversimplied generalizations to rationalize violence against the
group they malign. Of course, there are lot of cognitive errors whose importance lies
somewhere in between amusement and genocide (for application to human inquiry,
see Wildman 2009).
In the case of attempting to interpret and transform the socioeconomic practices
of western capitalistic democracies, tendencies to cognitive error play a critical role.
Formally complex systems– e.g. large economies– display several mind-bending
properties that play havoc with human cognition. Under some circumstances, they
become highly unpredictable, which makes human beings extremely nervous
because methods for satisfying their survival needs become fragile. The nexus of
causes involved in a complex economic system is only partially understood, making
interventions potentially perilous and always debatable, which also makes people
nervous. Moreover, interventions can backre producing unintended consequences,
which can be very dangerous.
At a more personal level, since we lack control over the economic system as
such, we cannot act meaningfully to improve the economic practices we don’t like.
We can complain and protest, of course, but it is extremely difcult constructively
to contribute to a solution. That kind of despair is a rational reaction to being unwill-
ingly caught up in perpetuating economic injustice and the resulting dissonant state
of mind is difcult to tolerate so we tend to narrate our way out of the impasse with
stories about other people’s badness or about us doing our part. They might even be
convincing stories at some level but they are fundamentally evasive and self-
exculpatory, and they are oriented more to alleviating cognitive dissonance and
moral anguish than to solving socioeconomic problems.
Naturally, the inevitable failure of experts to possess a sound grasp of a complex
socioeconomic system leads to economic disasters and popular mistrust. That’s a
rational reaction, amounting to coming to terms with the complex nature of a mod-
ern economy. But experts are the only people able to gain much of a sense of the
levers of a socioeconomic system, so an opportunity for cognitive error lurks nearby:
we can all-too-easily generalize from skepticism about complete knowledge to
wholesale mistrust in all experts, and thereafter agitate to replace so-called experts,
who actually do possess the best knowledge available, with populist demagogues,
who typically possess little relevant expert knowledge at all.
How do we mitigate the problems associated with being a species whose cogni-
tive powers are optimized for cultural worlds far simpler than the one in which we
actually live? The answer, surely, is a specic kind of self-awareness, one that rec-
ognizes the ever-present tendencies to cognitive error, inspiring us to regulate emo-
tion and behave accordingly; one that recognizes the presence of a complex system
and proceeds cautiously; one that is ready for the possibility of unintended, unwanted
side effects of even the cleverest interventions.
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Consider a side effect of the advent of the internet, which revolutionized the
global economy. Nobody boosting the internet imagined a massively amped-up
market in every country and locality for the commercial sexual exploitation of chil-
dren, linking buyers with sellers with an efciency that was formerly impossible.
Now that we do know about that unintended consequence, we are struggling to nd
effective ways of battling the problem. People self-aware in the way I’m now
describing would have detected the opportunity for cognitive error lurking. They’d
have been on the lookout for unintended side effects and they’d have been warning
people in advance to expect them, even if they didn’t know precisely what they
would be.
Within the moral and spiritual domains, this kind of self-awareness might be
called wisdom, and it has two important aspects: knowledge and humility. The
knowledge aspect of this kind of wisdom involves knowing a lot, including and
especially about tendencies to cognitive error. Acquiring knowledge requires train-
ing– a great deal of training – in cognitive science, logic, probability, ethics, and
also in specic subject matters, such as political economy or climate science or
whatever the specic problem in view may be. It also involves building character,
which takes us to the humility aspect of this kind of wisdom. The humility aspect of
wisdom is powerfully akin to what Christians might call consciousness of sin, what
Buddhists might call right mindedness, and what secular humanists might call the
ethics of systems thinking.
Wisdom recognizes the complexity of vast human social systems, and is reso-
lutely skeptical about every kind of hubris, particularly those on a civilizational
scale with the potential to impact billions of people and other animals besides us.
Both the knowledge and humility dimensions of wisdom are virtues that can be
cultivated– and absolutely must be cultivated if human beings are to successfully
navigate the challenges we now confront.
11.3 Theory ofChange
Love as agape and karuna, and wisdom as knowledge and humility are capable of
confronting rampant individualism and unchecked tendencies to cognitive error
within contemporary western socioeconomic systems. I think philosophers feel sure
of this; after all, someone who has truly learned the lessons of love and wisdom is
very unlikely to fail to notice side effects of socioeconomic hubris such as margin-
alization of the economically vulnerable and the crazy careening of civilization into
a climate catastrophe. But there are not many such virtuous souls. So where else
does this confrontation actually happen? I think that this confrontation happens
mostly in our heads, which is to say, in the heads of philosophers who think deeply
about the way human beings understand themselves. But that’s not enough, particu-
larly given how urgent the problems are. Once again, it really doesn’t matter how
clever and potentially revolutionary our anthropological ideas are if they remain
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194
socially and politically inert. So now we need to discuss the move from conceptual
reconstruction in philosophical anthropology to a theory of change.
I want to suggest ve directions of change, as follows:
• education about complex social systems, relationality, and species-wide cogni-
tive error,
• activating religious and humanist communities as sites of virtue cultivation,
• strategic policy deployments to counter socioeconomic hubris and its effects,
• advertising campaigns to explain the importance of love and wisdom, and
• explicit political rhetoric about the problems of individualism and cognitive error.
To pull any of this off, partnerships are critical. Philosophers need to team up
with educators and policy professionals because philosophers will not achieve prac-
tical results of this kind by themselves. I think the main impediment to such partner-
ships lies in the ability of philosophers to convince practically oriented change
agents and on-the-ground stakeholders that philosophical anthropology has any-
thing of importance to offer. So let’s start there.
How do philosophers make the case to practically minded change agents such as
educators and policy experts that visions of the human person powered by the vir-
tues of love and wisdom can effectively confront the problems associated with
invidious individualism and chronic cognitive error? It sounds like a pipe dream, or
perhaps some kind of religious vision. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on economic
prosperity, calming people’s anxieties, and projecting strength on the world stage?
Isn’t expecting people to become enlightened enough to qualify as loving and wise
asking way too much? Anyway, why would anyone trust a philosopher who claims
that the virtues of love and wisdom can make all the difference in a life-and-death
confrontation with the problems that beset us?
There are ways for philosophers to navigate around their well-earned reputation
for being irrelevant to socioeconomic challenges. But they will make most philoso-
phers nervous. The trick is to engage policy experts and educators by showing them
the difference that love as agape and karuna and wisdom as knowledge and humil-
ity can make. Because nobody will trust a philosopher to experiment in the real
world, that difference will have to be demonstrated in some other way, and I want to
suggest four such methods.
First, philosophers can demonstrate the difference their ideas can make using
inspiring word pictures capable of captivating the imagination of journalists and
educated readers. This is one method by which powerful ideas spread. Of course,
the directions and extend of spread critically depends on the nature of communica-
tion and the stakeholders involved. So consider a few examples.
The Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture is an annual “award for major
achievements in advancing ideas that shape the world” (https://www.berggruen.org/
prize/). Three philosophers have won that prize, each invested in partnerships that
spread powerful ideas and create conditions conducive to socioeconomic change,
but the way those partnerships work has been quite different. Canadian philosopher
Charles Taylor has primarily inuenced other university intellectuals but he is also
a public intellectual with a strong media presence striving to support conditions he
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195
thinks will unify societies in the face of increasing cultural diversity. British phi-
losopher and public servant Baroness Onora Sylvia O’Neill has brought her
philosophical- ethics perspective to policy and politics in the UK House of Lords,
raising consciousness and creating positive change on everything from bioethics to
civic life. American philosopher Martha Craven Nussbaum has combined the high-
est scholarly standards with a role as a public intellectual, partnering with econo-
mist Amartya Kumar Sen to create an intellectual framework for welfare economics
(the capability approach) that has had a profound effect in numerous policy direc-
tions, including the design of the United Nations’ Human Development Index. In all
three cases, these philosophers maintain a complex web of partnerships that give
practical leverage to their profound ideas about the human condition.
