Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart Read online

  Enlightened self-interest is the idea that prioritizing your own concerns can lead you to behave in a way that is moral or beneficial for society.4 A simple example of this is cooperation. Cooperation is often cited as a basic form of moral behavior since it requires treating other people with respect and consideration. Cooperative action can be a way for someone to maximize his or her own self-interest. For example, if Pete has a close friend who asks for his help moving into his new apartment, Pete may decide to help because his friend will be more likely to return that help someday. That’s enlightened self-interest.

  A formal development of this mechanism is found in the study of “game theory.” Game theory demonstrates that in certain situations, individuals pursuing self-interest in a group environment will choose to cooperate with others to get the best outcome for themselves. It turns out that individuals often fare better in a community of interdependent people than in one in which it’s every man for himself.

  The study of game theory often involves simplified social experiments in which people play various “games” in a lab setting. The behavior of the subjects is monitored while they interact with other people (or a computer program) in situations with predefined rules. A typical example is the ultimatum game. Pete will interact with another player, Rachel, for one hundred interactions. The game works by alternately granting Pete and Rachel ten dollars and having each offer some amount of the money to the other person. The one on the receiving end can either accept that offer or ask the proctor to take back the entire ten dollars. With rules defined in this way, subjects tend to settle into the same type of behavior—they share the money. Why? Let’s say Pete keeps making meager offers such as giving just one or two measly bucks to Rachel. Instead of taking the dollar, Rachel may decide to reprimand Pete by having the proctor take back the full ten dollars so they both end up with nothing. Pretty soon, Pete is going to realize that he needs to increase his offers to Rachel if he wants to see any money himself—something much more fair, like five dollars. Rachel responds by rewarding the “fair play” with the same behavior when it’s her turn. And so the two players settle on a strategy in which they both maximize their own profits by sharing the money every time. The sooner the players learn to cooperate, the greater their profits will be.

  It’s easy to see the implications for the real world. People who develop a reputation for cooperating fairly are more likely to receive additional offers to cooperate, while those who prove themselves poor collaborators will find others hesitant to cooperate with them.

  Game theorists don’t just rely on repeating experiments with human subjects. They also run large computer simulations with set rules and interactions to determine the optimum strategies for certain interactions. Several basic models have emerged from this field of study. In a game where people have continued interactions, a person can typically maximize his or her profits (or happiness) by cooperating with others and by punishing those who do not cooperate. In other words, cooperation often leads to greater personal happiness. Punishing others who don’t cooperate serves to preserve a world of cooperation and remind people that it’s in their best interests to cooperate.5

  While game theory has formalized our understanding of human interactions, experience has taught us that such results are to be expected. Examples where cooperation can lead to a greater state of happiness for an individual in a group are common and deeply rooted in our behavior. Kids learn early on that two of them may be able to carry the chair to the high kitchen cabinet to pull off a cookie heist, even if they then have to share the loot. People in the world of business and politics frequently trade favors.

  This desire for cooperation can be used to explain many types of moral behavior in society. We’ve developed certain skill sets that promote these kinds of interactions, such as the ability to keep mental logs about the way different people have treated us in the past. As a society, we regularly promote the spread of this type of information—whether a particular individual tends to interact fairly with others—by referring to people’s reputations.6

  While enlightened self-interest and game theory help explain why people who seek happiness will act in “moral” ways, it’s not the full story. While in certain situations the pursuit of happiness may lead to cooperation, in other situations, noncooperative behavior is advantageous—especially when the individuals in a group are not likely to encounter each other again. Game theory is heavily dependent on the starting conditions of the game and the use of repeated interactions. In real life, people’s power or wealth can be heavily asymmetric. With a world population of more than seven billion, single and anonymous interactions are common. So how do we explain moral behavior that’s not grounded in game-theory-type repetitions?

  For that, we turn to the second mechanism for encouraging moral behavior: identification with others.

  The pursuit of happiness isn’t the same as complete self-interest with no concern for what others need and want. It’s also quite common to find happiness in observing the happiness of others.7 Just as we feel happiness and pain, we understand that other people prefer happiness just as much as we do. Out of empathy—the ability to feel what others are feeling—we derive happiness from observing the happiness of others, even if their happiness doesn’t directly affect our own lives. And the inverse—feeling sadness or heartache from seeing another person or animal in pain—is often even stronger.

