Category: On ErikaRS’ Mind

Originally published on Medium on May 11, 2018.

How do we actually do ethics? Do we choose a set of rules or principles and live by it regardless of the consequences? Do we make each choice based on what caused the best outcome, no matter what action it leads us to take? Do we do what feels right? Before saying what we ought to do — that is, defining a normative theory of ethics — we should spend some time looking at what we actually do. Any ethical theory that is incompatible with human psychology is, in my opinion, bunk. That is not to say that whatever people do is right. Rather, human capacity puts constraints on what an ethical system can ask of us. If an ethical theory, for example, were to claim that what is right is what the majority of humanity would consider right to do for some particular choice, it is a bad ethical theory. We are incapable of polling all of humanity whenever a decision comes up.

How we make moral decisions is a field of active study. A reasonably current state of the research is summarized in “Our multi-system moral psychology: Towards a consensus view” (pdf). It appears that our moral judgments are strongly influenced by intuitive moral responses which generate a good or bad feelings (positive or negative affect). This view, however, is challenged by the fact that people do sometimes rely on conscious, explicit moral reasoning when presented with moral dilemmas. What we are starting to see indicates that this split may arise from the brain having multiple ways of processing moral situations. When a moral choice triggers our affective response system, we tend to see the right choice as obvious and non-negotiable. When it triggers our explicit moral reasoning, we tend to see the right choice as negotiable based on the outcomes. What causes one system to be triggered over the other can be surprisingly small, such as whether a harm is the outcome of an action or an anticipated and unavoidable side-effect of an action.

For the purpose of this essay, what is important is that we do have multiple moral reasoning systems and that in many situations we rely heavily on the affect based system. Although there may well be more than just the two systems, let’s focus on the affect based and cognitive systems, since those are the most prominent. Both systems have their strengths and limitations. The affect based system summarizes a massive amount of moral experience in a way that can be applied quickly. Like all intuitive systems it is subject to bias and to a lack of transparency in understanding how a particular conclusion was reached. The cognitive based system does a better job of showing how a conclusion was reached and can make trade-offs when situations are complex. It is limited by cognitive capacity and so ends up reasoning based on a simplified model of the situation at hand (such as what rule set applies). If the wrong simplification is applied, the results can be bad.

These empirical observations have interesting consequences for normative ethical theories. One is that, in practice, much of our moral reasoning is encoded in rules — the rules that underlie our affect based system. Yet rules do not provide the ultimate end to moral reasoning. We can override those rule base judgments with reasoning based on outcomes. Yet that system is expensive, so we cannot utilize it for every moral decision. We generally use it when the affect based rules seem inadequate, often when they provide insufficient coverage or where they are conflicting. Or to put it another way, moral reasoning tends to look deontological until it is faced with a situation where a deontological rule makes it feel wrong, in which case we tend to fall back to consequentialist reasoning.

This suggests to me that a successful ethical system should be similarly multi-tiered. Deontological rules determine what is right most of the time. When these rules produce conflicts or when we encounter situations that are not covered by the rules, we fall back to consequentialist reasoning to resolve the situation, with the goal of revising the rules based on the result. Since our rule based reasoning is implicit, it is not enough to revise our consciously held set of rules, we must embed them through experience based on consistently living the right rules, in other words, we need to develop a character which encodes the virtues we wish to live by. In short, everyone is right! Or to put it another way, deontological ethics, consequentialist ethics, and virtue ethics all get at some of the right ideas, and they all need to be extended to account for the fact that moral reasoning is a living process with feedback loops.

Another consequence of this line of reasoning is that ethical systems cannot be imposed on others, whether through force or logical reasoning. It is not until an ethical theory is internalized that it actively influences moral decision making. This is obviously true for affective moral reasoning. Because of our limited capacity, it is also true for cognitive moral reasoning although the level of internalization is not as deep.

(These are not new ideas, of course. Although I come at it from a different angle, this looks very similar to what I know of Pragmatic Ethics. At the heart of Pragmatic Ethics is the idea that our set of ethical rules is an approximation of the best ethical truth and that we should revise it based on the results of lived experience. I hope to revisit this connection more in the future.)

Originally published on Medium on May 2, 2018.

The goal of ethics feels obvious… until you try to define it. What are we trying to achieve with an ethical system? Good outcomes (consequentialist)? Good actions (deontological)? Good character (virtue ethics)? We can go a level deeper and say, for example, that utilititarianism is trying to achieve good outcomes for the greatest number of people. Yet these first answers are not satisfying. They are really no more than descriptions of what a particular framework is optimizing for.

So what are we really trying to get out of an ethical system? At their most fundamental, ethical systems exist to allow people to live together successfully. At its core, this requires balancing the needs of individuals and the needs of groups. Need, in this sense, includes not just the bare needs for living but also our needs for individual fulfillment and for community. It includes all of the things that culture and society help us to achieve.

There are two key concepts here: living successfully and living together. What do they mean? Let’s start with what it means to live successfully. Few people will live their best life if they are hungry or threatened with violence. Most people will, under those conditions, live a pretty miserable life. Yet saying that a successful life is one that fails to be miserable sets a disappointingly low bar. We could set the bar higher and say that an ethical system should aim to make everyone happy. That is standard. It acknowledges that there is more to life than merely not dying. Still, it has obvious failings. We cannot make people happy. Plus, phrased this way, it’s easy to conflate happiness with the pursuit of pleasure, with a selfish hedonism that, when pursued exclusively is as insubstantial as the fog.

Eudaimonia, human flourishing, the life well lived. This gets more at a sense of meaning and fulfillment. However, as commonly described in virtue ethics, it has a problem opposite to that of hedonism. It puts too much weight on elated properties such as wisdom and moral virtue. It puts too much emphasis on living an objectively “right” sort of life. Yet human experience shows there is not one right way of living. There is not even one a singular right way of living for a single person. Sometimes we flourish when we have an experience that illuminates our understanding. Sometimes we flourish when we drink that delish hot chocolate. Flourishing and meaning are so personal that no single impersonal definition of a successfully lived can fully capture what it means to live a good life.

Perhaps, we can capture the idea of individual variation by calling our goal subjective eudaimonia. By that I mean that we should acknowledge that well being is a personally relative state, while also acknowledging that it is more than mere hedonic pleasure. There is a deeper state of well being which we should all strive to achieve, but it is not any one person’s place to define how we can each achieve it — although we can learn much that can guide our own journey from the experience and wisdom of others. For me, this striving provides the heart of what it means to live successfully. Ethical system should not try to maximize any prescribed form of happiness. They should aim to maximize the ability of each person to strive for their own happiness. As the US Declaration of Independence holds, it is the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right, not happiness itself.

The ability to pursue happiness is harder to measure than good outcomes, good actions, or good characters. This is not just because it is harder to measure potentials than actualities. It is also because the ability to strive for well being is inherently a system property. It involves doing the right thing, aiming for the best outcomes, and the pursuit of virtue, but it is not identical to any of those things. Successful striving requires setting conditions for people to play out their lives and then trusting them to pursue those ends for themselves.

