Moral Musings

I am currently reading a book called Freakenomics by very distinct and interesting individuals. We often believe that economy is seperate from morality, but any aspect of human life is touched by the belief in the way we should behave. He provided an example of a business man who brought in bagles to local offices, left them in the staff room, and left the money box beside it. People were asked to pay for taking the bagles, but no one was really watching if they did it. The result was that he made a tidy profit and the majority of people actually did pay. He also found that in smaller offices, with fewer employees the pay rate and theft rate were markedly smaller. His argument is that in smaller offices more people would know who you are and you would like to maintain appearance so you steal less.

This touches on my own observation of individuals. I would argue that there are few truly "evil" or "good" people. Instead people are driven by insentives. This means that a corrupt society would produce a larger number of corrupt individuals, because the incentives to be corrupt are more prevalent. Moralist tend to have problems with this arguement because it means people respond to incentives rather then an imperative to act in a "good" manner. If on the other hand you assume people are not evil or good, but rather simply are, then I see it as a hopeful situation. If moralists are correct then those born good are good and those born bad are bad, no real room to change. If a moralist would turn to you and say that of course people can change, then they are not fundamentally anything. If they then say that people are naturally good and evil is a product of society, then how did good people develop such an evil society. Moralist cannot provide conclusive evidence about human nature, because there are to many variables to being human.

If they can't provide evidence, then why do I think I can? Rest assured that I cannot provide conclusive evidence either, just a convincing argument. There are countless examples of humans acting in their own self-interest and (despite what many pessimist might suggest) there are many examples of altruistic behavior. This suggests to me that people have the capacity for both types of behavior. It also suggest that they are enclined to neither moral extreme. To put a quick end to a long thought I would say we must get out of this idea of right and wrong for they are metaphysical concerns, rather worry about mundane, earthly matters for those are the things that will kill us.