The European Rationalist – In Reason We Trust

New love can look for all the world like mental illness, a blend of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends and family and prompts out-of-character behavior – compulsive phone calling, serenades, yelling from rooftops – that could almost be mistaken for psychosis.

Now for the first time, neuroscientists have produced brain scan images of this fevered activity, before it settles into the wine and roses phase of romance or the joint holiday card routines of long-term commitment.

In an analysis of the images appearing  (recently) in The Journal of Neurophysiology, researchers in New York and New Jersey argue that romantic love is a biological urge distinct from sexual arousal.

It is closer in its neural profile to drives like hunger, thirst or drug craving, the researchers assert, than to emotional states like excitement or affection. As a relationship deepens, the brain scans suggest, the neural activity associated with romantic love alters slightly, and in some cases primes areas deep in the primitive brain that are involved in long-term attachment.

The research helps explain why love produces such disparate emotions, from euphoria to anger to anxiety, and why it seems to become even more intense when it is withdrawn. In a separate, continuing experiment, the researchers are analyzing brain images from people who have been rejected by their lovers.

“When you’re in the throes of this romantic love it’s overwhelming, you’re out of control, you’re irrational, you’re going to the gym at 6 a.m. every day – why? Because she’s there,” said Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and the co-author of the analysis. “And when rejected, some people contemplate stalking, homicide, suicide. This drive for romantic love can be stronger than the will to live.”

Brain imaging technology cannot read people’s minds, experts caution, and a phenomenon as many sided and socially influenced as love transcends simple computer graphics, like those produced by the technique used in the study, called functional M.R.I.

Still, said Dr. Hans Breiter, director of the Motivation and Emotion Neuroscience Collaboration at Massachusetts General Hospital, “I distrust about 95 percent of the M.R.I. literature and I would give this study an ‘A’; it really moves the ball in terms of understanding infatuation love.”

He added: “The findings fit nicely with a large, growing body of literature describing a generalized reward and aversion system in the brain, and put this intellectual construct of love directly onto the same axis as homeostatic rewards such as food, warmth, craving for drugs.”

In the study, Dr. Fisher, Dr. Lucy Brown of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx and Dr. Arthur Aron, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, led a team that analyzed about 2,500 brain images from 17 college students who were in the first weeks or months of new love. The students looked at a picture of their beloved while an M.R.I. machine scanned their brains. The researchers then compared the images with others taken while the students looked at picture of an acquaintance.

Functional M.R.I. technology detects increases or decreases of blood flow in the brain, which reflect changes in neural activity.

In the study, a computer-generated map of particularly active areas showed hot spots deep in the brain, below conscious awareness, in areas called the caudate nucleus and the ventral tegmental area, which communicate with each other as part of a circuit.

These areas are dense with cells that produce or receive a brain chemical called dopamine, which circulates actively when people desire or anticipate a reward. In studies of gamblers, cocaine users and even people playing computer games for small amounts of money, these dopamine sites become extremely active as people score or win, neuroscientists say.

Yet falling in love is among the most irrational of human behaviors, not merely a matter of satisfying a simple pleasure, or winning a reward. And the researchers found that one particular spot in the M.R.I. images, in the caudate nucleus, was especially active in people who scored highly on a questionnaire measuring passionate love.

This passion-related region was on the opposite side of the brain from another area that registers physical attractiveness, the researchers found, and appeared to be involved in longing, desire and the unexplainable tug that people feel toward one person, among many attractive alternative partners.

This distinction, between finding someone attractive and desiring him or her, between liking and wanting, “is all happening in an area of the mammalian brain that takes care of most basic functions, like eating, drinking, eye movements, all at an unconscious level, and I don’t think anyone expected this part of the brain to be so specialized,” Dr. Brown said.

The intoxication of new love mellows with time, of course, and the brain scan findings reflect some evidence of this change, Dr. Fisher said.

In an earlier functional M.R.I. study of romance, published in 2000, researchers at University College London monitored brain activity in young men and women who had been in relationships for about two years. The brain images, also taken while participants looked at photos of their beloved, showed activation in many of the same areas found in the new study – but significantly less so, in the region correlated with passionate love, she said.

In the new study, the researchers also saw individual differences in their group of smitten lovers, based on how long the participants had been in the relationships. Compared with the students who were in the first weeks of a new love, those who had been paired off for a year or more showed significantly more activity in an area of the brain linked to long-term commitment.

Last summer, scientists at Emory University in Atlanta reported that injecting a ratlike animal called a vole with a single gene turned promiscuous males into stay-at-home dads – by activating precisely the same area of the brain where researchers in the new study found increased activity over time.

“This is very suggestive of attachment processes taking place,” Dr. Brown said. “You can almost imagine a time where instead of going to Match.com you could have a test to find out whether you’re an attachment type or not.”

One reason new love is so heart-stopping is the possibility, the ever-present fear, that the feeling may not be entirely requited, that the dream could suddenly end.

In a follow-up experiment, Dr. Fisher, Dr. Aron and Dr. Brown have carried out brain scans on 17 other young men and women who recently were dumped by their lovers. As in the new love study, the researchers compared two sets of images, one taken when the participants were looking at a photo of a friend, the other when looking at a picture of their ex.

Although they are still sorting through the images, the investigators have noticed one preliminary finding: increased activation in an area of the brain related to the region associated with passionate love. “It seems to suggest what the psychological literature, poetry and people have long noticed: that being dumped actually does heighten romantic love, a phenomenon I call frustration-attraction,” Dr. Fisher said in an e-mail message.

One volunteer in the study was Suzanna Katz, 22, of New York, who suffered through a breakup with her boyfriend three years ago. Ms. Katz said she became hyperactive to distract herself after the split, but said she also had moments of almost physical withdrawal, as if weaning herself from a drug.

“It had little to do with him, but more with the fact that there was something there, inside myself, a hope, a knowledge that there’s someone out there for you, and that you’re capable of feeling this way, and suddenly I felt like that was being lost,” she said in an interview.

And no wonder. In a series of studies, researchers have found that, among other processes, new love involves psychologically internalizing a lover, absorbing elements of the other person’s opinions, hobbies, expressions, character, as well as sharing one’s own. “The expansion of the self happens very rapidly, it’s one of the most exhilarating experiences there is, and short of threatening our survival it is one thing that most motivates us,” said Dr. Aron, of SUNY, a co-author of the study.

To lose all that, all at once, while still in love, plays havoc with the emotional, cognitive and deeper reward-driven areas of the brain. But the heightened activity in these areas inevitably settles down. And the circuits in the brain related to passion remain intact, the researchers say – intact and capable in time of flaring to life with someone new.

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Book Review: Cognitive Neuroscience of Emotion, edited by Richard D.  Lane, M.D., Ph.D., and Lynn Nadel, Ph.D. New York, Oxford University Press, 2000, 431 pp., $60.00; $35.00 (paper).

Evidence linking specific psychological faculties to localized brain areas has been available for only 150 years, yet distinctions among the features of mental life have been made for thousands of years. Aristotle, for example, divided brain function into cognitive, emotive, and willful processes. This ancient distinction between cognition and emotion is reflected in the structure of the various DSMs of APA, which begin with a section on the disorders of cognition and distinguish them from disorders of mood, and in most training programs, where psychiatrists receive little training in the disorders of cognition and neurologists receive little or no training in the disorders of emotion.

The utility of the distinction between cognition and emotion and questions about its grounding in the brain’s neural substrate are explored in Cognitive Neuroscience of Emotion.  This volume is the product of a meeting held at the University of Arizona and is to be commended for presenting a variety of viewpoints on this fascinating question.

Is an alternative view viable? Does research support the view that the distinction between emotion and cognition is artificial? The book addresses these questions by beginning with overviews by Damasio and by Clore and Ortony. They review studies in which techniques used by cognitive scientists have been applied to the study of emotion. Damasio concludes that emotions and feelings should be distinguished and that the failure to make this distinction lies behind the paucity of studies in the brain basis of emotion. The evidence that he offers to support his view is weak, but he does demonstrate the value of studying both emotion and cognition with the same neuropsychological and imaging methods.  The distinction between emotion as an externally observable state and feelings as an internal experiential state could be validated if distinct physiological substrates were found for the two. Even if the distinction cannot be supported, it may serve a utilitarian purpose because physiological responses are easier to study. At this point in history, claims that the internal experience of feelings (or emotions) will yield to the methods of neuroscience are similar to the claim that the neural basis of consciousness will be discovered-promises rather than results.  Nevertheless, data-based approaches to these issues are the only way to move beyond the realm of rhetoric. 