That brings us to living together. Allowing each of us to strive for a life well lived may sound like a call for a world of individuals independently pursuing their own goals. If we could all pursue our goals in isolation, we wouldn’t need ethics. However, humans are relational. Our lives are lived in groups. Thus, the real problem of ethical system is allowing us to each strive for our own well being while not diminishing the ability of others to do the same. Read one way, this may sound like a call for libertarian style minimal intervention. However, it does not follow that the best system for allowing people to pursue their own good is the one that leaves people the most to their own devices.

A system that allows the pursuit of the good should be non-interventionist in that it cannot force a particular conception of the good upon others. However, it may require shaping the system to avoid affects that systematically reduce the ability of others to pursue their own happiness. Often system shaping rules impose a burden on some while overall making it easier for people to pursue their own happiness. It is unrealistic to say that there should never be any burden. Instead, we need to look at the burdens through the lens of its impact on their ability to strive for what is meaningful to them.

In the end, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow puts it better in “A Psalm of Life” (from which the title of this post is taken):

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
 Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
 And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
 And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
 Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
 Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
 Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
 And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
 Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
 In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
 Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
 Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, — act in the living Present!
 Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
 We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
 Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
 Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
 Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
 With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
 Learn to labor and to wait.

Originally published on Medium on April 20, 2018.

I considered making this a part of my G+ post wishing peace upon Barbara Bush after her death, but it was not appropriate there.

Why do I think it is important to respectfully acknowledge the passing of those who do not generally share my political beliefs? There are two aspects. I believe that respect for each other as human beings means that we mourn each others’ losses, no matter our differences in life. We small beings do not have the capacity to mourn each and every death, but we do have the capacity to mourn each one that touches us, even in a small way.

The other is that I have respect for the office of the President and, by extension and given what we expect of their partners, for those partners. Thus, I think it is important to acknowledge the passing of those who have dedicated a portion of their life (and often a disproportionate amount of their well being) to my country.

That said, I will admit that the current president pushes my abilities on this front. I disagreed with Barbara Bush’s son (George W, of course) as much as I do with Trump. Probably more because Bush, unlike Trump, had coherent positions and beliefs. Yet I referred to him respectfully when discussing his policies. By the time I get down to written words, I mostly refer to Trump respectfully, but unlike with Bush, it is editing at the keyboard rather than an ability to separate a respect for the office from disagreement with the positions and policies of the one holding that office.

Is that just me responding to the hyperpolarized political climate we live in? Maybe. But despite our inability to assess our own motivations, if I were to offer my own explanation, it would be that it is hard to separate respect for the office from respect for the person when he himself makes mockery of his office and the structure of the US government, when there is a reasonable basis of suspicion of corruption of a type that undermines US democracy. Yet even given that, I still try to limit my criticism to substantial disagreements with Trump’s actual policies and actions rather than making the criticism personal (outside of this post 😉).

Our ability to see others as human, especially the people we disagree with, is what makes it possible for us to live together. Even when it is hard. Especially when it’s hard.

(There’s a separate question of why an atheist thinks “rest in peace” is an appropriate way to express respect after a death. In short, talking about death is hard and stock phrases are often the best we have. When talking to someone who survived the deceased, I use “My condolences” but that doesn’t work well for undirected expressions like this was.)

Originally published on Medium on March 23, 2018

We’re learning that gender is a lot more complicated than we use to think. Perhaps the most challenging thing to those of us raised to reject traditional gender stereotypes (and rightly so!): gender does matter.

First, and I wish this went without saying, the most important reason we need greater acceptance and awareness of transgender individuals and the challenges they face is to ensure that they receive the liberties and equal treatment we all deserve. That said, a greater awareness of transgender individuals also points a much needed spotlight at how little we know about gender.

First off, a caveat. I am not even a well informed amateur on the topic of what it means to be transgender. A few years ago, as issues of trans rights were gaining awareness, I probably would have said I was skeptical of a biological basis of gender identity. I still supported trans rights — who was I to judge how others lived — but I would likely have said it was a choice. My perspective has changed. Not, I will openly admit, because I have done research. Rather, my perspective is primarily informed by learning about the lived experiences of others. This includes experiences I have read about but, more importantly, it includes the experiences of my friends who are transgender. They have, through their lived example, shown me that there is something deeply inherent about their gender despite the fact that it does not match the sex they were born with. (And they are awesome people, like my friends generally are.)

So what I am not going to do today is try to explain how gender works. I do not know. And although they know more than me, academics and researchers in various fields that study gender do not know, activists do not know. What we do know, at this point, is that this is all much more complicated than has traditionally been assumed. Biological sex, gender, sexuality are highly correlated but not fully determinate of each other — and none of them are as simple as simple binaries would have us believe.

The lived experience of transgender people challenges the traditional view that gender, sex, and sexuality are all the same thing. Like homosexuality did for sexuality, transgender people show us that gender and biological sex are separable. Furthermore, since these are not co-determined, the visions of gender that we are socialized to believe are not nearly flexible enough to describe reality.

If you run in more progressive circles, all of that is taken as a given. The challenge to the liberal view raised by transgender people is that gender does mean something. It is not merely a social construct. Gender is not a fluid idea that we can buy into or not. The specifics of how gender is expressed is a social construct. When individuals feel that they have a gender, however, they are not just falling prey to the stereotypes of society. They are expressing something that is deeply a part of what they are.

The previous paragraph should not be taken to mean that gender is a binary. Another thing transgender people are teaching us is that gender is much more complicated than male and female. Rather, the lesson is that nonbinary gender is not the same as our being neutral slates that society writes upon. This is something that progressives are still struggling with. For example, an occasional topic in parenting newsletters is gender neutral parenting. At its heart, this is the laudable idea that we should avoid gender stereotypes when raising children. However, sometimes it is presented as a way to try to neutralize the concept of gender expression, especially in children’s appearance and play. These same articles often discuss how such a parenting style can help children discover their true gender identity. Yet if gender is a fundamental part of us, then learning how it is expressed is an important part of our development (even if that expression is largely an arbitrary cultural artifact).

We cannot just blow away the concept of gender and attain a world where everyone is equal. Instead, we have to learn how to create a world where gender can meaningful but where it is not used as a proxy for ability or opportunity. This is a much harder problem. One where I feel, we have much to learn from our fellow humans who have been forced to figure out what this all means because the default settings were not the right ones for them.

(Note: “!=” is programmer speak for “not equal”.)

Originally published on Medium on March 19, 2018.

In my last essay, I noted that utility is a useful tool to have in our mental toolboxes when formalizing ethical rules. One assumption implicit in that essay what that we do, in fact, need to systematize rules. It is worth taking some time to explore that such a need is, in fact, non-obvious.

Rules do not normally motivate us to act. Humans do not look at the rules, weigh the cost and benefits of compliance or defiance, and decide what to do. Despite the popularity of homo economicus, humans are motivated by more than maximizing self-interest. We are influenced by our social context. As Mark Granovetter writes in his book Society and Economy: Framework and Principles:

Actors do not behave or decide as atoms outside a social context, nor do they adhere slavishly to a script written for them by the particular intersection of sociocultural categories they happen to occupy. Their attempts at purposive actions are instead embedded in concrete, ongoing systems of social relations. … In ongoing relations, human beings do not start fresh each day but carry the baggage of previous interactions into each new one.

We are influenced by other people, culture, politics, religion, and all the other institutions we interact with. These influences add up to a set of norms and values where, most of the time, we do what feels right, not what some analysis tells us is right.