Similarly, the Templeton Prize recognizes people from a wide variety of disci-
plines who have “made an exceptional contribution to afrming life’s spiritual
dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works” (http://www.
templetonprize.org/purpose.html). Sometimes a philosopher is a recipient of the
Templeton Prize (e.g. Alvin Plantinga, Jean Vanier, Tomáš Halík, Michael Heller,
Charles Taylor, Michael Novak) and in each of those cases there is a key dimension
of public inuence that involves partnerships beyond philosophy to leverage cre-
ative philosophical ideas for meaningful social change. Sometimes the partnership
takes the form of a media presence, spreading potent ideas in persuasive ways;
sometimes the partnerships are with change agents and other kinds of intellectuals
to spread ideas and social change strategically.
Many media venues focus on the power of ideas to change self-understanding
and behavior, and ultimately to transform socioeconomic values and practices.
Articulate philosophers sometimes participate in such processes of public education
and transformative enlightenment. Consider just one example: the National Public
Radio (NPR) program “On Being,” hosted by Krista Tippett (https://onbeing.org/).
This Peabody Award-winning radio show and podcast asks: “What does it mean to
be human? How do we want to live? And who will we be to each other?” and has an
inspiring mission: “Pursuing deep thinking, social courage, moral imagination, and
joy, to renew inner life, outer life, and life together.” Airing on more than 400 public
radio stations across the United States, On Being’s podcasts have been downloaded
or played online more than 200 million times. And who is listening? NPR as a
whole classies its audience into six groups– the business leader, the cultural con-
noisseur, the educated lifelong learner, the civic leader, the sustainability champion,
and the curious explorer– and makes the following claims about its audience:
Across platforms, NPR reaches the nation's best and brightest. On air and online, the NPR
audience is inuential and curious. They are learning more and leading more. Connected to
their local communities and tuned in to the latest public affairs and cultural conversations,
the NPR audience embodies the thought and opinion leader. (https://www.nationalpublic-
media.com/npr/audience/)
Presumably it would be a subset of that group who engages with On Being. The
kind of ow of ideas represented here is therefore top down, penetrating not far
beyond the realm of opinion leaders and educated elites. These are the people most
inuential on policy, to be sure, but it is very different from the kind of bottom-up
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196
idea-ow seen in recent American political campaigns, such as those of Barak
Obama, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders. There is nothing wrong with top-down
communication focused on cultural elites and this is probably the best philosophers
can hope for but it is also important to recognize the limitations of that kind of idea
ow, if only to avoid over-idealization and self-deception about inuence of bright
and shiny philosophical conceptions of the human being.
Second, philosophers can demonstrate the difference their ideas make by part-
nering with educators to design new kinds of curricula for schools and informal
education settings for both children and adults. I am not thinking here of philosophy
of education, which is an important part of the academic elds of both philosophy
and education, and a notable focus of philosophical literatures in many cultures
from Confucius and Plato down to the present. Rather, I have in mind the content of
educational practice, regardless of the prevailing normative educational philosophy.
Philosophers could partner with educators on many fronts, helping to raise con-
sciousness and to make the case for reforming educational practices.
Consider the sobering fact that there is not a single educational program in exis-
tence that systematically teaches students (either children or adults) about their ten-
dencies to cognitive error and equips them with the skills needed to contest those
tendencies. We have known about most of the tendencies on the Codex of Tendencies
to Cognitive Error for the better part of a century at this point and we have had solid
empirical evidence on all of them for several decades yet cognitive psychology and
philosophy (especially epistemology) have not been able to create the kinds of part-
nerships with educators that would put in place the educational processes that are so
clearly needed. Doing so would be the single most important contribution we could
make to improving the civility of public discourse and resisting the biases that are
both the enemy of sound policy debate and the ally of populist xenophobic national-
ism. Of course, individual lines of training achieve something in this direction, as
when historians are trained out of tendencies to anachronism, scientists are taught
not to mistake correlation for causation, mathematicians become expert in interpret-
ing statistics, and humanities training helps people acquire skills for critical reason-
ing and hermeneutical sophistication. But this merely describes a piecemeal
approach to an educational challenge that should be confronted comprehensively,
with philosophers helping to drive the process of educational reform.
Third, philosophers can demonstrate the difference their ideas make by partner-
ing with change agents such as non-prots and politicians to change public rhetoric
about socioeconomic systems. Martha Nussbaum’s collaboration with Amartya Sen
is a ne example, producing a better way of thinking about social welfare and a
more accurate way of measuring human development. The work of the Center for
Mind and Culture includes partnerships between philosophers and scientists aimed
at increasing public understanding of complex dynamical systems and thereby
spreading awareness of the challenges associated with so-called “wicked problems”
that resist neat solutions and frequently involve unintended side effects.
Much more of this could be done. The critical factor in how much actually
occurs, I suspect, is the intention of philosophers. Change agents operate at some
distance from the intricate qualications and careful conceptual analyses of
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197
university philosophers. They look for the neat turn of phrase that captures atten-
tion, whereas the typical philosopher nds such simplications irksome at best and
tendentious at worst. Philosophers could wash their hands of such practices but, in
so doing, they impoverish the work of such change agents. Some philosophers–
those who want their work to inuence public discourse, public policy, and the
thinking of regular people– need to get engaged and make their philosophical skills
count for formulating less misleading slogans and better material to back up those
slogans, increasing depth and breadth of intellectual vision without sacricing focus
and reach of the message of change.
Fourth, and here we come to something quite radical, philosophers can use vir-
tual societies to demonstrate the difference philosophical ideas can make. Seriously?!
Yes: computer simulation is a valuable path to rehabilitating the public image of
contemporary philosophical anthropology as socially useless. When a policy expert
challenges philosophers who are swept away by their own rhetoric to make good on
their seemingly outrageous claims about how to improve socioeconomic systems,
computational modeling and simulation may be the only feasible option.
I’m referring to something like computer games, but where the aim is accuracy
rather than entertainment. If philosophical recommendations are actually sound and
worth the attention philosophers think they deserve, then it ought to be possible to
rise to the policy expert’s challenge by building a multi-agent articial intelligence
computational model of articial societies with and without the envisaged change in
human self-understandings. Calibrate the model against the world the way it is now
and then see what happens when you increase the frequency of people who under-
stand relationality and cultivate the virtue of love, and people who are self-aware
about cognitive error and cultivate the virtue of wisdom. Does the world get better
in the expected way or not? And what are the precise pathways of change? Then
turn the challenge around and demand that the policy experts implement their own
proposals for the way the world is supposed to improve and see which vision of the
human future fares better.
Computational simulations are ideal for studying complex adaptive social sys-
tems, which is why the eld of social simulation has been growing for several
decades. After all, it’s a matter of using a virtual complex system to model a real-
world complex system. The subeld of human simulation is particularly relevant
because that’s where computer engineers engage the arts and humanities disciplines
such as philosophy (see Diallo etal. 2019). Human simulation is the ideal venue for
helping philosophers make good on their claims about the importance of their con-
ceptual reconstructions in philosophical anthropology and earn their way into pub-
lic policy and education debates. If Plato and Confucius had computer simulations
to work with, they could have implemented their vision of human life in an articial
society and decided that they were being too idealistic, or that they should tweak
their ideas a bit, or that they should drive on toward implementation as quickly as
possible.
But is this really feasible? Here’s what John Teehan, a philosopher at Hofstra
University in NewYork, said after working with one of our computational modeling
and simulation teams at the Center for Mind and Culture (CMAC):
11 Out with the Old, In with the New? From Conceptual Reconstruction…
198
After two (intense) days with the people at CMAC, going through the process of translating
my hypothesis about religion and empathy into the language of computer modeling, it all
began to make sense … Because of this method, we will actually be able to bring some data
into a debate that would otherwise remain largely in speculation … It forced me to formu-
late my ideas in such precise and concrete terms (so they could be coded for) that I came
away with a better understanding of my own theory. (mindandculture.org)
Making use of human simulation is one way for philosophers to win the attention
of educators and policy professionals. Once a partnership is forged, anything can
happen. All ve directions of change I listed earlier are well and truly on the table
for discussion and action, along with other possibilities that policy experts and edu-
cators will be a lot better at dreaming up than an idealistic philosopher. After that,
the game really is afoot!