The second section of this book reviews the potential role of the amygdala in the genesis, persistence, and interpretation of emotion. The demonstration that emotional expression is associated with a locus or loci does not prove that the distinction between cognition and emotion is artificial, but these chapters review a wide range of experiments whose results suggest that processes traditionally called “cognitive” are operative in animal behaviors that appear to reflect human emotion.  The third section reviews human research more directly.  Lesion studies and skin conductance studies support the contention that the amygdala is involved in human emotion, but they also demonstrate the involvement of other brain regions.  The hypothesis that the complex mental phenomena we refer to as emotion involve multiple structures, pathways, and molecular mechanisms is supported by much more data than the hypothesis that there is a single “emotion center.” The last section of the book examines the effects of brain lesions on emotional function. Again, there is abundant evidence linking emotional activation to multiple neural pathways.  This line of work does not directly address whether cognition and emotion are distinct or entwined brain capacities, but it does provide a set of methods by which neural mechanisms can be dissected.
Although the central question of the book is yet to be answered, this volume demonstrates clearly that the emotion/ cognition interface is an important area of study and that progress is being made along many fronts. The ultimate answer may well be that both views of the emotion/cognition dichotomy are true: these states share some circuitry and molecular mechanisms but also involve distinct loci and mechanisms. A much better understanding of the neural substrates of both emotion and cognition will undoubtedly develop, but new conceptual models of CNS organization and function may be needed before a comprehensive understanding emerges.  Readers interested in the even more radical view that our current conception of the term “emotion” needs to be rethought and perhaps even discarded will enjoy Paul Griffiths book, What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories (1).

Reference
1. Griffiths PE: What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1997

PETER V. RABINS, M.D., M.P.H.
Baltimore, Md

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Much of the conflict resolution literature presents an image of disputants as rational actors who are focused on pursuing their long-term interests, unaffected by their emotions. The “realist” approach suggests that all conflict involves material interests, while the rationalist approach suggests that conflict is the outcome of conscious intentions. [1] The idea seems to be that if parties rely solely on logic, both sides can advance their interests and come to a mutually acceptable compromise in the event that those interests conflict. Any emotional and relational factors should be set aside so that the political and economic interests that are central to the conflict can be addressed. Feelings of humiliation, shame, fear, and anxiety are viewed as obstacles to rational thinking and as a sign of vulnerability. [2]

Once parties have identified their deep-seated concerns and interests, they can make trade-offs and concessions and work together to devise creative solutions to their problems. Rationality helps them to explore their various interests and options, identify their zone of possible agreement, and find a way a way to compromise. According to the widely-accepted conception of means-ends rationality, a rational act is one that uses the most efficient means to achieve a given end. [3] Classical economic theory, for example, describes individuals as “hyper-rational.” [4] They make decisions by gathering and processing information and then acting in a manner that maximizes utility.

However, an approach to conflict that over-emphasizes rationality may obscure the fact that disputants in conflict are often influenced by unconscious motives and guided by the emotions of anger, fear, distrust, and shame. Protracted conflict, in particular, is often a result of parties’ lack of self-knowledge, disturbances in communication, and unacknowledged feelings about their relationship. [5] Insofar as strong emotions typically play either a positive or negative role in the way parties wage conflict and attempt to negotiate solutions, emotions have a profound influence on dispute management as well  Conflict and its resolution are driven not only by the pursuit of instrumental goals and rational interests, but also by desires for less tangible things such as love, recognition, and a sense of belonging.

Are Negotiations Guided by Rationality?

Most of the training literature for negotiation and mediation suggests that emotions should be ignored and that third party interveners should guide disputants toward rational behavior. [6] However, it is doubtful that the rational thought processes and decision-making that occurs during negotiation can function independently of the emotions. [7] Indeed, strong emotions are typically part of the negotiation process and may cause negotiations to break down if they are not dealt with properly. Feelings of fear, mistrust, and anger, for example, often interfere with effective negotiation by clouding parties’ judgment, narrowing their focus of attention, and distracting them from their substantive goals. [8]

For a settlement to be reached, it is not necessary that parties overcome all obstacles or address all of their concerns. There simply need to be enough incentives to motivate them to consent to the proposed agreement. Note that not all of these incentives are ones that figure into cost-benefit analysis or rational assessment. While it is true that disputants typically rely on rationality to assess the gains and losses associated with a proposed settlement, it seems clear that psychological rewards and disincentives likewise play a role. In addition to financial considerations and material interests, there are intangible considerations that may weigh in favor of settlement or against it. [9] For example, the emotional benefits and losses that may be anticipated as a result of settlement include recognition, revenge, honor, distrust, anger, and embarrassment. Other intangible considerations include the thoughts and feelings of the disputants about their relationship.

In many cases, disputants are not even reflectively aware of these emotional and relational factors. Unacknowledged threats to relational bonds result in shame can set the stage for insult, humiliation, and revenge. [10] These hidden emotional factors may make coming to a settlement seem unfavorable even, when such an agreement would best serve parties’ material interests. Indeed, if emotions are high, disputants are likely to be antagonistic in response to anything the other side proposes. Negative emotions thus may lead parties to neglect their instrumental goals.

Conflicts that are relatively intangible are those rooted in the dynamics of history, religion, culture, and values. Because these conflicts “arise from the depths of the human heart rather than the material world,” it is difficult to determine their parameters and boundaries. [11] When these conflicts continue for a long time, parties’ goals tend to extend beyond advancing their concrete interests to include upholding their dignity and prestige. Conflicts rooted in underlying value differences, identity issues, or unacknowledged emotions cannot be addressed in the same way as disputes over tangible resources. According to Jay Rothman (1997), trying to use common modes of bargaining to address conflicts that are poorly defined or intangible often proves to be inadequate.

Marc Gopin (2002) recommends that political negotiations to manage such conflicts be accompanied by efforts to address religion, culture, moral commitments, and the transformation of relationships. In his view, building peace requires more than political settlements and rational agreements. It requires groups’ ability to address the cultural and spiritual dimensions of conflict and deal with their feelings of humiliation, dishonor, and grief. Systems of mourning and coping with ultimate loss should be brought into the realm of peacemaking. Gopin believes that in addition to addressing the conflict’s substantive political issues, we should work to foster healing and reconciliation.

Understanding Conflict Escalation

In addition, an over-emphasis on rationality will limit our understanding of conflict escalation. Under certain circumstances, such as when one party has overwhelming power over its opponent, escalation is the rational thing to do. It makes sense to use one’s power to overcome the opponent’s resistance or to intentionally escalate the conflict in order to gain more leverage. [12] In these cases of tactical escalation, where parties make a rational choice to intensify conflict, they may actually be able to improve the conflict situation. However, escalation more commonly occurs without the parties having a full understanding of the situation or considering alternative courses of action. When conflict is driven by feelings of anger, fear, and perceived injustice, parties may overreact to the situation at hand and conflicts may spiral out of control. For example, sometimes individuals will perceive a grave threat, even though the situation is not actually as dangerous as they think it is. While there may be no real cause for anger or intense fear, these feelings may take over and lead to aggression. Actions that are seen as extreme or overly severe may then provoke outrage from the other side and cause conflict to become unnecessarily violent and destructive. [13] Overcome by hostility or a desire for revenge, the parties may develop grandiose positions that are unrealistic and unreasonable.

The intensification of conflict is typically accompanied by significant psychological changes among the parties involved. In addition to feelings of anger and fear, parties tend to develop stereotypes, negative attitudes, and mistaken perceptions of the other side. There is a tendency to misinterpret the behavior of one’s opponent or to assume that the intentions and basic dispositions of one’s enemy are always fundamentally “evil.” Even when an adversary makes some conciliatory actions or attempts to make some concessions, this conduct is likely to go unnoticed, or to be discounted as deceptive. [14] These mechanisms of attributional distortion and selective perception are not fully rational, and yet they influence much of the destructive behavior we see in value and identity conflicts. Indeed, parties may become so hostile and aggressive that they that may come to believe that the only way to resolve their conflict is to destroy the other side and make the other group just “go away” or “disappear.” It is these extreme attitudes that often result in genocide, war, and terrorism, many instances of which result in great harm to oneself or one’s group. Indeed, the injury that people sometimes undergo so that they can cause harm to their “enemies” suggests that people caught in conflict often act for reasons which defy rational calculations of self-interest. A failure to address these non-rational, social-psychological dimensions of conflict makes it difficult to account for why ordinary people engage in such destructive and violent acts.