The norms and values of groups are intimately intertwined with those of individuals. Individuals interact with each other. Repeated interactions in sufficiently dense networks give rise to norms about behavior. Morals, those norms that separate right from wrong, give rise to broader values about what defines the good in life and in society. Yet because people are embedded in social context, societal ethics is not merely the sum of the individual morals. Individual morals are shaped by the broader societal ethics and are enforced (usually informally) by the members of the networks we are embedded in.

Most of the time, this is good enough. Nearly all of the actions we take each day are influenced by informal norms, not by consciously deciding a course of action based on rules. When we do make decisions consciously, they feel wrong unless we align them with our internalized norms. When necessary, people will find ways to do this…often by finding a way to justify our own behavior as a special exception.

The organic emergence of norm and values does not work as well when we are designing systems which will influence the behavior of others. These systems of influence can be command oriented, such as the law. Such explicit rules are not the only, or best, way to influence behavior. In many cases, it works better to structure the choices people make. In their book, Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein call ways of influencing behavior not based on explicit rules choice architectures. The important thing to realize about influencing the behavior of others is that there is no neutral choice. It may not seem like it should, yet the way items are shelved at the grocery store influences behavior. It is also worth noting that we cannot get away from systems which influence our behavior. They include more than government programs and policies. Anytime someone makes a decision that influences the choices of others, they are a choice architect, although not necessarily an effective one.

Designed systems have an interesting relationship with norms and values. Sometimes they merely formalize existing values. Laws against murder formalize commonly held values against murder and set expectations about how violations of those values will be punished. Other designed systems create new norms, although not always intentionally. It use to be normal to only text someone after asking their permission. As more people switched to plans where they did not pay per text, the norm changed and now texting is something we assume we can do. Designed systems are least successful when they try to impose behaviors that conflict with existing norms. Homeless shelter policies often break up families because facilities often take women and children or men. As a result, homeless families may refuse services because the system design conflicts with the value they put on their family.

What these brief examples tell us is that we need to be aware of how behavioral systems interact with norms. Awareness is what is required, not honoring the norms. Sometimes the goal is to change norms, such as programs to reduce drug use and violence in urban youth. Even when change is the goal, programs and policies will only be effective if existing norms are understood. To change norms we must understand norms.

Another interesting connection between organic values and designed systems is that organically arising values do not aim to improve an explicit goal. Systems designed to influence behavior do (at least, they should). This includes the direct goal for the system (e.g., helping homeless families), but it also needs to include our broader sense of how the system influences the greater good. This good, however, is not some externally imposed system of values. It is derived from the organic norms and values that inform the target audience.

Utility still matters. An effective choice architect will explicitly think about how their system increases or decreases it. The relationship is more complicated than a straight forward application of utility to decide what rules to create or what actions to take. Without taking our norms and values into account, utility directed decisions will ring false, leading in the worse case to situations where making the “right” choice pits us against what we hold most dear. Instead, utility is better thought of as a way of comparing options when creating behavioral systems.

At this point, I have spent two essays not actually saying what I think utility is. Don’t panic, that‘s next! (Or, at least, next in this informal series. I reserve the right to get distracted.)

(Today’s title is inspired by an excellent example of social context influencing individual behavior, Bonnie Raitt’s Something To Talk About.)

Originally published on Medium on March 14, 2018.

I sum up my feelings about utilitarianism this way: utilitarianism is good ethics but bad morals.

First off, I need to clarify that the difference between morality and ethics is vague and inconsistent. This is one of those times where I’m artificially pushing two terms apart to make them easier to think about. For the most part, I use the terms interchangeably. The distinction I will focus on here is that “ethics is about society but morality is about you”[1].

If consequences could actually be predicted and values assigned, the idea of maximizing aggregate utility makes pretty good sense. When looking at things from a societal level, it often makes sense to analyze the consequences of the system in utilitarian terms. In this sense, utilitarianism is a good ethical theory. Under the surface, most ethical systems are either utilitarian or oracular. That is, they are either looking to increase some good or they come from some oracular source (usually the divine or evolution, both of which are problematic oracles, although for very different reasons). I do not mean to claim that everything is Utilitarianism-with-a-capital-U. Rather, that when we push hard on the “why?” of an ethical system, we can generally say that the reason is to enhance well being. Pinning down what that means is a much harder thing. So for the moment let’s leave aside exactly what utility is.

Since predicting effects and assigning values is not possible in practice — complex systems are inherently chaotic and unpredictable — it is not feasible to apply utilitarian thinking to individual moral choices. Acts have second, third, Nth order consequences that we cannot predict. Even worse, humans have consistent biases which make us bad at predicting consequences, and our assignment of utility tends to follow our biases about our friends and foes. In other words, we think we are better than we are, others are worse than they are, and acts that hurt those we like less damaging than acts that hurt those we dislike. I tend to be rather hard on variants of act utilitarianism for this reason. Maybe if we were perfectly fair oracles, we could make correct decisions based on utility. Sadly, we are not. This imperfection is also why I tend to categorically reject ends justifies means thinking, which has the same predictability failings as act utilitarianism while also ignoring the side effects that achieving a particular end may have.

We tend to do better with rule based systems where the rules are those that cause the right things to happen most of the time. We can justify these rules using utilitarian reasoning (e.g. rule utilitarianism variants). We can justify them on the basis of what makes a person good (e.g. virtue ethics). We can make the rules a matter of personal duty (à la Kant). There are as many ways of thinking about these rules as there are systems of ethics. The superiority of these systems over act utilitarianism is that they simplify decision making. Just follow the rules.

That seems to leave little room for utility in day-to-day decision making. Maybe the deep thinkers who try to understand what rules should be will spend time thinking about trade-offs in human flourishing. For the rest of us, we will just keep on doing as we are told.

Like that? I didn’t think so.

The problem with this view is that we do not want to have our personal moral rules handed to us by distant ethical thinkers. We may take some system, whether it be secular or religious, as a starting point, but when that system does not make sense to us, we should question it and tweak it to be meaningful for us. This is where utility becomes important again. If we are going to be creators of our own moral systems, and if we are going to work with others to try to influence the ethical systems of the society we live in, we need to be able to get down to the root of why one rule is better than another.

We also need to understand how to think in terms of utility because rule systems are never complete. They will never cover every situation. “Don’t lie” is a good rule in groups that need a general level of trust to function effectively. It is not useful when a lie can save your life. We need to understand that rules come with (usually implicit) contexts that define when they apply. In situations where that context does not apply, we will essentially be relying on act utilitarian style analysis to make a decision in the moment. We can then use that new experience to modify the old rules.

And that, at length, is why I think that utilitarianism is a valuable tool to have in our ethical toolkit even though it does not provide a useful guide to individual moral choices.

[1] Christopher Panza, PhD & Adam Potthast, PhD, Ethics For Dummies (Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2010), 10

Free as in speech or free as in…$5, please

Originally published on Medium on March 9, 2018.

Is it ever okay to refuse service to another person because doing so would violate your deeply held beliefs? There is certainly some point at which it is okay to refuse. It seems hard to argue that a person should be forced to participate in a ceremony that violates their beliefs.