11.4 Conclusion
The ve directions of change and the four types of partnerships I have discussed are
fertile soil for growing collaborative ventures with genuinely transformative poten-
tial, all directed by realistic theories of change. I wish there were many recent and
relevant and renowned examples of innovations in philosophical anthropology
impacting social policy in western capitalist democracies. I’m aware of onlya few
but I have pointed to partnerships in which philosophers engage educators and pol-
icy professionals on questions rooted in philosophical anthropology, trying to create
the right kinds of impacts. Along with the organization I lead, the Center for Mind
and Culture, I’m involved in several such partnerships studying a variety of pressing
social issues where philosophical visions of the human condition play critical roles:
commercial sexual exploitation of children, the integration of non-western immi-
grants and refugees in western cities, the crisis of rural suicide, the social and eco-
nomic consequences of climate change, and others. For us, human simulation is a
key tool used to translate from the conceptual domain to the practical domain, creat-
ing the possibility of winning the attention of educators and policy professionals in
those projects. That method got us into the debate by demonstrating that our ideas
aren’t just speculative talk; we gave the change agents a reason to look twice and
engage us directly. Not every philosopher can build computational simulations or
create partnerships with educators and policy professionals, but not every philoso-
pher needs to; it’s a task for a team. Experts in philosophical anthropology can
design models with computer engineers who build them, and that’s just the begin-
ning of fruitful partnerships. Philosophers can consult on educational curricula with
educators, and on advertising campaigns with politicians and non-prots, while
policy professionals add realism and relevance and thinking about strategic change.
Recongured philosophical ideas about human nature can’t make any difference
unless philosophers partner with change agents. Change agents can’t change any-
thing in a good way unless it is thought through soundly rst, and nobody is better
than philosophers at thinking carefully about things. The era of the solo intellectual
W. J. Wildman
199
is over for scholars who want to inuence a troubled world. We have entered the era
of collaborative research. And we as philosophers need to engage, and stay engaged,
if we want to be relevant. Working with others, under the aegis of realistic theories
of change, philosophers have a lot to say about the problems of individualism and
cognitive error plaguing western socioeconomic practices and about the virtuous
ideals of love and wisdom that are capable of transforming those practices.
References
Diallo, S.Y., W.J.Wildman, F.LeRon Shults, and A.Tolk. 2019. Human Simulation: Perspectives,
Insights, and Applications. Leiden: Brill.
Mill, J.S. 1836. On the Denition of Political Economy, and on the Method of Investigation Proper
to It. London and Westminster Review 4.
Scaringe, S.A., and W.J.Wildman. 2020. Biological Mutualism: A Notable Advance and a Hint of
Things to Come. Theology and Science 18 (2): 211–225.
Solomon, S., J.Greenberg, and T.Pyszczynski. 2015. The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death
in Life. NewYork: Random House.
Wildman, W.J. 2009. Science and Religious Anthropology: A Spiritually Evocative Naturalist
Interpretation of Human Life. Aldershot: Ashgate.
———. 2010. An Introduction to Relational Ontology. In The Trinity and an Entangled World:
Relationality in Physical Science and Theology, ed. J.Polkinghorne and J.Zizioulas, 55–73.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
———. 2019. Love and Desire, Human and Divine: A Trans-religious Naturalist Account. In
Theology Without Walls, ed. J.Martin, 138–150. NewYork: Routledge.
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate
credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative
Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder.
11 Out with the Old, In with the New? From Conceptual Reconstruction…
201© The Author(s) 2022
J. van Nes et al. (eds.), Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics,
Ethical Economy 61, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84690-9_12
Chapter 12
Personal Leadership: How toChange
What Cannot BeChanged: AResponse
toWesley Wildman’s Out withtheOld,
Inwiththe New?
Jokevan Saane
Abstract In agreement with Wildman’s statement about the structural failures in
human functioning caused by individualism and cognitive errors, a new concept is
introduced. This is needed because of the risk of generalizing with easy solutions,
in so doing neglecting the basic human drives of self-enhancement, connectedness,
and mastery. It is better that we acknowledge our individualism and failing cogni-
tions, because this acknowledgment creates room for change. Here, the concept of
personal leadership is introduced. Change can start with ourselves as the real game
changers. The opportunities for personal leadership are based upon spirituality and
spiritual concepts: self-knowledge, self-condence, norms and values, openness,
learning, and imagination.
It is an honor for me to respond to Professor Wildman’s argument elsewhere in this
book. Under an intriguing chapter title, he offers an even more intriguing idea.
Very roughly summarized, Wildman notes that there are two general biases in the
human condition. According to Wildman, you could say that people make at least
two structural errors: he shows that people are constantly driven by individualism
and that people constantly make cognitive errors. And not just a bit, the illustration
of the Cognitive Bias Codex is really discouraging. How do we ever think we can
produce reasonable thought?
According to Wildman, these two structural errors are to blame for the fact that
it is extremely difcult to change humanity. Change, however, is really needed.
Wildman quite rightly refers to the enormous socio-economic problems in Western
societies, the global climate threat and the unjustied inequality between people
around the globe. Our tendency to individualism and the persistent cognitive errors
prevent us from nding fundamental solutions for these huge problems. We cannot
jump over our own shadow; we cannot manage to let the public interest prevail over
our own; not even if that public interest is under such pressure that there are risks to
J. van Saane (*)
University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands
e-mail: J.vanSaane@UvH.nl
202
personal survival. Individualism falls short when it comes to solving complex global
problems, individuals simply do not overlook them.
Wildman proposes two possible solutions to overcome this impasse, fundamen-
tally caused by the human condition wherein we are cognitive and individual organ-
isms. He looks at philosophy for the rst type of solution. In his view, philosophers
can help with the development of new concepts. Conceptual reconstruction, for
example, reveals that the biological and cultural dimensions of human life are
strongly interrelated and cannot be dismantled. Homo economicus and Homo amans
are not available separately; as humans we cannot choose to be one or the other. We
can, however, choose what we give priority to in our self-understanding as persons.
Reection on the frames and the concepts can reinforce this self-understanding and
lead to more conscious forms of desired behavior.
And Wildman shows, very convincingly in my opinion, that no completely new
elds of research are needed in order to arrive at that conceptual reconstruction. To
be able to give relationality a place in the concept of humanity in addition to indi-
vidualism, we only have to take seriously what is happening in research areas out-
side of philosophy. Chemistry, physics, geology, evolutionary biology, biochemistry,
neurological psychology, etc. prove that people are not only individualistic organ-
isms, but (also) fundamentally relational: to each other, to the world, to ourselves.
Wildman shows that we are related at a fundamental level, because we are all human
beings, sharing the same evolutionary processes and physical laws. So, it is rich and
multi-dimensional relationality that proves to be fundamental for humanity, not
individualism.
In other words, there seems to be a great deal of consensus on the modern secular
interpretation of humanity in which relationality is central. Western hyper-
individualism must therefore be seen as an extreme and ultimately unsustainable
social construction of human nature. Although dominant, hyper-individualism is,
according to Wildman, fundamentally implausible in the light of the research results
in other domains, as a result of which individualism is corrected by relationality.
The spiritual translation of relationality can be found in the domain of metaphysics,
in which there is such a thing as seless love, love as agape and karuna. Deploying
this love can lead to a reduction in (the effects of) individualism. I like the transla-
tion of the corrective into a spiritual virtue, because spiritual virtues imply the
opportunity to learn, to practice, and to share. If the corrective was only philosophi-
cal or cognitive, one dimension would be replaced by another one. But by adding
the notion of spirituality Wildman really opens up something new, something
healing.
Wildman proposes something similar for the bias of cognitive errors. He shows
that increasing self-awareness contributes to reducing the impact of cognitive errors.
People can learn, and people can consciously avoid certain pitfalls. The corrective
of self-awareness is translated spiritually by Wildman as wisdom, wisdom in the
form of knowledge and humility. This wisdom, just like love, is a spiritual virtue
and can also be learned, practiced, and emphatically developed. Putting it this way,
by bringing in metaphysical concepts Wildman opens up– without reecting on
it– the possibility of growth and change.