Non-Rational Modes of Conflict Resolution Knowledge

Focusing solely on rationality may also cause us to overlook some of the important ways that people come to learn about ways to manage conflict. The conflict resolution field emphasizes research, training, and study as primary avenues for the development of knowledge. Through analysis and the application of various theories, practitioners can learn how to synthesize different approaches and apply resolution procedures to concrete conflict situations. Many people believe that knowledge gained through rational thinking and book learning should serve as the field’s focus. However, some theorists have begun to recognize that everyday, commonsense understandings of conflict play a central role in the process of learning how to manage conflict. Rather than being developed through scholarly study, folk knowledge is acquired through intuition and experience and embedded in cultural traditions. This awareness of how to manage conflict is a skill that people develop through everyday activity rather than through reflection and textual analysis. According to Paul Wehr (1998), this sort of knowledge evolves from generation to generation and emerges wherever human beings try to live together and get along in everyday life. [15] Children receive a great deal of this knowledge from their parents, elders, and social surroundings.

Stories, poetry, and rituals are likewise important sources of conflict resolution knowledge. Narratives allow people to gain insight into the perspectives and experiences of others and understand the motives and intentions behind their behavior. Similarly, poetry can help parties to identify their grievances, raise understanding about conflict dynamics, and move them toward reconciliation. In addition, participating in rituals often allows people to gain a deeper sense of what sorts of relationships they would like to build. Instead of emphasizing words or rational thought, ritual involves symbols, senses, and non-verbal communication. Through informal social activities as well as more formal cultural and religious ceremonies, parties tap into their emotions and learn how to wage conflict in more constructive ways. According to Lisa Schirch (2005), ritual offers parties an opportunity to interact in a space that is set apart from the conflict so that they can begin to develop a shared understanding of the challenges they face. Through art, ceremony, and symbolic activity, people who know little about the academic study of conflict resolution can gain knowledge about how to manage their conflict. In Schirch’s view, efforts to approach conflict in an exclusively rational, analytical, and linear mode are insufficient. [16] This is because much of our knowledge about conflict is rooted in our emotions, worldviews, and cultural understandings.

The imagination is yet another source of conflict knowledge that is not strictly rational. According to John Paul Lederach (2005), the capacity to recognize possibilities and envision constructive change does not emerge through the careful application of pre-established techniques. Instead, conflict transformation tends to come about through something that approximates an artistic process. [17] These “ah-ha” moments in which valuable insights surface are more like moments of aesthetic imagination than rational examination. Lederach thus views peacebuilding as an art form that requires creativity, constant innovation, and the ability to get to the heart and soul of conflict.
References
 
[1] Suzanne Retzinger and Thomas Scheff, “Emotion, Alienation, and Narratives: Resolving Intractable Conflict.” Mediation Quarterly 18(12)(2000-2001); available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20080120054541/http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/scheff/16.html

[2] Daniel L. Shapiro, “Negotiating Emotions,” in Conflict Resolution Quarterly, (20:1, 2002), 68.

[3] Milton Rinehart, “Towards Better Concepts of Peace,” Working Paper 89-14, Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado; available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20080120054541/http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/full_text_search/AllCRCDocs/89-14.htm

[4] Edward E. Ergenzinger, “Conversations with Phineas Gage: A Neuroscientific Approach to Negotiation Strategies,” Mediate.com; available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20080120054541/http://www.mediate.com/articles/Ergenzinger.cfm

[5] T. J. Scheff, Bloody Revenge: Emotions, Nationalism, and War,(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994) 3.

[6] Suzanne Retzinger and Thomas Scheff, “Emotion, Alienation, and Narratives: Resolving Intractable Conflict.” Mediation Quarterly 18(12)(2000-2001); available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20080120054541/http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/scheff/16.html

[7] Ergenzinger, http://web.archive.org/web/20080120054541/http://www.mediate.com/articles/Ergenzinger.cfm

[8] Robert S. Adler, Benson Rosen, and Elliot M. Silverstein, “Emotions in Negotiation: How to Manage Fear and Anger,” in Negotiation Journal, (14:2, 1998). Summary available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20080120054541/http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/full_text_search/AllCRCDocs/adler.htm

[9] Shiri Milo-Locker,”The Decision to Settle – Balance, Setoffs and Tradeoffs Between Rational, Emotional and Psychological Forces,” Mediate.com, available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20080120054541/http://www.mediate.com/articles/lockerS1.cfm?nl=51

[10] Scheff, 1994, 3.

[11] Jay Rothman, Resolving Identity-Based Conflict in Nations, Organizations, and Communities, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997), 11.

[12] Otomar Bartos and Paul Wehr, Using Conflict Theory. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 99.

[13] Louis Kriesberg, Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution. (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, Inc., 1998), 169.

[14] ibid., 153.

[15] Paul Wehr, “The Development of Conflict Knowledge” http://web.archive.org/web/20080120054541/http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/essay/wehr7492.htm

[16] Lisa Schirch, Ritual and Symbol in Peacebuilding, (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, Inc., 2005), 35.

[17] John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Arts and Soul of Building Peace, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

The above article is by Michelle Maiese from http://www.beyondintractability.org/  and the original can be found at http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/limits_of_rationality/?nid=6566

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Prolific Robert Solomon’s latest book is an upbeat reworking of The Joy of Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1999). In that earlier work, Solomon criticized contemporary Anglo-American academic philosophy for desiccating and destroying the joyful quest for wisdom that enticed him (and many others) into philosophy in the first place. In this short book, borrowing liberally from “Joy” and other published writings, Solomon seeks to provide a positive account of what philosophy, conceived in light of its rich heritage, can provide toward living a full and vibrant life here and now. What it can provide, according to Solomon, is “Spirituality” (which I shall capitalize to signal Solomon’s distinctive version), a protean category that, Hegel-like, engages and absorbs everything in sight-from passion, rationality and cosmic trust to tragedy, fatalism and the soul. It is a virtuoso performance by a masterful teacher, engagingly written and surely attractive to a popular audience. Yet its scholarly philosophical impact, as Solomon surely knows, is likely to be minimal, for reasons I will mention later.

But first, a synopsis. Spirituality is wrestled away from religion and naturalized as “the thoughtful love of life” (his “hallmark-card phrase” (ix)). Religion has apparently long seemed largely repellent to Solomon, its history “a horror story” (xiii), its dogmas incredible, its organizations dangerous, its piety stifling to true Spirituality. Instead, he seeks “a nonreligious, noninstitutional, nontheological, nonscriptural, nonexclusive sense of spirituality, one which is not self-righteous, which is not based on Belief, which is not dogmatic, which is not antiscience, which is not other-worldly, which is not uncritical or cultist or kinky.” (xii) More positively, Spirituality is both thought and passion:

Spirituality means to me the grand and thoughtful passions of life and a life lived in accordance with those grand thoughts and passions. Spirituality embraces love, trust, reverence, and wisdom, as well as the most terrifying aspects of life, tragedy, and death.” (6)

It is a “mode of being” (9) that is an “expansion of the self” (7), a Nietzschean process of self-overcoming and growth, the full rich Good Life for a human being whose only world is this world.

Chapter 1 distances Spirituality from religion, makes friendly with science, and basically identifies Spirituality with philosophy. Solomon firmly excludes recourse to anything transcending this life; views of the Beyond are stumbling metaphors, and mystical experiences are rare and ineffable, unavailable and unhelpful. “In place of the dubious purpose of transcending life, let us defend the ideal of transcending ourselves in life.” (24) Granted, traditional religion “is primarily belonging” not believing (12) (hence the essential irrelevance of theology), and this is something Solomon endorses, but the belonging he seeks includes everyone, not just some favored sect. Naturalized Spirituality is not science, but there is no conflict, only synergy, between them. Philosophy as “an attempt to come to grips with the perennial, personal, and universal human problems of meaning” (26) was once kin to Spirituality, though now it seems a distant relation. But philosophy can reclaim its rightful inheritance, by embracing myth, passion and fate. “Philosophy, as Plato clearly saw, is a spiritual practice.” (27)

Chapter 2 explores Spirituality as passion. In Solomon’s view, passion is not necessarily irrational; indeed, some passions-particularly (erotic) love, reverence and trust-are “definitive of rationality” (28). A passionate life is “defined by emotions, by impassioned engagements and quests, by embracing affections.” (29) Certain emotions, to be sure, are ruled out: envy, resentment, war hysteria, racism-even fanaticism for Texas football (31). Yet Nietzsche had it right in conceiving of “the overflowing spirituality of a passionate life” (43).