Maybe that is the relevant distinction: a person cannot be physically forced to participate, but they cannot control how someone uses a thing they created. This seems intuitive. A seller should not be able to refuse selling an item because they disagree with how it should be used (nor do they have any right to know how it will be used). Yet this distinction does not feel quite right. If a buyer asks for a poem to be read at a ceremony, then the poet is, in a sense, being forced to participate in the ceremony. The words are not coming out of the poet’s mouth, but they are their words created for this ceremony. Maybe the distinction then, is based on how expressive the creation is. This gives a broad basis for a right of refusal. In the United States, what constitutes an act of protected speech has been interpreted broadly. A poem certainly counts as speech, but so do aspects of appearance, other creative acts, and more.

Yet relying on whether or not a particular creation should count as protected speech gets messy fast. A baker may have put a lot of thought and meaning and skill and effort into creating a cake that they sell straight off the shelf without any modification. Yet once created, it does not seem as if the baker can restrict who it can be sold to. Anyone can just waltz in and take it home. Conversely, if someone asks a baker to stick a cake topper on a Twinkie, that at least arguably seems like expressive speech despite the lack of creative value.

The obvious difference between these two examples is the timing. In the first case, the expressive labor was performed without any knowledge of how it would be used. In the second case, that knowledge was there. However, it seems wrong to say that timing alone is enough to turn a creative act from non-protected speech to protected speech. If that were the case, a creator could create a right of refusal merely by switching to just-in-time production. Whether or not free speech concerns pertain to a sale could vary based on whether or not the creator has recently run out of stock. These consequences seem ridiculous.

(As an aside, I feel like my daughter during storytelling. To stretch out bedtime, whenever I set up a solution to the problem set up in the plot, she interjects, “But that didn’t work!”)

It seems to me that what matters is whether or not the usage could be considered expressive and that expression seen as forced participation in something they may disapprove of.

To just briefly touch on the first requirement, I think that a use is likely to be expressive if (1) the creation itself is seen as the expression of the creator(s), not a company and(2) the use is an expression of the person who received the item or service. In other words, an expressive item put to a non-expressive use (a custom knife used to cut bread) or a non-expressive item put to an expressive use (a mass produced candle used in a wedding candle lighting ceremony) is not problematic. In particular, what matters is how the service or item will be used, not who will be using it. Sometimes the how and the who are hard to separate — most people by now will probably have figured out that lawsuits involving wedding services for gay couples inspired this train of thought — but it is important to note that, at least in theory, the two are different. Determining when (1) and (2) are met is non-trivial, but I will take as a given that they are fulfilled in the discussion bellow.

My focus, for the rest of this essay, is trying to determine when an expressive usage of an expressive item can be seen as forced participation. (Note that I talk mostly about items because services are often more clearly participation. However, the ideas below apply just as much to services as as items.)

There are two principles I want to preserve: items available for general sale should not come with a right of refusal, and a seller should not be able to create a right of refusal merely by shifting the time of creation. As the examples above illustrate, preserving these properties means that neither creation time nor the amount of work that went into the creation can be what matters. I propose that what matters is that the final form of an item was fundamentally created for a particular use — not because of timing but because the buyer’s requirements for the use helped determine the final form of the item ordered.

Let’s note how this distinction might make various people unhappy. Those who have an interest in preventing discrimination will likely be unhappy that this means that even small customizations can be refused — putting the cake topper on the Twinkie to go back to an earlier example. Those who have an interest in protecting people from participating in ceremonies they disapprove of will likely be unhappy that this could mean that a dressmaker or baker cannot refuse to sell to a couple if they were merely fulfilling an order from a fixed menu of choices.

Taking an item’s having been fundamentally created for a particular use as the relevant factor, how can we practically distinguish the cases where there is a right of refusal from ones where there are not? It is not based on time of creation. It is not based on what sort of thing is being created. It is not based on amount of effort or skill or creativity.

My proposal is that what matters is the form the order takes. Define a transactional sale as a sale where the item or service ordered is chosen from a fixed menu and the seller is expected to fulfill that order exactly as specified with no further input from the buyer. Note that this can include customized items if the customization menu is predefined. Define a commissional sale as a sale where the final form of the item or service purchased depends on a conversation between the buyer and the seller. Note that this conversation need not actually happen (the buyer could be happy with the default). All that matters is that the buyer had an opportunity to influence the final form of the item or service ordered that goes beyond choosing from a fixed menu. There is no right of refusal for transactional sales. There is a right of refusal for commissional sales (that also fulfill the other criteria mentioned above).

This definition is far from perfect, from anyone’s point of view. Some sales may fall into a grey area between these. In fact, I think that defining what really counts as a commission or not is a significant problem in its own right (should the cake topper on the Twinkie count?). At least this gives us a semantically meaningful way to classify different cases. This definition still allows situations that are less than desirable. For example, it can be hacked. Having a fixed menu of color choices would result in a transactional sale in this model. Offering the same set of color choices indirectly via a statement, “Other choices available upon request” would be commissional. On the other side of the debate, this definition allows someone to transactionally buy an item whose creator is readily identifiable and use it in a ceremony the creator would refuse to participate in. The buyer can even make it a core part of their ceremony to identify the creator, if they so desire. (This might seem unrealistic. If the item in question is, say, a dress, “I’m wearing a Minnie Mouse creation” strikes us as rather too shallow for a meaningful ceremony. A small modification, such as naming the author of a passage read in the ceremony, makes it more realistic.)

Still, this gets rid of the impact of arbitrary differences in timing. It does not require judgment of where the threshold of expressive vs non-expressive creation lies (although I suspect that there is a correlation and expressive creation is more likely to be offered commissionally than non-expressive creation).

Compared to the ideas tried at the start, this division more directly captures the intuition that it is forced participation that makes it reasonable to sometimes allow a right of refusal in a commercial context. A commissional order, an order that was created through a conversation, is a type of participation in an activity the seller finds morally abhorrent. In a transactional order, the item may be used in a way the seller would object to, but they themselves never were made to participate.

Plus, an idea that makes everyone a little unhappy is more likely to be right than one that makes everyone happy, right? (I kid!)

(Note: The title is an allusion to the common open source distinction between free as in speech or free as in beer. And, because you need random children’s show trivia, wearing a Minnie Mouse creation comes from the episode of Minnie’s Bow-Toons where Penelope Poodle visits Minnie’s Bowtique.)

Credit where credit is due: The core of these ideas were developed in a discussion hosted by Christof Harper on Google+. This in no way implies that he endorses these ideas. The views contained are solely my own.

Originally written and shared on Facebook in October 2016.

I was — and am still — uncertain about sharing this.

Today I picked up baby Flora’s remains. 23 days ago I had an abortion at 22 weeks. 37 days ago, I learned my baby had almost no brain.

For two weeks, I weighed the balance between the life of my much wanted and much loved little girl against the suffering that life would bring.

What it would really be like to have a child that may never be self aware? Would my child, as an adult, be neglected and abused when I was no longer there to protect her? Would she experience sexual abuse because a child’s mind in a woman’s body is an easy target? Would I be able to live through a pregnancy constantly wondering if my beloved baby would die?

I wished against my deepest desires that my sweet darling would die soon to take the choice away from me. I hoped one of the doctors would utter the phrase “incompatible with life” to get rid of the uncertainties.

My husband and I thought through many scenarios and the impact that this baby, if she even lived, would have on our first daughter, on our marriage, on him, on our financial stability, and least of all, on myself. We had only unknown probabilities and most likely scenarios based on sparse and imprecise data. I do not even have the comfort of knowing that my baby’s life, if she had survived to birth, would have certainly brought mostly hardship and pain; I can only say that such an outcome was most likely.