  Neuroscientists have observed this phenomenon in studies involving fMRI brain scans (a tool that provides a real-time visualization of brain activity). When we see someone else smile, cry, or bang a shin on a coffee table, the same neural pathways light up in our own brains as when we ourselves smile, cry, or bang our shins (although to a lesser extent). Neuroscientists call these mirror neurons.8 Their scientific data confirm that when we see others experiencing happiness or pain, it directly contributes some amount of happiness or pain in our minds as well. This extraordinary (and fairly recent) discovery provides a biological explanation for our tendency to sympathize with others. Our brains seem naturally wired to be empathetic.9

  Let’s explore Pete’s empathy toward others and look at a few different ways that helping a stranger might make him feel happy.

  Suppose Pete sees a person bundled up in cold weather and feels sympathy for him. So he helps that person by bringing him a cup of hot coffee.

  First, since he felt the person’s pain, he now also feels a measure of his relief as well. Pete might think, “If I were in his position, I’d want someone to offer me a little bit of help.”

  Second, by giving happiness to others, Pete might feel happy because his actions remind him of how fortunate he is to be in a better position.

  Third, by helping people, Pete might feel a sense of satisfaction because he has been able to make someone else feel happy and enjoys the knowledge that he can effect tangible changes in the lives of others.

  Fourth, by helping others, Pete’s self-esteem might rise because he can think of himself as a caring person, which is important to his self-image.

  Since moral behavior is often defined in terms of acts of selflessness, we can reformulate the traditional view of moral behavior to accommodate personal happiness as follows:

  Moral behavior relates to the amount of happiness one person derives from the happiness of another.

  A person can be said to act in a moral manner if he or she derives a great deal of self-happiness from other people’s happiness. A person acts immorally if he or she derives little self-happiness from the happiness of others or, worse still, derives happiness from the pain of others. With that definition, we remove the requirement of selflessness from morality and focus our attention on what really matters—identification with others and wanting good for them. Giving to charity or helping strangers can still be entirely moral even if you derive happiness from those acts.

  The most universally accepted way of thinking about morality is in
terms of the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In light of our understanding of our preference for happiness, we can now recast the rule as:

  Choose to help others find happiness, just as you seek happiness.

  But the Golden Rule attempts to tell us what we ought to do. Didn’t we just discredit the idea of moral “oughts” since there’s no objective moral truth? Yes—but notice that as we’ve now paraphrased it, the Golden Rule is consistent with choice. We choose to act morally because our personal preferences are to act in that way. And since those personal preferences so often line up with societal morality—because of enlightened self-interest and identification with others—we end up with an uncomplicated conclusion:

  We choose to be moral because of the happiness it brings us.

  Does choosing not to tell a lie really have anything to do with happiness? Yes. When viewed in light of the many influences in our lives, we can see that there is joy and reward to be gained from telling the truth. It might take the form of feelings of honor, trustworthiness, or sympathy toward those who have been lied to. Or it might be our desire to be seen as an honest person by others.

  The idea that morality depends on our view of life-happiness is best explained by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre with the famous example10 of a young man in France during World War II faced with a moral dilemma: stay at home and care for his ailing mother or join the French Resistance and fight the Nazi occupiers. Sartre notes that universal moral and ethical theories are unhelpful in this situation since both the options are valid moral choices.

  There is no universally correct answer for what that young man “ought” to do. Rather, the decision depends on what the young man views as most valuable. If he stays at home with his mother, he demonstrates that his moral compass prioritizes compassion for the sick and his commitment to his family. If he joins the Resistance, he demonstrates that his moral compass prioritizes bravery, patriotism, and standing up for one’s friends, families, and freedom.

  The point is that the young man’s moral compass, like all of our moral compasses, is determined by his own preferences. If you are the sort of person who is made happy by caring for others, you will be inclined toward a moral perspective that emphasizes looking out for sick people. Alternatively, if you are the type of person who is made happy by your autonomy and freedoms, your moral compass will prioritize standing up for freedoms in the face of oppression. To put it another way, a young man who decides to be a doctor isn’t morally superior or inferior to a young woman who decides to become a United Nations peacekeeper. He is simply made happier in the long run by following his preference to practice medicine.

  The link between happiness and moral decision-making isn’t a new idea. The Greek hedonists of the fourth century BCE, the Epicureans of the first century CE, and the utilitarians of the twentieth century all saw happiness as the greatest moral good, either for the individual or for society. The conclusion we have reached is a little different because we haven’t said that pursuing one’s life-happiness is inherently moral. Instead, we’ve concluded that acting out of rational self-interest and identifying with others often leads to moral behaviors. We follow our life-happiness preferences not out of some moral imperative but because that’s how we inherently behave. It’s not overcoming our nature—it is our nature. Subjective ethics frees us from the trap of believing that our own happiness is moral or immoral. Instead, our own happiness is amoral and a natural part of the human condition.