Chapter 3 examines Spirituality as “cosmic trust,” “a determined stance toward the world” (44), “. way of being in the world” (45). It is “authentic trust,” an acceptance born of experience, refined by reflection, and intentionally chosen. Once again envy and resentment emerge as the villainous opposites (53f), but beyond them lie contentment and forgiveness-indeed, “forgiving the world for the misfortunes it (inevitably) inflicts upon us.” (57)

Chapter 4 construes Spirituality as rationality, not dry abstracted thought, but engaged passionate thoughtfulness. Reason is not the enemy of the passions, but their friend. Indeed, says Solomon, “I want to suggest that reason and the passions are not only complementary. They are ultimately one and the same.” Reason thus understood is “contingent on our human natures, and on our particular cultures as well;” emotions constitute “our ultimate ends in life, the things we really do and should care about,” and reason helps to achieve those ends and thereby enrich our lives (61). Rationality is not limited to instrumental reasoning or abstract ratiocination. Nor is it the pursuit of self-interest narrowly construed. Instead, rationality is “having the right emotions, or caring about the right sorts of things” (70).

Chapter 5 is entitled “Facing Up to Tragedy,” and that is what Solomon wants philosophy to help us to do, by giving meaning to suffering. He rejects causal stories that allow us to affix blame for tragedy; concepts of justice, desert and entitlement are inapplicable, for “tragedy, not justice, is the ultimate upshot of life” (80). Since tragedy cannot be explained, Solomon foregoes all heavens and hells, however “sweet” and “understandable” they may be (82). Life is simply not fair, and we need to “embrace” tragedy “as an essential part of the life we love and for which we should be so grateful” (88).

In Chapter 6, Solomon insists that Spirituality entails a certain sort of fatalism-not a rigid determinism but something compatible with existential freedom. “Freedom, responsibility, and an acceptance of one’s fate go hand in hand and in may ways depend upon one another.” (91) Fatalism is not an excuse for lack of effort, but acceptance of what is beyond one’s control-one’s culture and times, one’s contingent yet enveloping situation. Fate is freedom’s rootedness, and the appropriate response to one’s fate should be gratitude (”an emotion,” Solomon notes with tongue in cheek, that is “too little appreciated in ethics or in philosophy generally” (104)). We should be grateful because “we are the beneficiaries of a (more or less) benign universe,” even if there is no one to whom we should be grateful: “We might say that one is grateful not only for one’s life but to one’s life-or rather to life-as well.” (105)

Chapter 7 explores the meaning of death. Spirituality accepts “death as the completion of life, as the closure that gives an individual life its narrative significance in a larger whole” (107-8). Solomon berates various philosophical and religious traditions-from ancient Egyptian to modern American-for denying death in various ways, chiefly by fleeing to a transcendent afterlife and forgetting that death will happen to oneself. But he also has critical words for those who make a fetish of death, glorying in the “death experience” (this includes not only “the S and M crowd” and Calvin Klein fashions but also Heidegger and Foucault), and those stoics for whom “death is nothing” (if this slogan implies that life is nothing). Instead, “the meaning of death comes down to the meaning of life, nothing less, and nothing more.” (119)

The culminating Chapter 8 links Spirituality to self, soul and spirit. Spirituality is “enlargement of the self” (123), expanding our self-identity (or is it our sense of identity?) from the isolated individual to the social soul-full self. (Solomon here takes a three-page excursion into Asian philosophy (130-132).) Rather than a Cartesian (or Augustinian) “vast and largely unexplored inner cavern” (133), the soul should be pictured in social terms: “One’s identity is a social construct. An identity crisis is a social crisis.” (136) Soul is not a “metaphysical eternal nugget” but a process of transformation from narrow and impoverished individuality through discipline and Spirituality to broad and rich relationship with the world (139-140).

Reactions to this book will vary with the audience. Undergraduates will enjoy Solomon’s lively prose and vivid presentation of Existentialist views that connect to their tender and burgeoning sense of self. Humanists hankering to talk about the meaning of their lives-or seeking a “philosophy of life”-without recourse to transcendence will gladly join in Solomon’s quest for wisdom and a “thoughtful love of life.” People who retain, or seek, a sense of transcendence will be alternately bemused by Solomon’s tethering of spirit to this world and appalled at his broad-brush caricatures of religion.

But what about Anglo-American (chiefly but not solely “analytic”) academic philosophers? Since they are the targets of much of Solomon’s polemics, will they rise up in wounded indignation to set him straight? Not likely. More probably, their reaction will be a collective shrug, and then back to business. Solomon simply has not presented a case in ways that they will find clear and cogent enough to engage. It is not that he writes turgid prose; on the contrary. The problem rather is his affinity for thinking, as he puts it in the Introduction, “in the spirit of Hegel,” where large concepts and themes are painted with broad brushes, layered over with colorful anecdotes, and connected by the copula “is” to many apparently quite different concepts. Thus Spirituality for Solomon is identified in one way or another with philosophy, rationality, passion, fate, self, soul, reverence, trust, contentment, forgiveness, and Lord knows what else. In this kind of light, everything “is” something else, maybe everything else, and careful analysis of distinctions and connections goes out the window. Moreover, almost everything is grist for Solomon’s mill-from Heidegger to Lao Tzu to TV shows-with little concern for levels of depth and significance. Solomon’s popularity comes at a price.

In a way the inevitable neglect of this book by professional philosophers is a pity, for Solomon is pursuing broad and vital themes that could well be engaged by others, for both private and public benefit. Moreover, the fault lies on both sides. Solomon would point a nagging finger at academic professionals, so caught up in their scholastic desk jobs that they have lost all sense of philosophy as a way of life. But Solomon needs to make a more enticing offer to these academics-by entering into their painstaking labors of analysis and argument. There is much in his work that a sensitive contemporary thinker who has given up on transcendence can enjoy. But there is much more work-more rigorous and careful work-to be done before that enjoyment can become truly philosophical enlightenment.

Solomon, Robert C., Spirituality for the Skeptic: The Thoughtful Love of Life, Oxford University Press, 2002, 159pp, $26.00 (hbk), ISBN 0195134672 (Reviewed by William Lad Sessions, Washington and Lee University)

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Business ethics, it seems, has finally caught the attention of economists. Businesses, in some parts of the world, have become integral participants in such causes as protecting the environment and alleviating poverty from economically depressed localities. This investment in ethics, however, is confronted with the problem that economists have no other way to approach reality without concentrating on questions of utility. A similar phenomenon is occurring within the economics profession, where economists such as James Buchanan¹ and Amartya Sen² have become outspoken advocates for social and ethical investing through work, savings, and company loyalty.

For these values, altruistic behavior can be analyzed as a positive external effect of consumption, where the individual makes a voluntary contribution. Buchanan and Sen both rely upon utilitarianism for their analysis of voluntary contributions, although they acknowledge that society would be aided if these values were more independently established. From the vantage point of society, however, it would be beneficial for the values of social and ethical investing to be more firmly grounded in a consistent rationale. Utilitarianism provides a poor basis for such analysis and can be manipulated easily for less than admirable purposes. For these values to be widely accepted, they should not be related to any order of values that exceeds the simple test of social well-being. Sen states this principle thus:

The nature of modern economics has been substantially impoverished by the distance that has grown between economics and ethics … [economics] can be more productive by paying greater and more explicit attention to the ethical considerations that shape human behaviour and judgement. It is not my purpose to write off what has been or is being achieved, but definitely to demand more.³

In the last twenty years, economists and moral philosophers have renewed a conversation that was interrupted during the heyday of positivist methodology in both disciplines.⁴ While considerable gaps remain between the modes of expression and habits of thought in these disciplines, there is today considerable room for productive interdisciplinary dialogue between economists and moral philosophers.

This change in the validity of using ethical-moral values in economic analysis has little to do with the criticism of nineteenth-century authors such as Thomas Carlyle or John Ruskin, who attributed the destruction of social ties to the influence of capitalism. According to them, moral values functioned as the backbone of society during the late Victorian era. The destruction of social ties can be attributed more to the Weberian work ethic than to the structure of a market economy.