Until you’ve thought through these types of scenarios, not in the abstract but as a choice you have to make — and make quickly — you probably won’t understand how heartbreaking it is. Every angle I took on the problem — emotional or rational, focused on the baby or on our family — led to the same conclusion: the most loving and compassionate thing we could do is let her go.

Some might yell at me for using a euphemism, “let her go”. They might tell me to say what I mean — terminate my baby, abort my baby, kill my baby, murder my baby. These terms hurt. They hurt not because I feel guilt but because I hated having to make this choice at all. But as much as it hurts, none of the guilt you throw at me hurts as much as the pain of choosing for my baby to die.

Late term abortion is a terrible thing, and it is most terrible to the parents who have to make these heartbreaking choices. We have to make the terrible decision about where to draw the line between life and death. We won’t all draw the line in the same place, but it’s better to have parents draw this line, parents who for the most part will try to draw the line as much in favor of life as they possibly can, than to have it be drawn by politicians and bureaucrats based on what will win the most votes.

Originally published on LiveJournal in August 2009. Lightly edited from the original.

Pt 1: Introduction

This is the first in a 10 part series on “Caritas in veritate”.

Pope Benedict XVI recently* released an encyclical letter titled “Caritas in veritate” (charity in truth). Mainstream media ignored most of the encyclical, focusing mostly on the Pope’s call for a true world government. The document contains much more than that.

* Well, it was recent when I started writing these essays…

I am not Catholic. I do not believe in any god. Still, I believe that this document deserves better coverage. The Pope holds one of the few global leadership positions where he can have thoughts that do not fit in a sound bite without fearing he will be disposed of in the next election. As such, this encyclical contains a deeper and more subtle analysis of our economic problems than most analyses.

This document still comes from the Catholic Church. As such, it contains much that I disagree with. This first part of my analysis presents the issues that I intentionally ignore. I disagree with the Catholic Church on abortion, euthanasia, biological research, and marriage. I likewise ignore assertions about what this encyclical means for the behavior of Catholics except in so far as such assertions can validly be generalized to all people. Religious analogies for explaining concepts hold little relevance to me.

I completely and intentionally reject the validity of repeated claims that charity, truth, love, goodness, virtue, and ethics belong only to those who believe in a god. I find these claims ignorant and insulting.

However, I cannot start my analysis without briefly expressing my anger over this encyclical’s treatment of atheism and secular culture. Even ignoring the underlying assumptions that good comes from a deity, this document still makes claims that should outrage any atheist. In particular, I quote the following from section 78, the first of two concluding sections.

ideological rejection of God and an atheism of indifference, oblivious to the Creator and at risk of becoming equally oblivious to human values, constitute some of the chief obstacles to development today.

Of all the dangers to stability and peace, the only one emphasized in the conclusion is disbelief. It serves only to perpetuate useless and false stereotypes of non-believers.

I will say no more about these issues. Instead, I will spend the rest of this series analyzing the interesting ideas presented throughout the encyclical letter “Caritas in veritate”.

As a final note, I sometimes use examples to illustrate points in the encyclical. These examples all come from the U.S. Do not take this as a reflection on the content of the encyclical. The choice of examples reflects my experience. The encyclical itself does not focus on the U.S. or any other single country or region.

Pt 2: Subsidiarity and solidarity

To understand “Caritas in veritate” you must understand “subsidiarity” and “solidarity”. These concepts set the context for many of the judgments and proposals in the encyclical. For example, news stories about the encyclical often mentioned the Pope’s call for a strong international authority. This call cannot be understood without knowledge of subsidiarity and solidarity.

To quote from section 38, “[s]olidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone”. A key consequence of this is that solidarity is a personal responsibility as well as a responsibility of the State. (I will cover the importance of personal responsibility at greater length in a later post.)

At first glance, solidarity seems important only because it fulfills abstract ideas of fairness and global fraternity. The importance of these aspects should not be undervalued, but the encyclical gives solidarity a stronger role. Solidarity is set up as a key element of relations within and between countries. Solidarity underlies stable long-term development. In section 7, we see the following:

Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good.

Solidarity is a key feature of living in a society. As our society expands — from the tribal to the national to the global — we must expand our circle of solidarity to maintain the stability of society.

Solidarity generalizes the need to take care of and help our families and friends and extends it to all people. Superficially, it seems easy to achieve. In practice, it often devolves into powerful people or nations imposing their will upon those who are weaker.

Subsidiarity is another key concept in understanding the encyclical. Section 57 defines subsidiarity as “first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person via the autonomy of intermediate bodies … offered when individuals or groups are unable to accomplish something on their own.” Later in the same passage, the Pope goes on to say that “subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state.” From an institutional level, subsidiarity can be seen as the principle that all tasks should be given to the smallest and most localized group that is able to achieve them. Under the principle of subsidiarity, power should be given first to the individual who may then turn to larger groups when they feel the need (groups which may, in turn, choose to turn to even larger groups).

I want to raise, but not discuss at greater length, an issue with this interpretation of subsidiarity that is not brought up in the encyclical. There may be times when an entity, whether individual or group, believes itself to be competent to complete a task but is not actually competent (e.g., parents who believe they can decide that immunizations are not necessary for their children). Deciding when to override the entity is a difficult question.

Subsidiarity is key to maintaining the delicate balance between civic, state, and international power. As such it should be considered a useful concept even outside of the context of this encyclical letter. Subsidiarity is my new favorite concept and has, in fact, informed many of my opinions in the ongoing health care debate (but that is its own post).

Pt 3: Charity and truth

Given the title, charity and truth — charity in truth — are key to understanding the encyclical. The document revolves around the relationship between charity and truth and how that relationship can and should manifest itself in social, economic, and political spheres. In the encyclical, both charity and truth possess Christian meanings that go beyond the common meanings of the words. Even without that additional layer, charity in truth can form the basis of how the world reshapes itself in these economic times.

Neither charity nor truth stands on its own. In section 2 we read that charity without truth is “emptied of meaning, with the consequent risk of being misinterpreted, detached from ethical living and, in any event, undervalued” and in section 3, “[w]ithout truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality”. In section 30 we read “[c]harity does not exclude knowledge, but rather requires, promotes, and animates it from within.” Charity requires truth to reach its full potential.

When we understand truth with charity, “we also help give credibility to truth, demonstrating its persuasive and authenticating power in the practical setting of social living”. Knowledge without love puts society into a mindset that social problems should be understood as technical problems which can be solved with algorithmic solutions without considering the unique human element inherent in all human problems.

Charity should not be viewed as viewed as an add-on that we can only indulge in once we have reached a certain point of stability. Charity, like its closely related cousin solidarity, must be an intrinsic part of moving forward with global and individual development.

The vital interdependence of charity in truth and truth in charity creates balance. Although the mapping is imperfect, I can perceive many similarities between “charity and truth” and “love and knowledge”, “intuition and reason”, “being and doing”, and “art and technology”. The first element and second elements appear as separate poles. Society usually considers the second aspect more important, the one needed to get things done. But neither aspect alone is enough. Each pair requires balance to avoid ineffective and damaging extremes, whether for individuals or societies.