J. van Saane
203
Although this is already an impressive reconstruction of concepts, Wildman
acknowledges that this will not be enough to bring about real change in society,
given the complexity of the problems humanity is facing worldwide, and in particu-
lar in the West. For change to happen you need a philosophical basis, but especially
to have that in partnership with other actors. In Wildman’s words, some reality must
be added to philosophy. Education, religion, politics, and marketing are important
areas for making the change happen. Within these areas, philosophers must join
forces with other professionals, and arrive at concrete actions together, and this is
what will really make a difference. I am not quite sure if advertising campaigns or
explicit political rhetoric– examples sketched out in Wildman’s chapter– will actu-
ally help, but I really appreciate the idea and especially the optimism contained in
this idea.
Up to this point, we can say “amen” to Wildman’s argument. His reection about
the shortage of solutions to real complex global problems is based upon a solid
package of both empirical and theoretical research. But I am not fully convinced
that this combination of philosophical reconstruction and the development of broad
partnerships will actually lead to the real change we so desperately need in our con-
temporary societies.
As a matter of fact, the separate elements that need to be in place for this recon-
struction of reasoning are so massive and unchangeable that reconstruction and
partnerships will not be sufcient to bring about change.
To start with, I would like to emphasize how deeply rooted the failures in human
structures are. After all, individualism and cognitive errors are fundamental parts of
the human condition. Within psychology, many research studies (e.g. Smith and
Mackie 20071; Mullen and Riordan 1988; Kaplan and Wilke 2001) show that human
beings are characterized by a few basic drives that are very important for our func-
tioning, both on the levels of cognition and emotion as well as on the level of behav-
ior. I summarize these basic human drives here as self-enhancement (or the
self-serving bias), connectedness, and mastery, explicitly in this order (see van
Saane 2010). Self-enhancement is safeguarding self-interest, working on a positive
self-image, and avoiding negative experiences about the self. The individualism that
Wildman observes can be seen as a result of this self-enhancement. Besides, indi-
vidualism – contrary to Wildman’s suggestion – is not equivalent to pure self-
concern and selshness. It is the fundamental urge to live and survive. This basic
drive of self-enhancement can be mirrored in the fear of death, the fear of one’s own
mortality. This fundamental human drive can be understood as the ultimate reason
behind human inclination to cognitive errors.
At the same time however, just as fundamentally, people are driven by the need
for connectedness, or, in other words and expressed by, the fear of isolation. People
are relational beings who care rstly about themselves, but also constantly seek to
connect with others. Fear of isolation and fear of loneliness are strong incentives for
1 The textbook of Smith and Mackie (2007) offers a thorough overview of the state of art in cogni-
tive social psychology. The three motivational principles form one of the basic lines of argument
in this overview (cf. Smith and Mackie 2007, p.17).
12 Personal Leadership: How to Change What Cannot Be Changed: A Response…
204
behavior. This very fundamental basic human drive opens up relationality as char-
acteristic of humanity, not as a corrective for individualism or self-enhancement, but
as a fundamental keystone of our psychological system.
And the strive for mastery can be added to these two basic drives of self-
enhancement and connectedness. Human beings are self-concerned and they are
connected. These drives are inuenced by the continuous search for certainty and
predictability. People have a hard time dealing with uncertainty, with not knowing
what to expect. If this third drive for mastery is put under pressure, the rst drive of
self-enhancement becomes more dominant as a strategy for coping with unpredict-
ability and fear. From this perspective of the basic need for mastery, it is therefore
very understandable that people are overwhelmed by the complexity of contempo-
rary global problems such as socio-economic relations and climate issues. Delving
into these problems leads, by denition, to uncertainty and unpredictability for
people. This tempts us to ignore or simplify these problems. And in turn, it tempts
us to prioritize the drive for self-enhancement (individualism) and the drive for con-
nectedness (withdrawing into our own social group).
I am not so optimistic about our ability to change or correct these fundamental
tendencies. There is plenty of research (e.g. Alicke and Sedikides 2010; Smith and
Mackie 2007) showing that these basic drives are rooted in biological, evolutionary,
and neurological mechanisms that we should regard as given, rather than as acci-
dental characteristics.
This persistence of human characteristics and basic psychological drives will
also play a role in those strategic and practical partnerships proposed by Wildman.
We remain human beings, even if we come from other areas such as education or
politics, and even if we are willing to cooperate. We always, and inevitably, will
continue to put our own individual interests rst. And if there is a lot of uncertainty
to be reduced, these mechanisms of self-enhancement or individualism and with-
drawing into our own community to feed the drive for connectedness will only
become more dominant in our cognitive system, both on a conscious as on an
unconscious level.
So, the old cannot simply be replaced by something new, no matter how philo-
sophically brilliant the new concepts may be. People are, so to speak, trapped in
their own human condition. The same could be said for the problems that confront
humanity. After all, these problems are in part the result of unashamed and unim-
peded submission to basic individual needs. All these individual tendencies towards
self-interest naturally exclude each other and are the building blocks on which the
self-destructive capacity of humanity develops. Indulging in individual interest ulti-
mately harms humanity as a whole. The human shortage is a reection of human
capacity, and this means that human shortage is just as rm and unavoidable. The
complexity of the global problems does not help. They are monsters that have grown
completely over our heads and now threaten to crush us.
I would not look for the potential for change so much through philosophical
reconstructions, followed by strategic and practical partnerships, but rather in the
real acceptance of this fundamental human condition. Only if we dare to face human
reality, does room appear to develop strategies that might possibly mitigate the
J. van Saane
205
consequences of humanity’s failures. No unfounded optimism or naivety, but real-
ism and a mature attitude of self-reection.
In my opinion, we can introduce the concept of personal leadership here. To do
so, let us dig a bit deeper into the discipline of spirituality. Wildman translates the
correctives of individualism and cognitive errors (respectively relationality and self-
awareness) into the spiritual concepts of love as agape and karuna and the virtue of
wisdom. In my opinion however, this is only a start: more discussion and more
thorough thinking about spirituality is needed if we are to arrive at sustainable
change and transformation.
For the denition of spirituality, I follow the philosopher Roothaan, (cf. van
Saane 2019) who denes spirituality as an attitude of openness, attention, and con-
sciousness (Roothaan 2007, p.65). This attitude may be based on a philosophical or
religious worldview, but that need not be the case. Spirituality can also be rooted in
a more secular worldview.
Dened in this way, spirituality can be seen as an ongoing process of seeking
meaning, with an open attitude, a focus on sustainability and credibility, rooted in
self-knowledge and in the desire for growth and development. At its core, spiritual-
ity is about this fundamental search for meaning. And it is important to realize,
spirituality is also always connected with morality, with norms and values that set
the public interest against the satisfaction of one’s own need.
To see how spirituality can help in bridging the gap between structural human
failures such as individualism and cognitive errors and the need to nd sustainable
solutions for complex global problems, I like to underscore the fact that within spiri-
tual traditions, truth can only be personal truth (van Saane 2019). Abstract general
truth can be nice to hear, or to study, but will be powerless when we are seeking real
change. Then, we need personal truth. This truth should not only be found, but also
constructed by the seeker who is exible and open in nature. Personal truth offers a
renewed perspective on someone’s life and world. Truth must be involved con-
stantly in one’s own life and in one’s own context. This is what we learn in studying
spirituality: abstract truth, even if it is spiritual or religious i.e. absolute truth, as
such, is meaningless. Developing personal truth is a process of construction and
connection that is, in principle, innite: one never reaches the point that the search
can be stopped. Finding personal truth is an ongoing journey.
It is not so easy to develop personal truth– we know this from different spiritual
traditions. It takes a whole process of reection, meditation, discussion, and prac-
tice. In the rst place, we need a rather high level of self-knowledge. We need to
know our own strengths and weaknesses, where the pitfalls lie and how our personal
experiences inuence behavior. Lack of self-knowledge will result in lack of knowl-
edge of the other; knowing yourself leads to knowing the other. However, self-
knowledge is not the only contribution from spirituality. Secondly, spirituality
makes clear that we benet from self-condence. Self-condence is self- knowledge
in combination with acceptance of yourself. Within spiritual traditions this is an
important element, because self-condence is part of the perception of yourself
through the eyes of the other, and through the eyes of God. The perspective of God
as an absolute reality also leads to a third element of spirituality worthy of taking
12 Personal Leadership: How to Change What Cannot Be Changed: A Response…
206
into consideration here: norms and values. The preference for individual interest
rather than the general interest of humanity as a whole can easily result in immoral
behavior. In almost all spiritual traditions it is a recurrent refrain: do good, take care
of the other person, put the other person before yourself. We certainly need open-
ness to new experiences and the capability of learning if we are to meet these spiri-
tual standards. Learning is the connecting and fundamental concept here. The core
of learning is in itself a process of change and transformation. Learning is not easy,
it requires participation, hospitality, willingness to question assumptions.