We are, perhaps, in the final stage of the process that economic science began in the eighteenth century, namely, its search for disciplinary boundaries and foundations. The first phase of this process sought to separate morals and politics. It was sometime later, however, that Adam Smith and David Ricardo began to establish economics as a respectable science. Since the late-eighteenth century, economics has developed independent disciplinary foundations and, in successive stages, has subjected more and more domains of human life to economic analysis. This phenomenon has come to be known in the literature as the “imperialism of economics.”⁵

Nowadays, economics is viewed as the social subsystem with the greatest capacity to integrate the other social sciences. Yet, surprisingly and for good reason, in recent years the relationship between ethics and economics has become much less hostile. In order to illustrate this change, it may be useful to compare the relationship between ethics and economics at the dawning of the modern age (where the economic aspect played a relatively insignificant role in moral science) and in our time (where the growing interest of economists is to analyze the economic implications of ethical conduct). That Alfred Marshall knew how to extract the essence of this process can be seen in his now-famous quip: “The servant has turned into the housewife.” From this point forward the ethical aspect would be placed in a similar trajectory with economics-although in quite different circumstances.

The preceding raises two related questions, which this article will address separately: (1) What are the historical factors that led to the progressive emancipation of economics from moral science, and, ultimately, to its status as an independent discipline? (2) As a result of this emancipation, has the relationship between ethics and economics been fundamentally altered? Or, has this fundamental shift provoked a renewed interest in ethics on the part of economists?

How Economic Science Discovered Its Limits

Economics was, in its origin, integrally related to ethics. Sen reminds us of the contrast between the “non-ethical” feature of modern economics and its genesis as an offshoot of ethics.⁶ At the time of its inception, then, the language of economics was comprised of normative elements. Nevertheless, over time, economics came to be considered an autonomous science, and its language and value judgments become increasingly more “positive.”

This dissociation of economics from ethics is not a recent phenomenon. In fact, it is regarded by some as beneficial, enabling economists to develop analytic techniques and make rational predictions of future human behavior, whereas others view these “benefits” as fatal flaws leading to the imperialism of economic analysis over ethics. As analyzed, the transformation with respect to the traditional order of medieval times was finally complete.

In traditional societies, there is a multiplicity of small communities, including kinship networks and dispersed ethnic groups.⁷ Between these communities market interchange is often restricted, and economic life is regulated by local conventions. Markets may exist within such communities, but they are embedded in wider systems of non-market relationships, and the behavior of transactors is governed by complex moral codes and informal sanctions.

The first indication of emancipation with respect to moral norms became visible during the resultant secularization of the Renaissance. Consequently, morals were siphoned off from other public domains such as politics and economics. The process of separation that began during the Renaissance fostered a gradual substitution of morals for a “worldly providence”: the belief in a charitable role for the market. The rise of the market order changed this situation dramatically. It broke down the old ties of community by integrating them into an extensive division of labor governed by the abstract logic of commodity exchange.⁸ Personal ties between producers were replaced by the anonymous process of commercial transactions. Furthermore, this transformation required a change in the nature of morality itself. It is difficult to see how any kind of general morality can arise spontaneously from an entirely anonymous process of exchange.

Furthermore, the birth of national states during the sixteenth century had the effect of accelerating a tendency that is now termed the politicizing of wealth. The growing necessities of the new states forced economists, merchants, and bureaucrats to search for more stable sources of wealth. There was a mutual relation of interdependency between consumers and producers, but wealth was now subordinated to political power. Mercantilism, as it came to be called, made no sense because it did not allow for the possibility of distinguishing political from economic history. Thus, politics predominated, and the relation with the economy was hierarchically ordered.

The new argument was that moral categories were applicable to small societies but not to the powerful new nation states. In mercantilist doctrine, wealth (economics) and power (politics) appear to be mixed, which means that economic policies are decided upon through political mechanisms. In the end, the prosperity and the power of the state are what is sought after. The term political economy (Montchretien) appears now in order to designate the study of “economic” media to surmise “political” ends, which entails that the acquisition of wealth is at the service of political power. Thus, economic boundaries begin to offer the first steps under the vigilant protection of its older sibling-politics.

Adam Smith functions not as a link to this process but rather as a purveyor of a series of ideas. However, on the level of principle, Smith completes the rupture between economics and politics, although the transition takes place in successive stages. The decisive innovation here is that economics was liberated from making normative claims, which freed it to move naturally in the direction of positivism. Smith’s originality was not rooted in the newness of his ideas as much as in the way he reassembled them to create something new. Through his innovation Smith severed the mercantilist unity between politics and economics; economics was now free to develop its own disciplinary foundations. To recap for a moment, then, the progression of Smith’s ideas follows the pattern of first eradicating moral boundaries, then constructing political boundaries, and finally developing economics into a respectable science. In order to analyze economics, Smith’s focus needed to shift away from the social arena. The nineteenth century witnessed the development of specialized social sciences such as economics that were not ostensibly interested in providing a grand framework or spectrum by which to analyze social behavior.

This was the time when economics first demonstrated “colonizing tendencies” by neglecting its earlier mission to function as the integrating center for the other social sciences.

The Colonizing Tendency of Economics

All social sciences are subject to the law of decreasing marginal returns, and economics is no exception to this rule. The specific themes of analysis and the profound level that may be reached tend to decrease over time. In the early development of economics, economists explored new territories by using models based on axioms such as the egoism of the agent and rationality in economic decision-making. The maturity of the paradigm was accompanied by a reduction in the fields still undiscovered by science. Since this time, economists have been working on almost the same themes that Adam Smith announced in The Wealth of Nations. By force, the results each time had to be poorer, decreasing the possible areas of exploration.

These pioneers directed their attention in diverse directions. The tendencies are obvious in authors such as Augustin A. Cournot, with respect to mathematics, and are particularly intense in the work of Edwin Chadwick, a pioneer in the economic analysis of law and of public goods (e.g., railway systems and water suppliers). But the field of sociology is where the most interesting developments have been made, particularly following J. S. Mill’s attempt to elaborate an economically based sociology.

Nevertheless, it was the intense development of economics in Victorian England that sparked controversy over the range and applicability of its method. As one of the newest eighteenth-century social sciences, economics enjoyed a privileged position in the university because of its rigor and practicality. The debate within the newly emerging social sciences over which social science discipline was greater was especially intense among sociologists and economists. These discussions raged among the intellectual disciples of Adam Smith, but it was J. S. Mill, Alfred Marshall, and John Maynard Keynes who gradually won the battle for the autonomy of economic science.

This separation or initial demarcation of fields produced a notable change in the direction of economic science, which can be characterized as a gradual turn from “interdisciplinary” positions (e.g., Smith analyzing the sources of the wealth of nations) to more specialized and inclusive projects from the relation of economics to the rest of the social sciences (e.g., the formation of prices). It follows logically from the development of economics as an independent science that it would refine its analytical techniques and clarify its disciplinary objectives.

The interrelation and overlapping of scientific disciplines-a soft imperialism-is a phenomenon common to all social sciences, but economics has an advantage that is added to its pioneering character, namely, to go forward in relation to the other social sciences. The advantage that economics has over the other social sciences is its simplicity. The theoretical economists are, by definition, creators of descriptive models of reality. The key for a successful construction of systems or models has to do with the model’s simplicity and demand for instrumental order: Simpler phenomena are easier to understand than complex phenomena. The question of a model’s simplicity is not exhausted by the logical consistency of mathematical rigor. There is something more important: Economic science has known how to maintain a firm nucleus (core assumptions) of axioms that are the base of any analysis. I am referring to the hypothesis of optimization, equilibrium, and rationality in decision-making, which implies a stability of preferences.

One of the essential differences that economics maintains from other sciences is the standardization of the previously mentioned basic axioms, guaranteeing the internal coherence of economic models used to reach a reasonable level of generalization. The combination of these axioms influencing any economic prediction means that the falsification of a prediction does not directly address a model’s core assumptions; it simply suggests refining the model.⁹ This distinction is shared by many sciences attempting to immunize the science’s fundamental principles against specific critiques. Thus, a model’s basic hypotheses, assumptions, or axioms are never the objects of falsification.

Mathematics is a powerful symbol of the internal logical consistency that economics has developed during this century. Nevertheless, it has been accused of making a non-critical use of mathematical methods and of converting these methods into a weapon of economic imperialism. One should be cautious when referring to the mathematizing of economics. To support its position within the category of sciences, economics has been forced to accept the onslaught of mathematical methods. Perhaps it has gone too far in this direction, but the way to critique this would have to be based on principles such as: to conduct “good” economics without unnecessary mathematics; or possibly to show the vacuity in the mathematical foci under certain circumstances. The problem is shown to be non-existent when the true dimensions are reduced: to make good/bad use of mathematical normalization.