Charity. Truth. Most people take as a given the insufficiency of charity alone, and I believe our global political and economic problems show the insufficiency of truth alone. Perhaps now is the time to seize the opportunity to reconcile the two and work towards a future where charity and truth balance and inform each other.

Pt 4: Rights and duties

The encyclical briefly discusses many topics that fill the role of interesting but non-vital background information. Understanding those background topics affects one’s interpretation of the more concrete proposals in the rest of the encyclical, but the basic gist of those proposals can be understood without that background.

As such, I will focus on the secondary background topic that I found most interesting. The discussion of rights and duties does not meet the standards of primary background information. However, it does provide some useful insights

The encyclical summarizes the relationship between rights and duties in section 43.

Many people today would claim that they owe nothing to anyone, except to themselves. They are concerned only with their rights, and they often have great difficulty in taking responsibility for their own and other people’s integral development. Hence it is important to call for a renewed reflection on how rights presuppose duties, if they are not to become mere licence. [emphasis in the original, here and throughout, unless noted otherwise]

I consider this a fair criticism of modern attitudes. Certainly, U.S. mainstream media and political dialog gives a lot of air time to rights and almost ignores duties. Discussion of civic duty has fallen out of popularity. “owe nothing to anyone, expect to yourself” could be the motto for American business practice.

Rights presuppose duties. First, I want to make clear this does not mean that only people deemed “responsible” deserve rights. Throughout the encyclical, human rights are a good to aspire to, regardless of the duties fulfilled or ignored by those given the rights. As one of many examples, in section 27 we read that food and water should be considered “as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination” (emphasis removed).

Why should rights be linked to duties? Rights without duties become meaningless; they become “mere license”. From 43:

individual rights, when detached from a framework of duties which grants them their full meaning, can run wild, leading to an escalation of demands which is effectively unlimited and indiscriminate.

Without duties, the claim goes, there is no limit to what constitutes a right. Without duty, citizens will not differentiate fundamental rights from granted privileges. Certainly, this rings true for modern American culture where nearly everything has been claimed as a right by someone. Linking rights to duties limits what one claims as a right because of the knowledge that additional rights lead to additional duties.

A concrete example may help. In the U.S. we have a right to free speech. Legally, we have the right to say anything we want in a public forum because the founders believed that free speech acts as a cornerstone to a vibrant democracy. However, without the duty to use speech responsibly, free speech becomes meaningless. The noise drowns out the signal. To maintain the value of our freedoms, we must use them responsibly. “Duties thereby reinforce rights and call for their defense and promotion as a task to be undertaken in the service of the common good” (43).

Duties promote rights in the service of the common good. But why should we care about the common good? Are the many who “would claim that they owe nothing to anyone” right? Perhaps they are if they live without the benefits of society. From 7:

Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. … To take a stand for the common good is on the one hand to be solicitous for, and on the other hand to avail oneself of, that complex of institutions that give structure to the life of society, juridically, civilly, politically and culturally

People derive benefits from living in society. The benefits cease if society degrades, and working for the common good maintains society. The system contains enough flexibility to survive when some citizens ignore the rights and duties that support the common good, but it will fall apart without the support of its citizens.

The encyclical mentions many rights from the rights of workers to the right to water. However, it should be understood that these are claims for rights backed by duties, not entitlements.

Pt 5: Globalization

From this point, I will focus on some of the meaty topics discussed in the encyclical. I would like to note that I use only a fraction of what I found interesting. I encourage you to visit the original.

Nations depend on each other more than in the past; this trend will continue. Globalization can be viewed from many perspectives: humanity in general, governments, business, and individuals. This essay covers the first of those perspectives.

Globalization creates both challenges and opportunities. There has been an

explosion of worldwide interdependence, commonly known as globalization. … It has been the principal driving force behind the emergence from underdevelopment of whole regions, and in itself it represents a great opportunity. Nevertheless, without the guidance of charity in truth, this global force could cause unprecedented damage and create new divisions within the human family. (33)

Globalization creates opportunities and increases standards of living, but it also has negative consequences such as exploitative international labor relationships.

Some might claim that we cannot avoid the negative consequences, that globalization is “the product of anonymous impersonal forces or structures independent of the human will” (42). However, globalization is more than a socio-economic process. “[I]t is made up of individuals and peoples to whom this process should offer benefits and development” (42). The process we call globalization arises from many individual actions all of which are focused, ultimately, on achieving some good for someone. As such, we retain the right to evaluate the process of globalization and reject the claim that it cannot be controlled.

Another false belief is that globalization requires the homogenization of culture. For people to interact globally, they must adopt a single shared culture. Usually, the assumption implicit in this belief is that such a culture would be a primarily Western culture. However, some passages in the encyclical lead me to believe the opposite. Not only is a global dialog based on homogenization of culture damaging to culture. It is unworkable.

Today the possibilities of interaction between cultures have increased significantly, giving rise to new openings for intercultural dialogue: a dialogue that, if it is to be effective, has to set out from a deep-seated knowledge of the specific identity of the various dialogue partners. (26)

Often this “deep-seated knowledge” of other cultures is ignored in global conversations, especially those mediated by popular culture. This leads to the exchange of caricatured impressions and an “us versus them” mentality on the part of those who feel that their culture is threatened by globalization. Often this resentment is directed toward the United States because it exports so much popular culture, but it also shows up in the U.S. toward other nations and culture; for example, “patriotic” resentment of things that are seen as un-American.

“As society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbors but does not make us brothers” (19). Globalization does not automatically solve the problem of helping people get along with each other. That understanding can only come from a sincere sharing of culture and background. Instead of viewing globalization as an uncontrollable, homogenizing force, we must take responsibility for it.

We should not be [globalization’s] victims, but rather its protagonists, acting in the light of reason, guided by charity and truth. Blind opposition would be a mistaken and prejudiced attitude, incapable of recognizing the positive aspects of the process, with the consequent risk of missing the chance to take advantage of its many opportunities for development. (42)

Pt 6: Globalization and the state

The previous essay contains a call for us to be the protagonists of globalization rather than its victims. But what group defines “us”? Although globalization may be the responsibility of humanity in general, most individuals have little direct control over the process. Businesses and governments mediate an individual’s contribution to the process of globalization. Today’s essay explores the role of nations in the process of globalization.

If you read any mainstream media coverage of the encyclical, you probably are familiar with the encyclical’s call for a strong world government. Sadly — but not surprisingly — mainstream media reports of this fact failed to present the background from which this claim is made.

Globalization has changed the role of the state. From 24,

In our own day, the State finds itself having to address the limitations to its sovereignty imposed by the new context of international trade and finance, which is characterized by increasing mobility both of financial capital and means of production, material and immaterial. This new context has altered the political power of States.

Commentators on the role of government often neglect this fundamental idea. Although recent years may have seen, in many countries, an increase in the power of the state over individuals, state power over businesses and financial markets has decreased as those players gain the ability to choose the global location most favorable to their needs (usually their short-term profit needs). (2018 comment: I see shades of Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century here.)

In light of this change, governments should re-evaluate their roles. From section 24 again:

Today, as we take to heart the lessons of the current economic crisis, which sees the State’s public authorities directly involved in correcting errors and malfunctions, it seems more realistic to re-evaluate their role and their powers, which need to be prudently reviewed and remodelled so as to enable them, perhaps through new forms of engagement, to address the challenges of today’s world.