Transformation costs time and effort, change provokes resistance. Developing per-
sonal truth, learning about yourself and the world around you, is not at all easy.
The last important element of spirituality that I want to examine as a building
block for inspiration and change is imagination. In Wildman’s approach, imagina-
tion appears at the end, in the form of computer simulation games as virtual learning
labs, a space for trying things out. I think imagination is more than that, and deserves
a more fundamental role here. Imagination enables one to rise above the everyday
perspective, to imagine the apparently impossible, and to be capable of acting from
an ideal and visionary perspective. Within spirituality, we know that imagination
ourishes from irrational forms of knowledge; imagination can involve creative and
intuitive thinking (Van Saane 2012, 2014; Verstraeten 2003).
Reection on these spiritual dimensions is required– obviously far more thor-
oughly carried out than in this chapter– on self-knowledge, self-condence, norms
and values, openness, learning, and imagination, for example, when we are thinking
about a transformation from Homo economicus to Homo amans, something which
is very much needed in our times. For me, this reection and these forms of learning
are part of a form of leadership, known as personal leadership (van Saane 2015,
2017). Personal leadership can be dened as knowing yourself, controlling yourself,
your personal environment, and your life as a whole.
In my opinion, personal leadership is the gateway to real transformation. It is
inextricably linked to a mature attitude to life, leaving room for responsibility and
sensitivity, for resilience. By learning to accept oneself, by establishing good rela-
tionships with others, by getting the best out of yourself, by giving meaning to your
life, and by maintaining a certain autonomy, regardless of the context, you can use
your full potential, on an individual and social level (Ruijters etal. 2015; Ryff and
Singer 2013; Ryff 2014).
So, in conclusion, I agree with Wildman about the inevitability of the structural
errors of man as subject. I do not agree about the possibility of correctives for that.
We are better to acknowledge our individualism and failing cognitions, because this
acknowledgment creates room for change. Hoping for correction erects a barrier to
change. If that happens, we will be disappointed, time and again.
I am not saying that there is no hope for change. I am not stepping back from
responsibility. I do not think that we can never tell others to change their behavior.
Yes, we can. But we have to start with ourselves. We need personal leadership. Be
realistic, embrace the human shortage and look for ways to connect people with
themselves and with others. Look for ways to make people at peace with loss and
sorrow. Look for ways not to lose courage but to tackle the problems. Don’t look at
J. van Saane
207
the other, or the system, or the science. Look, and start, with yourself, by pursuing
personal leadership. Don’t complain, don’t be fatalistic, don’t be naïve or too opti-
mistic. Just start with yourself, do something good, and be an inspiration for others.
Where I do want to join with Wildman is in his plea for imagination to have a
role. He outlines the possibilities of computer simulation in a game context. This
seems to me to be similar to other forms of artistic expression. Within the psychol-
ogy of religion it is widely understood: creativity is a means for thinking of the
impossible as possible, or even to experience it, to give space to personal needs and
desires, to overcome paradoxes. Computer simulation, artistic expressions, rituals,
narrativity, spiritual exercises in love and wisdom: we should cherish them all and
let them grow, because these provide the opportunities for humanity’s future.
In its psychological function, imagination is similar to therapy and to religion.
Imagination, artistic expression, therapy, and religion enable people to accept real-
ity, and the brokenness of human beings. Imagination can bridge the gap between
the shortcomings of human psychology and the enormous threats from outside.
Imagination does not lead to easy solutions, or quick xes, but by imagination we
can literally see potential solutions. Imagination provides for a try-out, virtually. We
need imagination to come up with real and new solutions, to get beyond human
limitation. If we focus on the development of personal leadership and mature atti-
tudes towards mankind, change can happen. It can start within imagination, and be
continued in reality.
In summary, I fully agree with Wildman about the structural failures in human
functioning. And yes, individualism and cognitive errors are important examples of
these failures. I also agree about the necessity of a multi-disciplinary approach,
combining philosophy with actors in different domains. The risk of this approach,
the generalization of easy solutions, can be overcome by focusing on personal lead-
ership. Change does not start with the other, nor with the world around us, but with
ourselves. We, as individuals, are the real game changers. And we can do it, because
with personal leadership we can base our approach on spirituality and spiritual con-
cepts, well-proven for hundreds of years. Nothing new, nothing unreachable, but
practical and hopeful.
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209© The Author(s) 2022
J. van Nes etal. (eds.), Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics,
Ethical Economy 61, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84690-9_13
Chapter 13
A Relational Anthropology
forContemporary Economics? Concluding
Reections
PatrickNullens, StevenC.van den Heuvel, andJermovan Nes
13.1 Introduction
In one way or another, all of the contributions in this volume respond to the opening
paper in which we addressed the need for rening the Homo economicus model and
explored the potential of a modied version preliminarily entitled Homo amans. We
sincerely thank all respondents for their worthy contributions and their thinking
along with us, whether in supportive or critical ways. Some engage directly with our
discussion paper in a way that implicitly or explicitly support our thoughts on the
Homo amans model; others also express concerns and raise critical questions. In
this nal paper, we take the opportunity to discuss some of these, using them to
rene and reshape our thoughts on the Homo amans model. These nal thoughts
will be shared in the conclusion.
P. Nullens (*)
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
University for Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands
e-mail: Patrick.nullens@etf.edu
S. C. van den Heuvel · J. van Nes
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
e-mail: Steven.vandenheuvel@etf.edu; Jermo.vannes@etf.edu
“How selsh soever man may be supposed, there are evidently
some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune
of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though
he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.”
Adam Smith (Opening sentence of The Theory of Moral
Sentiments (1759).)
210
13.2 Discussion
1. Should anthropological models be imposed on free human beings?
The contributions by Dennis Krebs and Deirdre McCloskey evoke the question
of how biological determinism, free will, and moral responsibility are interrelated.
While giving an answer to this question is beyond the scope of this essay,1 it is
important to say a bit more about the notion of freedom. McCloskey in her contribu-
tion praises the benets of capitalism, being a strong advocate of free market econ-
omy without government interference. This position implies that the idea of Homo
amans could be an obstacle as it imposes an idealistic anthropology on persons
operating in free and neutral markets. For the rational Homo economicus, there are
no restrictions on what sort of preferences are admissible. Adam Smith’s emphasis
on self-interest endorses the freedom of the individual. The contractual relationship
between different parties guarantees basic equality and freedom of choice. So why
interfere ideologically if it limits our freedom?
The problem, however, with a neo-liberal view on the human person is that it
tends to reduce the meaning of freedom. Already in 1969, Isaiah Berlin (2002) help-
fully distinguished between negative and positive liberty. Negative liberty is the
absence of external constraints, obstacles or blockades. Positive liberty is the pos-
sibility of acting as an agent, to control one’s life and realize one’s primary pur-
poses. Capitalism tends to focus exclusively on negative freedom, a “freedom
from…” being rid of obstacles; positive freedom is a freedom of becoming, a “free-
dom to…”. Theorists of negative freedom start from the postulation of the heteroge-
neity of human ends and preferences. Non-interference and absence of coercion is
fundamental to freedom. Theorists of positive freedom believe that it is possible to
distinguish a moral end, or at least some set of potentialities for people to pursue.
McCloskey’s focus on negative freedom and liberal allergy to coercion fuels her
negative attitude towards government interferences. This bias makes it difcult to
see the importance of positive freedom.
The Homo amans concept as outlined in the discussion paper understands free-
dom as both negative and positive within a context of community and relationality.