In all, the critique of positive economics often adopts other forms-for example, that the science of economics had finished in a steep canyon without exit where political economy had been replaced by econometrics; that the areas of economics have been converted into annexes of the exact sciences; and that the recruitment of personnel in large financial engineering and stock market trading firms is composed of physicists, engineers, and mathematicians. A correction of the totality is not valid, but it should be asked whether the use of this technique adds anything that we did not already know. The idea of economic imperialism appears to disregard the followers of certain currents at the margin of neoclassic orthodoxy such as the movement known as socio-economics. This disposition is motivated by the neoclassic tendency to apply the criteria of economic rationality to non-economic behavior such as maternity or religion. The neoclassical quest for exactness has gone from simplification to the loss of contextual references. The conclusion is straightforward: The neoclassical attempt to understand non-economic behavior in an exclusively rationalist way is unacceptable.

To avoid confusion, it may be helpful to clarify that the idea of economic imperialism is really nothing more than a descriptive label. The idea is an outgrowth of the concept of homo economicus (together with the marginal analysis), that has permitted economics to invade the boundaries of other social sciences. But this-in itself-is neither good nor bad; it simply is.¹⁰ This fact-taken by itself-is no more fearful than the roundness of the earth. However, the expansion of our field of analysis is indeed relevant, thereby gaining something in terms of knowledge, which enables us to come that much closer to the truth.

If we measure the success of a science by its capacity to explain a more or less wide range of phenomena, economics is the science that has had the most success among all the social sciences. Likewise, this success is closely connected to the idea of homo economicus (HE). Of course, this idea is nothing more than a methodological artifice-a useful supposition. It would serve as a motive for happiness if economic definitions (based on the HE hypothesis) were better, from the empirical point of view, than the alternatives. A critique of such imperialism would have to demonstrate that the new economic foci have not advanced-that they are logically inconsistent-inconsistent with the facts or something of the sort. If, in fact, they aspire to make any sense, they would have to be empirical critiques, performed on a case by case basis.

There are two cases that illustrate what might qualify as being scientific-one of which was more successful than the other. The successful example is taken from the theory of public election. James Buchanan examined the logic of the democratic process and its relation to the action of large social groups.¹¹ Perhaps less promising have been the results obtained by Gary Becker in the area of the economics of the family, which demonstrate how the seemingly unrelated aspects of economics impact the family.

The Perplexity of the Economist with Respect to Moral Behavior

Given the imperialistic tendency of economics, it makes sense that the concept of homo economicus has been applied explicitly to the area of ethics. One could consider, perhaps, that the discipline is returning once again to its origins and that it will find itself resembling the moral science from whose womb it was born.

In pre-capitalist societies, society was viewed holistically, with religion and morality acting as the glue that held individuals and institutions together. Later, due largely to secularization, politics replaced religion and morality as the principal factor in social cohesion. Economics grew progressively, reinforced by its method until it became an autonomous science. Today, after the long road of three centuries, it seems that we have found a new pact; the difference now is that economics has forced the issue of its hegemony upon the other social sciences. The current preponderance of economic analysis of social phenomena does not seem to be excessive; the process was motivated by the status of respectability that the discipline began to acquire along with its rising status.

The reunion between ethics and morals is apparent in the benevolent nature of the man for whom life has gone well, with the old friend from infancy coming less to his aid. Finally, ethics-separated from political and economic boundaries-is allowed to enter the economics department through the back door without drawing attention to itself in order to perform its necessary tasks. Like the clandestine immigrant, the contract is temporary, and at some point it will have to be considered whether its services are still required.

This invasion into the area of ethics by economics has taken place at distinct levels. In the first place, the ethical dimensions of economic behavior must be seriously considered: If we suppose that all persons are egoists-i.e., they act for personal ends-what sense does it make to speak of ethics? From this point derives the idea that ethical norms are principally mutually beneficial accords whose final intent has to do with maximizing individual well-being in situations characterized by interdependence.

The search here is not to discover the rules for the good life; it is, rather, to understand why individuals from diverse cultures typically adhere to certain self-imposed ethical rules that are constant (inter-culturally) with universal ethical behavior. This raises a question, however: From where does ethical behavior derive? Moral codes are not static entities that remain fixed for all time but evolve with changing economic and social conditions. In fact, even the most homogeneous society normally encounters social conflict concerning ethical beliefs and practices.

Recently, a number of economists have considered how moral codes evolve.¹² The central idea is that economic life requires cooperation between agents, and that both encourage morality and are facilitated by it. Moreover, cooperation, initially, is based on self-interest, sanctions, and mutual policing, but in the course of time, as social conventions arise, it acquires a moral dimension. This focus, which can be called the positive theory of ethics-does not always appear to be descriptive. Often it is nothing more than an implicit argument that underlies an explicitly normative framework.¹³ Ethics maintains a role within positive economics because ethical commitments affect individual choices and, therefore, also economic outcomes because economic institutions and policies affect ethical commitments.¹⁴ Economists do not deny that individuals live under a societal moral code, but they tend to believe that this implicit moral framework can be excised from economic analysis-whether pure or applied-with little analytical loss.

On the other hand, the concept of homo economicus has been used with an openly normative connotation. This would entail constructing an ethics for human beings inspired by the concept of HE, and by delineating rules to be followed in particular situations, which would mean constructing a system of moral norms from the reference point of HE disregarding (more or less) traditional moral and religious precepts.

Normative judgments and ethical premises are often presented in economic analysis, but this is rarely the result of a conscious commitment to a particular ethical stance. As a community of scholars, economists speak in this way not so much out of a shared ethical commitment, but rather because of the manner in which their shared theoretical framework views the world.¹⁵ Economists do not need to understand the concepts and criteria that guide the evaluation of economic outcomes and processes, but this does not mean that ethics does not play an important role with respect to economics. In fact, it is impossible to be a good economist without doing some ethical analysis.

In any case, from the perspective of economics, traditional morals might be preserved only if they make sense within the utilitarian-contractual scheme. An example of this focus could be the work of D. P. Gauthier and, in part, the work of James Buchanan (although this has more to do with a positive than normative theory of ethics). Gauthier affirms that “the well-functioning of a market economic order does apparently not need any specific moral behavior. Even a minimal moral would not be necessary.”¹⁶

The utilitarian-contractual tradition conceives moral behavior to be the result of rational bargaining among well-informed and self-interested actors. If we suppose that such agents lack the means to make interpersonal utility comparisons, then they would agree to distribute the gains from cooperation in accordance with a principle of “minimax relative concession.”¹⁷ This principle would distribute fairly the gains from social interaction relative to the situation that would prevail in the absence of agreement. Buchanan’s basic idea is that economic participants are better off when they share in a portion of the firm’s work; thus, the ethical aspect arises from people working more and saving more as a means of improving their individual and collective well-being.¹⁸ Because of their anonymous character, market transactions cannot be governed by moral responsibilities of a personalized nature. What is required, then, is a set of general ethical principles such as universal honesty and respect for laws and conventions governing exchange. The foregoing demonstrates the difficulty of developing an ethical framework for conducting economic exchange in a publicly credible fashion, while also maintaining some degree of moral transcendence. Therefore, it may be asked why such ethical conduct spontaneously surfaces between individuals.

A number of recent studies have found that economists behave in a more self-interested fashion than non-economists: First-year graduate students in economics were much more likely than other graduate students to free-ride in experiments that called for private contributions to public goods.¹⁹ In my opinion, here rests the essence of the problem we are describing. It is well-known that among economists there is a growing interest in ethics. But the characteristic feature of this economic and ethical analysis is its diverse interdisciplinary character, particularly with respect to sociology²⁰ and philosophy.²¹

What seems to prevail among the ranks of “pure economists” is an attitude of perplexity toward moral or ethical behavior. The lack of accurate and suitable tools for understanding ethical behavior does not encompass the entirety of the problem. Some economists suffer from a deeper inability to understand what ethical behavior is, which, perhaps, explains why economists have begun to focus increased attention upon the relationship between ethics and economics. The most problematic aspect of delineating an ethical approach to economics has to do with determining ethical starting points and with the formation of beliefs; existing economic models of ethical behavior have not dealt adequately with the subject of belief formation.

Conclusion

Economists are becoming increasingly interested in the analysis of moral behavior because of the difficulty in successfully applying the concept of homo economicus in ethical situations. Some research explains a formal representation of this behavior in terms of maximizing the utility function subject to restriction. However, in general, a bearing of curiosity and perplexity dominates in such conduct.