The problems facing the global economy come from systemic underlying problems. The band-aid fixes applied by governments might be better than doing nothing, but they do not really fix anything. Fixing those problems will require a rethinking of the role and responsibility of government.

Greater economic interdependence can be seen as removing one of the primary roles of the state: mediating international cooperation (or lack thereof). The encyclical does not support such a view. From 41:

we must also promote a dispersed political authority, effective on different levels. The integrated economy of the present day does not make the role of States redundant, but rather it commits governments to greater collaboration with one another. Both wisdom and prudence suggest not being too precipitous in declaring the demise of the State. In terms of the resolution of the current crisis, the State’s role seems destined to grow

Individual governments will continue to exist, but they must cooperate with one another to deal with the challenges of a global economy.

More than economic concerns feed into the need for increased international collaboration and cooperation. Nations depend on each other for stability as well as economic benefits. For example, from 24, “the elimination of world hunger has also, in the global era, become a requirement for safeguarding the peace and stability of the planet.” Hunger, water shortages, and other problems which previously impacted a nation now impact the world.

How should world governments change in response to global changes? This will vary by the needs of each region. From 41:

The State does not need to have identical characteristics everywhere: the support aimed at strengthening weak constitutional systems can easily be accompanied by the development of other political players, of a cultural, social, territorial or religious nature, alongside the State. The articulation of political authority at the local, national and international levels is one of the best ways of giving direction to the process of economic globalization. It is also the way to ensure that it does not actually undermine the foundations of democracy.

The nature of the State may vary from region-to-region. Different regions have different needs even as they become more dependent on each other. A stable developing region has different needs than an unstable developing region or a stable developed region.

The evolution of the State can benefit from the development and evolution of entities outside the government. We should not depend solely on government-to-government aid, especially in areas where the government suffers from weakness or instability.

Finally, political authority should be articulated “at the local, national, and international levels”. No level of government removes the need for the others. This comes back to the principle of subsidiarity. Political power belongs at the lowest level that can accomplish the desired task, so there will always be a need for local authority. However, the local level lacks the resources to accomplish some tasks, so there is a need for an additional level of government. As global interdependence increases, the same tension exists between national and international centers of authority.

This brings us to the most talked about part of the encyclical: the call for a single world government. Clearly, by this point, we see that this does not indicate a desire for the destruction of nations. But the Pope does make a strong call. From 67:

In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization[.] … To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority. … Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights. [emphasis removed, there was a lot of it]

I quoted a long passage (and that’s only part of it!), but the passage provides the key to understanding the encyclical’s vision of the evolution of global governance. Because so many problems are beyond the control of a single nation, nations need to come together to solve these problems, but they must come together in such a way as to vest the international organization with true authority. However, this international organization needs to rely on the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity so as not to overreach its bounds.

Although I do not know how such an authority would come into being, the encyclical does clearly make the case that current national governments are not structured to be able to deal with the new challenges that arise from increased global interdependence. This does not indicate the obsolescence of national governments, but rather a need for restructuring where some powers will be pushed down and others will be pushed up, all based on the needs and resources at different levels of authority.

Pt 7: Globalization and business

The encyclical letter’s harshest criticisms are reserved for business. Businesses forget that they ultimately exist to benefit humanity. Profit in its own right serves no purpose. From 21:

Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end that provides a sense both of how to produce it and how to make good use of it. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.

Focusing exclusively on profit destroys wealth rather than creating it. This is ultimately because a system that focuses on profit rather than value eventually wastes human creativity. From 32:

Economic science tells us that structural insecurity generates anti-productive attitudes wasteful of human resources, inasmuch as workers tend to adapt passively to automatic mechanisms, rather than to release creativity. On this point too, there is a convergence between economic science and moral evaluation. Human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs.

Both economic and moral imperatives provide motivation to focus on the creation of real value rather than the maximization of profit.

Profit maximization dominates economic thinking because we can measure it easily. This creates problems because it increases the temptation to optimize for that which is only a proxy for value. In the long run, this reduction causes harm.

It should be remembered that the reduction of cultures to the technological dimension, even if it favours short-term profits, in the long term impedes reciprocal enrichment and the dynamics of cooperation. … the human consequences of current tendencies towards a short-term economy — sometimes very short-term — need to be carefully evaluated. This requires further and deeper reflection on the meaning of the economy and its goals, as well as a profound and far-sighted revision of the current model of development, so as to correct its dysfunctions and deviations. (32)

How can we affect changes in the global economic system? The common answers provide part of the solution: transparency, consumer education, responsibility, competition, etc. However, the encyclical makes additional observations on how to change.

We must abandon

the conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from “influences” of a moral character [which] has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way. (34)

Some would see this as a radical departure from capitalism. If capitalism exists only to maximize profit then this is true. However, if a capitalist market exists to maximize value, it must account for all sources of value, including moral influences. Consumers place value on values and businesses will serve consumers better if they make moral values a core part of their mission instead of an add-on.

The foundational moral value businesses must respect is justice. Many businesses neglect justice by engaging in unfair labor practices. However,

justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with man and his needs. Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications. … the canons of justice must be respected from the outset, as the economic process unfolds, and not just afterwards or incidentally. (37)

Values play an integral role in the business process. Treating them as an add on may produce a veneer of justice, but like all veneers, its penetration will be shallow.

Finance must abandon its claim to be a good in and of itself. Finance and the economy have value as tools. They can work well, but they contain no inherent value. Finance

needs to go back to being an instrument directed towards improved wealth creation and development. Insofar as they are instruments, the entire economy and finance, not just certain sectors, must be used in an ethical way so as to create suitable conditions for human development and for the development of peoples. (65)

Protecting a broken economy might provide value in the short term, but in the long term, such broken systems must be rebuilt not taped together. Part of this rebuilding depends on recognizing that broken tools should be replaced.

Finally, business attitudes must change. Profit must be removed from its position of an inherent good, to be pursued even at the cost of real values and principles. From 65:

the intention to do good must not be considered incompatible with the effective capacity to produce goods. Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers. Right intention, transparency, and the search for positive results are mutually compatible and must never be detached from one another.

Clearly, these changes cannot happen overnight. Governments cannot regulate a fundamental respect of justice. Businesses that ignore justice for the sake of profit exist and will continue to do so. However, both governments and individuals can take actions to encourage the growth of businesses that want to achieve both justice and profit. More on that tomorrow.

Pt 8: The changing economy

What is needed, therefore, is a market that permits the free operation, in conditions of equal opportunity, of enterprises in pursuit of different institutional ends. Alongside profit-oriented private enterprise and the various types of public enterprise, there must be room for commercial entities based on mutualist principles and pursuing social ends to take root and express themselves. … Charity in truth, in this case, requires that shape and structure be given to those types of economic initiative which, without rejecting profit, aim at a higher goal than the mere logic of the exchange of equivalents, of profit as an end in itself. (38)

In theory, nothing blocks the creation of a business that tries to make a profit without abandoning justice. However, such businesses face difficulties. From 40:

Without doubt, one of the greatest risks for businesses is that they are almost exclusively answerable to their investors, thereby limiting their social value. Owing to their growth in scale and the need for more and more capital, it is becoming increasingly rare for business enterprises to be in the hands of a stable director who feels responsible in the long term, not just the short term, for the life and the results of his company, and it is becoming increasingly rare for businesses to depend on a single territory. Moreover, the so-called outsourcing of production can weaken the company’s sense of responsibility towards the stakeholders — namely the workers, the suppliers, the consumers, the natural environment and broader society — in favour of the shareholders, who are not tied to a specific geographical area and who therefore enjoy extraordinary mobility. Today’s international capital market offers great freedom of action. Yet there is also increasing awareness of the need for greater social responsibility on the part of business.