The socio-psychological analysis of freedom by Erich Fromm (1941) may be of
help here. His research was driven by the shocking impact of fascism in the 1920s
through 40s in Italy and Germany. Fascism took everyone by surprise because
man’s rational side, based on calculated self-interest, was taken for granted.
However, fascism relied on an appeal to irrationality, fear, and romantic national-
ism. So, what is freedom in light of ideology? Fromm (1970) built on Freud’s basic
understanding of unconsciousness, which he criticizes, and turned psychoanalysis
into a social heuristic tool. Individuals have “dark passions” and these need to be
suppressed by society. This need for suppression creates culture. Capitalism is a
form of culture dealing with our needs. This creates a paradox – the more we
1 For a recent study, see Willmott (2016).
P. Nullens etal.
211
suppress our desires, the more culture we create, but the higher the risk of neurosis,
because the individual only has a certain propensity to cope with the suppression of
his/her desires; the more freedom we are allowed to get, the less culture we create.
In his book Escape from Freedom, Fromm (1941) gives a profound social and
historical analysis of freedom in modern society. For most of human history, man
saw himself as part of nature, being one with it and driven by survival instincts. Yet
culture developed and people were freed from the bonds of nature, which created a
pre-individualistic society. In a pre-individualistic society a person is conscious of
themself as a member of the community. In this case, the person’s actions are not
based on self-realization. In other words, the person is still related to the world by
primary ties as they do not yet conceive of themself as an individual agent apart
from their social roles. Freedom is dened by a sense of belonging, providing secu-
rity, and identity. This notion of pre-freedom is seen, for instance, in tribal and
medieval cultures. In extreme forms, the person was not an individual, but under-
stood their duty in the community hierarchy and submitted to external forces, often
conrmed by religious structures.
During the Renaissance and Reformation(s), the focus was on negative liberty as
people tried to free themselves from social and religious coercion. The emergence
of capitalism demolished the old securities of the medieval social system. The indi-
vidual was left to themself. Everything depended on their own effort and no longer
on the security of their traditional system. However, everyone experienced increas-
ing insecurity and anxiety. Capital and entrepreneurship had now become the supra-
personal force determining society and personal fate. Again, this is a paradox as
capitalism shaped a world that was both limitless and threatening at the same time.
Individual freedom, even though it brought independence and reason, isolated peo-
ple as they became anxious and powerless. This isolation was hard to bear, and the
alternatives were either to escape from the burden of freedom into new dependen-
cies and submission, such as fascism, or to advance to the full realization of positive
freedom which is based on the uniqueness and individuality of man. Since there is
the danger of some kind of relapse into pre-individualism, Fromm argues, the only
healthy way forward is that man forges new productive relations in love.
Against Fromm’s reading of history and cultural evolution, the Homo amans
concept should not be understood as a relapse into a pre-individual society. In that
case, it becomes an escape from freedom and a coercive ideology. In a marketing
driven society the person tries to adapt themselves to a sick society. Their role is
dened by what they do, what is desired from them, they are as a commodity on the
market. According to Fromm, the psychodynamics of marketing bear a certain rela-
tionship to the authoritarian character of political ideologies. Both orient themselves
towards an object outside the person. In the marketing orientation, this object is not
a leader or an institution, but rather the anonymous and constantly shifting authority
of the markets. A narcissistic character can function well in such an environment. It
is only from a deeper understanding of love that a new sense of identity and indi-
vidual freedom can develop (Fromm 1956). A mentally healthy person is a person
who lives by love and respects life, not only that of his own but also that of his fel-
low man. These type of characteristics are required for a sane society (Fromm
13 A Relational Anthropology forContemporary Economics? Concluding Reections
212
1955). Hence the idea of Homo amans is not meant as a means to limit freedom, but
to help people become free persons.
2. What about the nature of love? Is love a stable virtue inherent to human nature,
or a structural dynamic to emerge in and through social interaction?
In response to our argument in the discussion paper that love denotes a funda-
mental characteristic of human beings, Rebekka Klein remarks that “. . . the view
that love is a general trait of human persons or actions is not helpful but only obfus-
cates the study of its phenomenality.” She then draws on Kierkegaard in emphasiz-
ing that love is complex and requires a special form of phenomenology. Making
reference to various behavioral and neuroscientic investigations, she argues that
love should not be seen as an innate virtue. “Love,” she argues, “is not a stable core
of human nature or a character trait which can be educated or trained. Rather, it
should be seen as a dynamic structure at work in human attitudes and behaviours,
which arises out of a change of perspective concerning the world, oneself and oth-
ers. This change of perspective cannot be determined but happens out of contingent
reasons.”
Let us rst clarify that, to us, faith, hope, and love are not descriptions of the
essential nature of human beings; we are, of course, more than questing, longing,
and loving beings. Wesley Wildman also warns against such an essentializing de-
nition of the human person. We do believe, however, that the traits of faith, hope,
and love are foundational to our relational constitution as human beings. Yet Klein’s
Kierkegaardian view of love touches upon a weakness in our position, which is that
we have not adequately taken into account the bipolarity of virtues, including that
of love. We do not believe that love is an innate virtue that is stable throughout one’s
life, but that all human beings from birth onwards have an innate potential to love.
Whether or not external factors determine an act as an act of love, the very fact that
people can act as such proves their ability to do so. We believe this is a capacity
common to all human beings.
Perhaps some further thoughts on the nature of love are helpful here. Very often
a contrast is drawn between an ethics of love as an unreal ideal and egoistic tenden-
cies in terms of hedonism. This focus on contrast is a common pitfall in theological
ethics. McCloskey in her contribution refers to the theologian Paul Tillich as an
advocate of the contrast between “Christian love” and “economic and political ego-
ism,” when she quotes from his co-authored essay: “The spirit of Christian love
accuses a social order which consciously and in principle is built upon economic
and political egoism, and it demands a new order in which the feeling of community
is the foundation of the social structure.” Behind this contrast are some theological
misunderstandings that are widely spread. Nicholas Wolterstorff (2011) refers to
this approach as “agapism.” This approach was mainly inuenced by Søren
Kierkegaard and even more by Anders Nygren. Klein draws on Kierkegaard and
distinguishes the uniqueness of Christian love from universal human need-loves.
Kierkegaard (1874, pp. 86–89) distinguishes agapic love from natural loves.
Christian love is unnatural, and foremost a radical change of perspective rather than
a character trait. It is seeing the other as an equal child of God, which helps the
P. Nullens etal.
213
human being to acknowledge the nearness of love and also its practicability.
Christian love is a dynamic structure at work in human attitudes and behaviors, aris-
ing out of a change of perspective concerning the world, oneself, and others. This
type of love, according to Kierkegaard, is not spontaneous; it is a matter of duty. As
Klein rightly observes, Kierkegaard’s understanding of love is deep and complex.
Nygren goes a few steps further than Kierkegaard. His inuence on modern agapism
can hardly be overestimated. He believes that all forms of natural love are manifes-
tations of eros, which are types of need-love in search for satisfaction and comple-
tion. Agapic love is a mystery and essentially different in nature. It is demonstrated
in love for the enemy and it does not recognize any valuable quality in the object; it
is pure benevolence (Nygren 1969, p.78, 215). Agapic love is motivated by God’s
unconditional forgiveness. It is fundamentally different and cannot co-exist with
natural self-love and our love preferences. It even goes beyond justice and princi-
ples. Agapic love is gratuitous generosity and not based on the requirements of
justice. It is not based on the justice requirements of the other, it is not based on law
at all. God chooses love over justice. According to Nygren (1969, p.75), agapic love
needs to be spontaneous, since God’s love is spontaneous.
We believe that Wolterstorff rightly points out that this popular disconnection
between love and justice is theologically and philosophically problematic. Agapic
love incorporates justice and human dignity. It seeks to promote the good in the life
of the other. Even more so, it incorporates eros-love and self-love (Wolterstorff
2011, pp.93–100). Wolterstorff (2011, p.101) describes this broad understanding
of agapic love as “care”: “Care combines seeking to enhance someone’s ourishing
with seeking to secure their just treatment.” This tendency to care is quite natural.