Ethics and morality figure prominently in economic life, but that influence has been largely ignored until recently. Despite major advances in game theory, contracts, and organizations, the subject of economics is still dominated by the traditional assumption that agents are entirely self-interested and unconstrained by moral considerations.

In this article we have analyzed how one can interpret this renewed interest in ethics within the field of economics as the natural end of a process of mutual relationships that was severed when economics became an autonomous science. We saw that the distinct phases of this process of emancipation culminated in the work of Adam Smith, which, in turn, enabled the discipline of economics to invade the boundaries of other social sciences. This phenomenon was called the imperialism of economics. In the last twenty years economists have increasingly applied their analytical techniques to the resolution of social ethical problems. It is within this nexus that the apparent re-unification of the two sciences can be observed; however, the circle is again closed.

Nevertheless, the conclusion of this article is that it is impossible to speak in these terms for two reasons: First, the character and content of the old ethics has little to do these days with moral behavior. Furthermore, the roles have changed: Economics is now the social science with the greatest academic and cultural prestige, while it was ethics that once had priority during the first stage of the process. Ethics exercised its control with a holistic view of society, whereas the focus has now changed to analyze why individuals from different cultural backgrounds adopt similar ethical and cultural norms with respect to moral behavior. It is also possible to develop a normative vision connected with the structure of homo economicus. In any case, it seems that this should not be considered more than a mild colonization of economics over ethics.

Notes

1. James M. Buchanan, Ethics and Economic Progress (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994).
2. Amartya Sen, “Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 6 (1977): 317-433.
3. Amartya Sen, On Ethics and Economics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 7, 9.
4. Daniel M. Hausman and Michael S. McPherson, “Taking Ethics Seriously: Economics and Contemporary Moral Philosophy,” Journal of Economic Literature XXXI (June 1993): 723.
5. L. Udéhn, “The Limits of Economic Imperialism,” in Interfaces in Economic and Social Analysis, ed. U. Himmelfarb (London: Routledge, 1992).
6. Sen, On Ethics and Economics, 2.
7. R. Rowthorn, “An Economist’s View,” in Economics and Ethics?, ed. P. Groenewegen (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 28.
8. Ibid.
9. This claim is contested by Sen: “The wide use of the extremely narrow assumption of self-interested behaviour has seriously limited the scope of predictive economics and made it difficult to pursue a number of important economic relationships that operate through behavioural versatility.” On Ethics and Economics, 79.
10. The reason is that “even the oddly narrow characterization of human motivation, with ethical considerations eschewed, may nevertheless serve a useful purpose in understanding the nature of many social relations of importance in economics.” Ibid., 9.
11. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965).
12. See Friedrich von Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, 3 vols. (London: Routledge, 1973); R. Sugden, The Economics of Rights, Co-operation and Welfare (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986); and R. Rowthorn, An Economist’s View, 28.
13. The proper question is: “Does the so-called ‘economic man’, pursuing his own interests, provide the best approximation to the behavior of human beings, at least in economic matters.” Sen, On Ethics & Economics, 16.
14. Daniel M. Hausman and Michael S. McPherson, Economic Analysis and Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 214.
15. F. Gill, “Comment: On Ethics and Economic Science,” in Economics and Ethics?, ed. P. Groenewegen (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 153-54.
16. D. P. Gauthier, Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 83.
17. Hausman and McPherson, “Taking Ethics Seriously,” 710.
18. Buchanan, Ethics and Economic Progress.
19. G. Marwell and R. Ames, “Economists Free Ride, Does Anyone Else?: Experiments on the Provision of Public Goods, IV,” Journal of Public Economics 15, 3 (1981): 295-310.
20. Amitai Etzioni, The Moral Dimension: Towards a New Economics (London: Macmillan, 1988).
21. See Martha C. Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, The Quality of Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).

Jesus M. Zaratiegui
Professor of Economics
University of Navarra, Spain

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3. Emotions and Intentional Objects

What does a mood, such as free-floating depression or euphoria, have in common with an episode of indignation whose reasons can be precisely articulated? The first seems to have as its object nothing and everything, and often admits of no particular justification; the second has a long story to tell, typically involving other people and what they have done or said. Not only these people, but the relevant facts about the situations involved, as well as some of the special facts about those situations, aspects of those facts, the causal role played by these aspects, and even the typical aims of the actions motivated by the emotions can all in some context or other be labeled objects of emotion. The wide range of possible objects is suggested by the many different ways we fill in ascriptions of emotions. If someone is indignant, then there is some object o or proposition p such that the person is indignant at or with o, about p or that p, because of p, or in virtue of p. This variety has led to a good deal of confusion. A long-standing debate, for example, concerns the extent to which the objects of emotions are to be identified with their causes. This identification seems plausible; yet it is easy to construct examples in which being the cause of an emotion is intuitively neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for its being its object: if A gets annoyed at B for some entirely trivial matter, drunkenness may have caused A’s annoyance, yet it is in no sense its object. Its object may be some innocent remark of B’s, which occasioned the annoyance but which it would be misleading to regard as its cause. In fact the object of the annoyance may be a certain insulting quality in B’s remark which is, as a matter of fact, entirely imaginary and therefore could not possibly be its true cause.

The right way to deal with these complexities is to embrace them. We need a taxonomy of the different sorts of possible emotional objects. We might then distinguish different types of emotions, not on the basis of their qualitative feel, but – at least in part – according to the different complex structures of their object relations. Many emotions, such as love, necessarily involve a target, or actual particular at which they are directed. Others, such as sadness, do not. On the other hand, although a number of aspects of the loved one may motivate attentional focus, efforts to find a propositional object for love have been unconvincing. (Kraut 1986, Rorty 1988). Sadness may or may not focus on a propositional object; regret, by contrast, cannot be described without specifying such an object. Depression or elation can lack all three kinds of object. Objectless emotions share many properties with other emotions, especially in their physiological and motivational aspects, but they might more properly be classified as moods rather than full-fledged emotions. Moods typically facilitate certain ranges of object-directed emotions, but they form a class apart.

Finally, while different emotions may or may not have these various sorts of objects, every emotion has a formal object if it has any object. A formal object is a property implicitly ascribed by the emotion to its target, focus or propositional object, in virtue of which the emotion can be seen as intelligible. My fear of a dog, for example, construes a number of the dog’s features (its salivating maw, its ferocious bark) as being frightening, and it is my perception of the dog as frightening that makes my emotion fear, rather than some other emotion. The formal object associated with a given emotion is essential to the definition of that particular emotion. It is also, in part, what allows us to speak of emotions being appropriate or inappropriate. If the dog obstructing my path is a shitzu, my fear is mistaken: the target of my fear fails to fit fear’s formal object. As we shall see below, appropriateness in this sense does not entail moral correctness; but it makes the emotion intelligible even when it is abhorrent. Thus racist disgust, while obviously morally inappropriate, is nevertheless intelligible in terms of its link to paradigm cases of disgust.

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2. Feeling Theories

The simplest theory of emotions, and perhaps the theory most representative of common sense, is that emotions are simply a class of feelings, differentiated from sensation and proprioceptions by their experienced quality. William James proposed a variant of this view (commonly known as the “James-Lange” theory of emotion, after James and Carl G. Lange) according to which emotions are specifically feelings caused by changes in physiological conditions relating to the autonomic and motor functions. When we perceive that we are in danger, for example, this perception sets off a collection of bodily responses, and our awareness of these responses is what constitutes fear. James thus maintained that “we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and [it is] not that we cry, strike, or tremble, because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be” (James 1884, 190). One problem with this theory is that it is unable to give an adequate account of the differences between emotions. This objection was first voiced by Walter Cannon (1929). According to James, what distinguishes emotions is the fact that each involves the perception of a unique set of bodily changes. Cannon claimed, however, that the visceral reactions characteristic of distinct emotions such as fear and anger are identical, and so these reactions cannot be what allow us to tell emotions apart. The same conclusion is usually drawn from an oft-cited experiment performed by Stanley Schacter and Jerome Singer (1962). Subjects in their study were injected with epinephrine, a stimulant of the sympathetic system. Schacter and Singer found that these subjects tended to interpret the arousal they experienced either as anger or as euphoria, depending on the type of situation they found themselves in. Some were placed in a room where an actor was being angry; others were placed in a room where an actor was being silly and euphoric. In both cases the subjects’ mood tended to follow that of the actor. The conclusion most frequently drawn is that, although some forms of general arousal are easily labeled in terms of some emotional state, there is no hope of finding in physiological states any principle of distinction between specific emotions. The differentiae of specific emotions are not physiological, but cognitive or something else.

