Why Can't We All Just Get Along? The Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality — Robert Wright

If you put Greene’s findings in general form—human “reasoning” is sometimes more about gut feeling than about logic—they are part of a wave of behavioral-science research that in recent years has raised doubts about how much trust your brain deserves. The best-seller lists have featured such books as Predictably Irrational, by the Duke psychologist Dan Ariely, and Thinking, Fast and Slow, in which the Princeton psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman covers acres of research into humanity’s logical ineptitude.

But there’s a difference between this work and Greene’s work. Ariely and Kahneman spend lots of time in their books on financial and other mundane decisions, whereas Greene is focusing on moral matters....

It's beyond the scope of this comment since the literature on this has along history extending back millennia. Recent findings in science, in particular biology — evolutionary theory and cognitive science, for example — as well as psychology — behavioral economics, for instance — clarify but do not resolve the debate. 

What is clear is that human rationality is not the only factor in decision making and behavior. Therefore, assuming "rational maximization" of "preferences" is not justified by fact.

As Keynes noted, economics is not a natural science but rather a "moral science." The human condition has to be taken into account, of which evolutionary influences must be taken into account along other factors in analyzing relationships of humans each other and with the environment. This relationship structure is not fixed and "natural," but rather it is historical and dynamic. It is also key in a complex adaptive system in which reflexivity and emergence are factors.

This implies that a data-based approach to analysis that takes these factors into account will outperform an intuitive approach based on natural regularities as the basis of a formal system. Behavioral economists have already pointed this out.

There is also the influence of "moral" factors. The "trolley problem" comes up in economics in terms of tradeoffs, for example. Some of these tradeoffs involve assigning a monetary value to an individual live based, for instance, on lifetime earning power. This presents is own moral issues similar to the trolley problem. If "money" is regarded as a scarce commodity, as conventional economics assumes, then policy choices will involve assumed tradeoffs that don't actually apply. The argument that efficiency trumps effectiveness then breaks down. The actual tradeoff is in terms of real resources that are available to be brought to bear.

The moral issue is a huge issue that is generally ignored in economics, and approaches to economics that incorporate it are marginalized by conventional economics, which assumes that economic liberalism should be dominant over social and political liberalism, and that morality should be ruled out in science since it is not naturalistic.

But conventional economics is about human choice, and choices are influence by value other that only economic value, humans being social animals and moral animals rather than economic animals.

The Atlantic
Why Can't We All Just Get Along? The Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality

Robert Wright

See also

Fast Company
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