Yet there is malformed care, such as paternalism, or preferential and well-formed
care which “incorporates reverence, respect for the recipient of one’s care” and does
not wrong others (Wolterstorff 2011, p.102). Well-formed care, incorporating jus-
tice, natural love, and the overall well-being of others are very important for under-
standing love. In that sense love is always doing what justice requires.
The interesting point of an ethics of care is that it gives prominence to our capac-
ity of concern and empathy. Interdisciplinary research indicates that our innate abil-
ity to empathize with other people is what makes us relational beings (Slote 2007).
As primatologist Frans de Waal (2012) points out, we– like other primates – are
strongly inclined to bond, to reach out, and to have empathy. This testies (although
it does not “prove”) to the deep-seated potential to love, which we posit as important
to appropriate in a new economic anthropology.
3. Does the Homo amans model aim to replace that of Homo economicus?
Klein discerns a “strict opposition” in the way we have presented the Homo
amans concept in relation to that of Homo economicus. It also strikes her that we
seem to devalue the contents of the Homo economicus model on the basis that it
appeared somewhere in the history of ideas. Consequently, Klein wonders whether
some truth in the Homo economicus model can be found. These are all important
observations, which need some clarication from our side.
13 A Relational Anthropology forContemporary Economics? Concluding Reections
214
First of all, we acknowledge that a phrase like “viable alternative” implies oppo-
sition. At the same time, however, we have stated that the Homo economicus model
is in need of “modication” and that we aim to develop “a more rened anthropo-
logical model”. So, we answer in the negative the question of whether we see a strict
opposition between Homo economicus and Homo amans. What we argue is that
Homo amans is a necessary adjustment of Homo economicus, supposing that we are
both rational and relational beings. The latter, we believe, is not sufciently taken
into account in the Homo economicus model. As such, the Homo amans model is
complementary to that of Homo economicus.
This implies, second, that we do acknowledge that there is certainly some truth
to the Homo economicus model. Admittedly, this is not sufciently stressed in the
discussion paper. In his recent book, Michael Pirson (2017)– on the basis of studies
by Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria– argues that there are four core human drives
that account for the complexity of human thinking and behavior: (1) the drive to
acquire (Lawrence 2010), (2) the drive to defend (Lawrence and Nohria 2002), (3)
the drive to bond, and (4) the drive to comprehend (Lawrence and Nohria 2002).
The former two refer to things that people need, and need to protect, in order to
survive. As such, they t the Homo economicus model. The drives to bond and com-
prehend t the Homo amans model as they refer to people’s sociality and desire to
understand themselves and their environment. From this perspective, Homo eco-
nomicus and Homo amans are complementary models.
Finally, we consider any normative anthropology to be the product of its time,
and so we do not consider the Homo economicus model to be inaccurate simply
because it is a late eighteenth century idea. We do think it is inaccurate, because
scholarly research across various academic disciplines has revealed that there is a
social component to human nature that is not sufciently taken into account in the
Homo economicus model.
4. Is the Homo amans model descriptive or prescriptive in nature, or both? Should
it be studied from more distinctive perspectives?
The response paper by Gerrit Glas provokes the question of whether the Homo
amans model is descriptive or prescriptive in nature. Like the Homo economicus
model, it is both. In this respect, as Glas rightly points out, our research moves
within the broad philosophical tradition of eudemonic ethics. A statement about
“the good life” is both descriptive and prescriptive. But recognizing this brings us
into conict with two important propositions that are currently seen as important.
First, there is the well-known criticism of the “is-ought fallacy” as introduced by
David Hume. Second, there is the argument about the role and moral scope of dif-
ferent scientic disciplines, in particular the scope of social sciences. It is not pos-
sible, in the connes of this essay, to address both issues in depth, but given the
weight of both objections some clarication is needed.
Concerning the epistomological is-ought fallacy, or what G.E. Moore (1903)
later called the “naturalistic fallacy,’” Glas is absolutely correct to say that we
should not uncritically draw values from facts, certainly not from religious motives.
But while this is an important warning, the potential of the naturalistic fallacy does
P. Nullens etal.
215
not ask for a complete overhaul of our project; it is possible to argue for a connec-
tion between ontology and ethics; but this is not an automatic or self-evident con-
nection. Hume’s original argument was not about the epistemological impossibility
of moving from an “is” to an “ought” (Smith 2010, pp.386–96). He simply noted–
and he was right to do so– that this is not a self-evident deduction. However, this
epistemic criticism does not necessarily mean that we have to completely discon-
nect “is” from “ought,” nor that one is scientic and the other quasi-religious.
Recognizing the naturalistic fallacy simply means asserting that there is a step to be
taken between “is” and “ought”; this calls for a normative premise. The teleological
approach that we are introducing, by means of our conception of Homo amans, is
meant precisely to form such a bridge from “is” to “ought.” The “ought” has its
raison d’être in a goal category: In order for agent A to achieve goal B, A reasonably
ought to do C.Or, in other words, a knife is a sharp object that ought to cut through
the apple. This goal approach to the problem was elaborated by, among others,
Alasdair MacIntyre (1981) who mainly relies on Aristotle. It is precisely our criti-
cism of the one-sidedness of Homo economicus and so-called “value-free scientic
naturalism” that relates to this epistemological axioma. Especially in our times,
with the earth being in danger of collapsing, we need to look more closely at how
life is structured and what this means for our moral actions. We consider such a
qualied relationship between “is” and “ought,” therefore, to be not only possible,
but also an urgent task for ethics.
Acknowledging the warning about the naturalistic fallacy, there is also the criti-
cism that the task of social sciences is purely descriptive and not prescriptive. We
tend to disagree. A human ontology (or anthropology) is always implicitly present
and must now be made explicit and questioned on a coherent and factual basis.
Charles Taylor (1989, pp. 2–8) points to the exaggerated fear of the connection
between ontology and ethics in the current world of human sciences. He speaks of
a suppression, an avoidance of the “inescapable frameworks,” as if articulating the
fundamental question of the essence of man is a legacy of an outdated pre-scientic
past. Such a deliberate avoidance of normative frameworks is also criticized by
Christian Smith (2010, pp. 78–88). He notes that while social scientists avoid
ontological- ethical questions, they do not shy away from making powerful moral
statements about what is conducive to human ourishing and what is not. They
invoke equality, freedom, and human rights, but fail when it comes to providing an
ontological basis for these (Smith 2010, pp.3–5). According to Smith, this is a form
of schizophrenia caused by a dominant reductionist methodology of the natural sci-
ences. According to him, the gap between “is” and “ought” can be closed through
the development of a teleological moral framework, which he then contributes to,
describing individuals as “centers with purpose”.
In terms of method, Glas proposes a multi-perspective vision taking into account
the perspective of one’s life- and worldview, the perspective of philosophy (core
concepts; conceptual frameworks; paradigms; argumentative structures), the per-
spective of theoretical knowledge, and the perspective of practical (professional)
knowledge and know-how. These four perspectives give the impression of a separa-
tion of estates and assume that each area uses a generally accepted methodology.
13 A Relational Anthropology forContemporary Economics? Concluding Reections
216
But is this really the case? Does Glas not have his own views on these four perspec-
tives? To give an example, existential and phenomenological philosophers will have
reservations when it comes to the distinction between experienced worldview and
theoretical conceptual knowledge. The separation between science and practice also
seems to us to be rather articial and too much inuenced by a scientic paradigm.
Charles Taylor (2004), for example, refers to modern social imaginaries. These are
not “worldviews,” but rather frames of reference or assumptions of social practices.
Here, too, we see how perspectives merge together.
Glas sees value in the clear distinction between perspectives and is critical when
it comes to “logical transitions.” He claims: “For the understanding of the current
project, the above implies that there are no such (logical, deductive) relationships
between economic theory and economic practice, between philosophical views on
man and labor and economic theory; nor between the images of man based on life-
and worldview and economic theory.” His separation of “is” and “ought” leads,
among other things, to statements such as: “Understanding how empathy develops
does not lead to recognition of empathy as moral virtue.” While this is true, it does
say something about how empathy can develop as a virtue, and this development or
character growth is the very essence of virtue ethics. There is an intuitive linkage
between understanding the phenomenon and normative valuation. But even more
so, we see effectively that people living without empathy show destructive behavior.