Companies have difficulty making a large impact without external investors. But our current economic system values these investors more than other stakeholders and assumes (often but not always rightly) that external stakeholders want to maximize profits. This and the shifting identity of investors causes a focus on short-term profits which can hinder traditional companies and destroy companies that want to have multiple goals.

Rejecting investment would be a simple answer to this dilemma. However, investment is necessary for growth, and companies that do not grow will be shut out. Individuals, businesses, and governments should work to encourage modes of investment which, while still concerned with profit, do not require maximization of profit. As the quote above points out, one risk that prevents this is that businesses are answerable to their investors but not other stakeholders (other stakeholders who are, in fact, the ones that give a business real value, the workers, clients, suppliers, and surrounding community). Such an obvious misalignment of incentives can only cause problems.

Clearly, the simple distinction between “non-profit” and “profit-maximizing” does not describe the broad spectrum of business activity business owners want to engage in. “[T]he traditionally valid distinction between profit-based companies and non-profit organizations can no longer do full justice to reality, or offer practical direction for the future.” (46) Economic change has already begun.

In recent decades a broad intermediate area has emerged between the two types of enterprise. It is made up of traditional companies which nonetheless subscribe to social aid agreements in support of underdeveloped countries, charitable foundations associated with individual companies, groups of companies oriented towards social welfare, and the diversified world of the so-called “civil economy” and the “economy of communion”. This is not merely a matter of a “third sector”, but of a broad new composite reality embracing the private and public spheres, one which does not exclude profit, but instead considers it a means for achieving human and social ends. Whether such companies distribute dividends or not, whether their juridical structure corresponds to one or other of the established forms, becomes secondary in relation to their willingness to view profit as a means of achieving the goal of a more humane market and society. (46)

The economic world is changing. What is required now is that markets and governance of those markets change accordingly.

In summary,

business enterprise involves a wide range of values, becoming wider all the time. The continuing hegemony of the binary model of market-plus-State has accustomed us to think only in terms of the private business leader of a capitalistic bent on the one hand, and the State director on the other. In reality, business has to be understood in an articulated way. (41)

As individuals, we need to encourage our governments to be flexible in the face of changing economic realities and encourage them not to just prop up failing representatives of the old order.

Pt 9: Individuals and the economy

Profit maximization has not only led to unsustainable business practices, it has also led to instability and uncertainty for individuals. Since innovation ultimately builds on top of individuals feeling like they have the ability to take chances, an increase in uncertainty is troubling.

This insecurity partially arises from the increased mobility of labor.

The mobility of labour, associated with a climate of deregulation, is an important phenomenon with certain positive aspects, because it can stimulate wealth production and cultural exchange. Nevertheless, uncertainty over working conditions caused by mobility and deregulation, when it becomes endemic, tends to create new forms of psychological instability, giving rise to difficulty in forging coherent life-plans, including that of marriage. (25)

Jobs that may disappear in a year do not provide a stable basis on which to make long-term plans. Such uncertainty adversely affects individuals; it represents a loss of human potential.

Being out of work or dependent on public or private assistance for a prolonged period undermines the freedom and creativity of the person and his family and social relationships, causing great psychological and spiritual suffering. I would like to remind everyone, especially governments engaged in boosting the world’s economic and social assets, that the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity: “Man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life”. (25)

People should be the ultimate focus of social and economic life. Policies, both government and business, should take human potential into account when making decisions. When we lose track of the idea that society exists for people we suffer from the systemic problems we see in the global economy today.

Often the development of peoples is considered a matter of financial engineering, the freeing up of markets, the removal of tariffs, investment in production, and institutional reforms — in other words, a purely technical matter. All these factors are of great importance, but we have to ask why technical choices made thus far have yielded rather mixed results. We need to think hard about the cause. Development will never be fully guaranteed through automatic or impersonal forces, whether they derive from the market or from international politics. Development is impossible without upright men and women, without financiers and politicians whose consciences are finely attuned to the requirements of the common good. (71)

In addition to technical means, there must be an increased focus on the rights of workers. In addition to ensuring that workers can be part of effective unions, businesses need to try to provide value to all their stakeholders — “the workers, the suppliers, the consumers, the natural environment and broader society” (40).

From the point of view of the individual, everyone should have access to work that is decent.

What is meant by the word “decent” in regard to work? It means work that expresses the essential dignity of every man and woman in the context of their particular society: work that is freely chosen, effectively associating workers, both men and women, with the development of their community; work that enables the worker to be respected and free from any form of discrimination; work that makes it possible for families to meet their needs and provide schooling for their children, without the children themselves being forced into labour; work that permits the workers to organize themselves freely, and to make their voices heard; work that leaves enough room for rediscovering one’s roots at a personal, familial and spiritual level; work that guarantees those who have retired a decent standard of living. (63)

Work that meets these conditions can provide a sound basis for a sustainable economy, one that builds around true value, not quick profit. If all workers cannot achieve this standard of decency then the economy is failing us no matter how much profit it might make.

For this to come about, individuals must use their power as consumers.

[T]he consumer has a specific social responsibility, which goes hand-in- and with the social responsibility of the enterprise. Consumers should be continually educated regarding their daily role, which can be exercised with respect for moral principles without diminishing the intrinsic economic rationality of the act of purchasing. (66)

Consumers are an essential part of a market economy, and if they do not desire change then change will not occur.

Global economic growth has created opportunities for those who have lacked opportunities, but it has also increased more uncertainty into the lives of individuals. Instability has made it harder to focus on the long-term, integral human development requires such an ability.

Pt 10: Conclusion

The growth of for-profit non-profit-maximizing businesses must be encouraged both by friendly regulatory environments and consumer support. Business owners should be given the opportunity to build businesses that are in line with their long-term values without suffering due to regulations that favor investors over other stakeholders. There should be a focus on providing work that is decent.

This is a lot to ask. No group can make change happen on its own. However, there are some promising signs. The variety of business is growing. Businesses are finding ways to be innovative even now. Consumers are starting to care about more than just cost in some areas. The growth of the sustainability and fair trade movements illustrates this. Now we need to keep up the momentum both as individuals and as a society.

The encyclical explores many other topics that I have neglected. Essays I considered adding to this series but didn’t include reflections on the environment, food and agriculture, energy, economic aid, immigration and migrant workers, and technology. Given the amount I had to say about the things I do agree with, I chose not to discuss the areas where I disagree with the Pope’s evaluation.

Even without those additions, the key theme of the encyclical, “charity in truth” still shines through. Many of the global systems that developed to make life better for individuals now makes life worse for many (sometimes most) of the people on the planet. These systems have reduced the human element to models and facts which, while useful as tools, prove harmful when they replace the consideration of individuals and their needs. Charity should not be limited to personal interactions. It must, hand in hand with truth, provide the basis of all interactions at all levels.