Subsequent research has shown that a limited number of emotions do, in fact, have significantly different bodily profiles. (LeDoux 1996; Panksepp 1998) However, bodily changes and the feelings accompanying these changes get us only part way towards an adequate taxonomy. To account for the differences between guilt, embarrassment, and shame, for example, a plausible theory will have to look beyond physiology and common-sense phenomenology.

Another problem with feeling theories is that they tempt one to treat emotions as brute facts, no doubt susceptible of biological or psychological explanation but not otherwise capable of being rationalized. Emotions, however, are capable of being not only explained, but also justified-they are closely related to the reasons that give rise to them. If someone angers me, I can cite my antagonist’s deprecatory tone; if someone makes me jealous, I can point to his poaching on my emotional property. (Taylor 1975).

Both of these problems – that of differentiating individual emotions, and that of accounting for emotions’ various ties to rationality – can be traced, at least in part, to a more fundamental oversight. Feeling theories, by assimilating emotions to sensations, fail to take account of the fact that emotions are typically directed at intentional objects. This defect is to some extent mitigated in what might be regarded as a more sophisticated “feeling theory” elaborated by Antonio Damasio (1999). On Damasio’s view the capacity for emotions involves a capacity for the brain to monitor the body’s past and hypothetical responses, both in the autonomic and the voluntary systems, in terms of “somatic markers”. The association of characteristic bodily states with past and hypothetical experiences and responses establishes some connection between the emotion and the absent world, but falls short of fully explicating the intentional nature of emotion.

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1. Emotions and the Topography of the Mind

How do emotions fit into different conceptions of the mind? One model, advocated by Descartes as well as by many contemporary psychologists, posits a few basic emotions out of which all others are compounded. An alternative model views every emotion as consisting in, or at least including, some irreducibly specific component not compounded of anything simpler. Again, emotions might form an indefinitely broad continuum comprising a small number of finite dimensions (e.g. level of arousal, intensity, pleasure or aversion, self- or other-directedness, etc.). In much the way that color arises from the visual system’s comparison of retinal cones, whose limited sensitivity ranges correspond roughly to primary hues, we might then hope to find relatively simple biological explanations for the rich variety of emotions. Rigid boundaries between them would be arbitrary. Alternative models, based in physiology or evolutionary psychology, have posited modular subsystems or agents the function of which is to coordinate the fulfilment of basic needs, such as mating, affiliation, defense and the avoidance of predators. (Panksepp 1998, Cosmides and Tooby 2000). To date cognitive science does not seem to have provided any crucial tests to decide between competing models of the mind. An eclectic approach therefore seems warranted. What does seem well established in the light of cross-cultural research is that a number of emotions have inter-translatable names and universally recognizable expressions. According to Ekman and Friesen (1989) these are happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust (the last two of which, however, some researchers consider too simple to be called emotions) (Panksepp 1998). Other emotions are not so easily recognizable cross-culturally, and some expressions are almost as local as dialects. But then this is an issue on which cognitive science alone should not, perhaps, be accorded the last word: what to a neurologist might be classed as two tokens of the same emotion type might seem to have little in common under the magnifying lens of a Proust.

Another range of models propose mutually conflicting ways of locating emotion within the general economy of the mind. Some treat emotion as one of many separate faculties. For Plato in the Republic, there seemed to have been three basic components of the human mind: the reasoning, the desiring, and the emotive parts. For Aristotle, the emotions are not represented as constituting a separate agency or module, but they had even greater importance, particularly in the moral life, our capacity for which Aristotle regarded as largely a result of leaning to feel the right emotions in the right circumstances. Hume’s notorious dictum that reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions also placed the emotions at the very center of character and agency. For Spinoza, emotions are not lodged in a separate body in conflict with the soul, since soul and body are aspects of a single reality; but emotions, as affections of the soul, make the difference between the best and the worst lives, as they either increase the soul’s power to act, or diminish that power. In other models, emotions as a category are apt to be sucked into either of two other faculties of mind. They are then treated as a mere composite or offshoot of those other faculties: a peculiar kind of belief, or a vague kind of desire or will. The Stoics made emotions into judgments about the value of things incidental to an agent’s virtue. Hobbes assimilated “passions” to specific appetites or aversions. Kant too saw emotions as essentially conative phenomena, but grouped them with inclinations enticing the will to act on motives other than that of duty.

Twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy and psychology have also tended to incorporate emotions into other, better understood mental categories. Under the influence of a “tough-minded” ideology committed to behaviorism, theories of action or will, and theories of belief or knowledge, had seemed more readily achievable than theories of emotion. Economic models of rational decision and agency inspired by Bayesian theory are essentially assimilative models, viewing emotion either as a species of belief, or as a species of desire.

That enviably resilient Bayesian model has been cracked, in the eyes of many philosophers, by such refractory phenomena as akrasia or “weakness of will.” In cases of akrasia, traditional descriptive rationality seems to be violated, insofar as the “strongest” desire does not win, even when paired with the appropriate belief (Davidson 1980). Emotion is ready to pick up the slack–if only we had a coherent theory of how it does it.

It is one thing, however, to recognize the need for a theory of mind that finds a place for the unique role of emotions, and quite another to construct one. Emotions vary so much in a number of dimensions–transparency, intensity, behavioral expression, object-directedness, and susceptibility to rational assessment–as to cast doubt on the assumption that they have anything in common. However, while this variation may have led philosophers to steer clear of emotions in the past, emotions are no longer being studiously avoided in the way that they once were. The explanatory inadequacy of theories that shortchange emotion is becoming increasingly apparent, and philosophy is gradually bringing emotion back into its purview. It is no longer the case, as Peter Goldie (2000) observes, that emotion is treated as a poor relation in the philosophy of mind.

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One of the central themes that runs throughout the debate on rationality is that of emotions and their purpose. There are a large number of papers and books available on the subjects, and over the next week or so, it is probably worthwhile summarising some of the main points. The particular articles produced here are from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Most of the articles over the next two week will be by Ronald de Sousa.

Emotion

First published Mon 3 Feb, 2003

No aspect of our mental life is more important to the quality and meaning of our existence than emotions. They are what make life worth living, or sometimes ending. So it is not surprising that most of the great classical philosophers–Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Descartes, Hobbes, Hume–had recognizable theories of emotion, conceived as responses to certain sorts of events of concern to a subject, triggering bodily changes and typically motivating characteristic behavior. What is surprising is that in much of the twentieth-century philosophers of mind and psychologists tended to neglect them–perhaps because the sheer variety of phenomena covered by the word “emotion” and its closest neighbors tends to discourage tidy theory. In recent years, however, emotions have once again become the focus of vigorous interest in philosophy, as well as in other branches of cognitive science. In view of the proliferation of increasingly fruitful exchanges between researches of different stripes, it is no longer useful to speak of the philosophy of emotion in isolation from the approaches of other disciplines, particularly psychology, neurology and evolutionary biology. While it is quite impossible to do justice to those approaches here, some sidelong glances in their direction will aim to suggest their philosophical importance.

I begin by outlining some of the ways that philosophers have conceived of the place of emotions in the topography of the mind, particularly in their relation to bodily states, to motivation, and to beliefs and desires, as well as some of the ways in which they have envisaged the relation between different emotions. Most emotions have an intentional structure: we shall need to say something about what that means. Psychology and more recently evolutionary biology have offered a number of theories of emotions, stressing their function in the conduct of life. Philosophers have been especially partial to cognitivist theories, emphasizing analogies either with propositional judgments or with perception. But different theories implicitly posit different ontologies of emotion, and there has been some dispute about what emotions really are, and indeed whether they are any kind of thing at all. Emotions also raise normative questions: about the extent to which they can be said to be rational, or can contribute to rationality. In that regard the question of our knowledge of our own emotions is especially problematic, as it seems they are both the object of our most immediate awareness and the most powerful source of our capacity for self-deception. This results in a particularly ambivalent relation between emotions and morality. I will conclude with a recapitulation of the main positions defended by some three dozen philosophers of emotion in the past half century.

1. Emotions and the Topography of the Mind

2. Feeling Theories

3. Emotions and Intentional Objects

4. Psychological and Evolutionary Approaches

5. Cognitivist Theories

6. Perceptual Theories

7. The Ontology of Emotions

8. Rationality and Emotions

9. Emotions and Self-knowledge

10. Morality and Emotions

12. Conclusion: Adequacy Conditions on Theories of Emotion

Section 1 to be published on Monday (29th January)

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