Integrating these themes is not a “dreaming away” but an existential necessity.
Reducing the logical step towards ethics to a question of “moral and religious rea-
sons” ignores the great impact that scientic insights have on our contemporary
moral positions.
According to Glas, if we understand him correctly, the place where different
perspectives would come together is in professional practice. This is a very interest-
ing idea that ts in with the global crises as we are currently experiencing them.
When we talk about an economy that takes into account the limits of growth
(Raworth 2017) or an economy at the service of the common good (Felber 2019),
we are indeed talking about the need to change our current practices. But these
innovative practices are supported by an implicit vision of human happiness and
man’s place in nature. Reality thus forms a whole, and the problem is that economic
science has lost this breadth and is now trapped in its own reductionist perspective,
the dead alley of a science that does not want to contribute to the articulation of what
is, or is not, humane.
5. How will the philosophical concept of Homo amans bring about social transfor-
mation in terms of economic action?
This question is asked in various ways, especially by Hendrik Opdebeeck, Gerrit
Glas, and Wesley Wildman. The latter, for example, warns us against philosophical
overreach, i.e. in reality, policymakers and educators do not get their ideas from
philosophers. Instead, he notes, philosophers need policymakers and educators
more than the other way around. We tend to disagree, but Wildman is certainly right
P. Nullens etal.
217
to wonder about the real-world implications of the Homo amans model (but see the
contribution of James Van Slyke, who gives a good practical example). It reminds
us of Marx’s famous words that “[t]he philosophers have only interpreted the world,
in various ways. The point, however, is to change it” (Marx 1845, p.535). In recog-
nizing this, we admit that the discussion paper does not contain much concrete
advice on how Homo amans is to bring about social transformation.
However, we certainly had social transformation in mind when we wrote the
discussion paper, and we will endeavor to operationalize the ideas contained in it
towards realizing social transformation. However, before indicating further how we
envision this, we would like to rst challenge Wildman’s thesis that in reality, phi-
losophers primarily play a second-order role. While it is true that ideas often seem
to be second-order, theoretical reections of already established practices, this does
not make philosophy the handmaiden to practice. The history of philosophy has
shown that a philosophical view can also strongly shape human attitudes towards
practice, both for good and for bad. This can be illustrated by means of a reference
to the inception of the capabilities approach by the Indian economist and philoso-
pher Amartya Sen (1980) who developed this new approach to human development
based on extensive eld research which he did in India. It was in pondering the
realities of deep poverty and inequality that he realized the need for a new approach,
which he then began to develop theoretically. His extensive research earned him the
Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998. In this new approach, the focus on growth of
GDP is complimented with a focus on the empowerment of human capabilities. The
primacy of either theory or practice is hard to establish in the development of the
capability approach, but the overall model was, in the end, a result of the interaction
between theory and practice.
This is a positive example of how new thinking in the face of old realities can
lead to changed practices. However, history teaches us that this mechanism can also
have detrimental results. When it comes to economics, for example, there is evi-
dence that students of economics experience a marked drop in their level of altruism
during their studies. In effect, they become more selsh, in various ways, as has
been illustrated by different studies (see Frank and Schulze 2000; Wang etal. 2012;
Frank etal. 1993).
These examples show that theory matters to socio-economic life, either for good
or bad. The second example, in particular, illustrates the importance of education. It
is a long-established truth that education plays a major role in either bringing about
or in stiing social change (Burns 2002). We therefore recognize it as a challenge,
not only to nuance and further develop our concept of the human person as a Homo
amans but also to develop a concrete training program for faculties of economics
and for business schools. As such, we hope to stimulate and empower students of
economics and business to develop a richly sourced anthropology, drawing on vari-
ous academic disciplines, in order to challenge them to resist reductionism and dog-
matism of any kind.
13 A Relational Anthropology forContemporary Economics? Concluding Reections
218
13.3 Conclusion
Given the contemporary challenges in society, we hope to foster an increasing
awareness of the importance of anthropological assumptions in economic thinking.
Because the dominant paradigm of Homo economicus is too narrow a basis for a just
and well-functioning society, it must be seriously called into question. This quest
leads inevitably to an interdisciplinary dialogue and a prominent role for the human-
ities. We are human beings or persons in an evolving cultural community. However,
the overall conclusion of this multidisciplinary dialogue is that reforming anthro-
pology in contemporary economics is anything but easy. Questioning the accuracy
of the rational Homo economicus model, we have started the conversation by intro-
ducing the Homo amans model, suggesting that people are socially conditioned in
their natural ability to search for meaning (“to believe”), to project their longings
unto the future (“to hope”), and to relate meaningfully to others (“to love”). The
following lessons have been learned from our conversation with the respondents in
this volume:
– Homo amans as an isolated concept cannot serve as an independent model for a
more humane economy. It is a crucial element of a much-needed change in social
imaginary. However important the traits of faith, hope, and love for the social
condition of man, there is more to human beings that needs to be taken into
account. As such, Homo amans cannot but serve as a complementary model to
that of Homo economicus. What needs more study is the exact relationship
between the rational and relational qualities of people in relation to trust. As
Harry Hummels remarked in his foreword to this volume, “[a] dialectic relation-
ship, leading to a constructive discourse between the self-interested Homo eco-
nomicus and the other-oriented Homo amans, is more likely to clear the path
towards the change that is needed in our current society.”
– In light of this, perhaps the term Homo amans should be dropped altogether. It
focuses too much on the quality of love, which in the discussion has turned out
to be a complex and ambiguous virtue for economics. We have also learned that
it should not be equated with altruism as there is more to love, including justice
and human dignity. We suggest that perhaps the term Homo orens, as once used
by Cicero (Romeo 1979, p.50), more accurately focuses on the goal of the proj-
ect, allowing more room for the rational qualities of man and also giving more
prominence to the virtues of faith and hope. However, what is crucial is that the
idea of Homo orens is not perceived as an isolated individual looking for calcu-
lated self-interest, but a person who lives in a complex network of trust relation-
ships. The broad ethical concept of care, integrating justice and love, might be an
interesting avenue for further investigation. The ethics of care does not start with
our individuality but with relationality. It recognizes that human beings are
highly dependent for many years of their lives and only partly dependent for the
rest. Progress is only possible if we take into account the needs of those who are
dependent on us (Held 2007). Our broad understanding of care can be integrated
with the capabilities approach in economics. Are we naturally caring beings
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219
seeking to enhance not only our own well-being but, driven by empathy, also the
ourishing of others? In short, “do we care?”
– In our discussion paper, too little attention was given to the dark side of Homo
amans, namely that the wrong loves can obstruct or even destroy human ourish-
ing. Virtues, including that of faith, hope, and love, are bipolar. The life sciences,
in particular, have shown that we are biologically preprogramed to search for
meaning, project our desires, and relate to others. Yet we should be careful about
thinking that everyone cannot but develop into a Homo amans. Future research
may want to focus on how people can be encouraged to search for meaning, to
hope, and to love in the context of work, and how developing into the opposites
of these can be prevented.
– The Homo amans model potentially has transformative power. What we need, as
Emilio di Somma demonstrated in his paper, is a change in our epistemic struc-
ture or social imaginary. This transformative process can start as a set of claims
belonging to a restricted group niche and then expand to embrace the whole
community. Therefore, a theory of change needs to be developed in order to har-
vest the fruits of the Homo amans model. Yet along with theory there is a need
for praxis. Our focus should be on what the philosopher Hanna Arendt (1960)
calls not the contemplative live but the “active life,” our lives as citizens, work-
ers, consumers, caregivers, teachers, policy makers, etc. Praxis is not simply
applying some theory. Praxis is the cyclical process by which concepts such as
human ourishing and Homo amans are embodied and realized. And through
this process of embodiment our theories adapt continually. Accordingly, more
attention will have to be given to how the model can be implemented in the cur-
ricula of management and business education, and how future leaders and policy
makers can embody the model. Ultimately, it is about creating inuencers who
are able and willing to situate their own professional mission within a broader
framework of human dignity, trust, sustainability, and relationships.
These thoughts will certainly not settle the debate, but hopefully will be taken
into account when we continue to explore relational anthropology for a more
humane and sustainable economy.
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