  Is it rational to believe in our own systems of ethics if our preferences have been so deeply influenced by our upbringings? To answer this, each of us has to decide (regardless of the influence of others) whether our current set of ethics is the best way we know to lead a happy life within society. Much moral wisdom has emerged in human history. Our choice to follow any of these guiding principles is a choice to accept the testimony of other people who have supposedly lived happy lives according to those principles.

  Historically, a good deal of morality taught to us by our parents and society is derived from religion. Does it matter if Dad taught us that we should respect others because he believed it was God’s will? Isn’t the outcome what counts? As adults we can each choose whether or not to follow any particular moral view espoused by religion. In making such a choice, we may believe in respecting people, not for religious reasons but because it makes us happy.

  The systems of morals proposed by religions have often been interpreted and modified by society over time. The link between ethics and God has been used by religion both as a source of knowledge and as a way to justify behavior that leads to happiness in societies. But even if we disregard religion or God as an external motivator for morality, there’s still no need to disregard many of the reasonable principles religions have developed and practiced to promote happy societies.

  It goes without saying that the moral preferences each of us adopts include a strong bias toward the experiences we’ve encountered in life, including the way we were raised and the culture in which we grew up. If you have been hurt by lying, then truthfulness is likely to be important to you. If you have been praised for helping others, you’re likely to place a high premium on that behavior. Family and friends will usually have played a large part in shaping and influencing your perceptions of happiness and, therefore, morals and preferences.

  The link between our own morals and our own upbringings is inescapable. Instead of rejecting this as an arbitrary influence, we must accept it as a consequence of subjective morality. Each of our views on morality is inextricably linked to ourselves, our environment, and our own life experiences. However, this shouldn’t give us pause. Just as we accept a good moral principle even if it’s historically grounded in religion and reject a bad one, so too do we accept the good influences of our background and reject the bad.

  The Seventh and Eighth Non-Commandments

  We’ve now explored how our subjective moral preferences develop over time, influenced by our upbringing, experiences within society, and personal inclinations. We’ve also shown that the choice to act morally is compelling when seen through the lens of enlightened self-interest and identification with others. It is time to add these concepts to our Ten Non-commandments:

  I.

  The world is real, and our desire to understand the world is the basis for belief.

  II.

  We can perceive the world only through our human senses.

  III.

  We use rational thought and language as tools for understanding the world.

  IV.

  All truth is proportional to the evidence.

  V.

  There is no God.

  VI.

  We all strive to live a happy life. We pursue things that make us happy and avoid things that do not.

  VII.

  There is no universal moral truth. Our experiences and preferences shape our sense of how to behave.

  VIII.

  We act morally when the happiness of others makes us happy.

  10

  Societal Happiness

  Some day you will find out that there is far more happiness in another’s happiness than in your own

  —Honoré de Balzac

  Our focus so far has been on how we individually develop moral preferences and beliefs. We explored how our upbringing, experiences, and environment can shape our preferences. Now we’ll pull back from the individual to look at society. To do so, we will address a few key questions:

  How do societal ethics develop over time?

  How do individuals reconcile their preferences with the
preferences of others?

  What role do laws play in the context of societal ethics?

  Ethical Norms

  In the previous chapter we used the example of Pete to show how a person forms moral preferences. Pete’s moral preferences are a collection of guiding principles based on many influences and experiences he’s encountered in his life, including his upbringing and environment. This collection also includes a powerful moral driver—deriving happiness from the happiness of others through enlightened self-interest and identification with others.

  Now we’ll explore the influence of societal ethics on Pete’s moral preferences. Societal ethics are simply the ethical standards adopted by a group of people who combine in a society. Let’s imagine that Pete lives in a society with one hundred other people. Pete has his own personal moral preferences, and so does every one of the one hundred other members of this society.

  We can simplify this further by pretending that each member of this hypothetical society has only five preferences. Pete’s five preferences might include not lying to people he cares about, respecting other people’s property, wanting to become wealthy, wanting to have many wives, and wanting an education. Another member of this society, Jennifer, holds a somewhat different set of preferences. Hers might include not lying, not allowing rape, protecting children, wanting to become wealthy, and wanting to enjoy walks in nature.

  Given these differences, which no doubt extend across all hundred citizens, what ethical standards might this society adopt as a whole?

  There are sure to be some moral preferences that almost all the members of this society can agree on, and also many preferences that fall into the middle ground where there are several supporters but also several opponents. The preferences that are most common and least controversial will be the ones most of the society ends up regarding as personally beneficial.