Self Interest is the Answer

Many people are critical of economics because it readily embraces selfishness, which in many circles is automatically equated with greed (which it is not).

Since self-interest is the best predictor of people’s behavior, the question is how can people’s self-interest be aligned in ways that benefit the environment (and humanity more generally). There are two paths, both of which fall under the heading of “enlightened self-interest”.

First, apart from any notions of altruism, the more we can demonstrate that environmental problems adversely affect people’s lives the more their self-interest will drive them to support progressive environmental policies. It is no coincidence that the environmental movement was born out of both people’s direct experience with the adverse effects of air and water pollution and the loss of animals and habitats that they valued. On a global scale, the more we can demonstrate the links between poverty and environmental degradation and disease, the more people will come to recognize that it is in their self-interest to promote effective foreign aid and technology transfer or to ratify and enforce international environmental agreements. The key is widening the scope of people’s self-interest ever wider.

The second way that self-interest can be beneficial to an environmental ethic is a little subtler and speaks more to the altruistic and emphatic side of our nature. There are many people who are motivated to protect the environment (or promote human rights or other progressive activities) because of a deep sense that it is the right thing to do. These are the type of people who if confronted with a situation where they had to risk bodily harm to save a fellow creature would do so not because of any desire for reward or material gain, but because they couldn’t imagine not doing so. They have incorporated a sense of compassion and integrity into their conception of their self-interest to such a degree that they couldn’t live with themselves if they didn’t act in ways that reduced suffering in the world. This perhaps is the highest form of self-interest, but it is self-interest nonetheless, albeit a highly evolved form.

How to develop this consciousness in people has been the subject of some of the world’s greatest thinkers for millennia. I don’t claim to have much to add to what’s already been written, but my hunch is that the more people can come into contact with the myriad animals, plants, and cultures that inhabit this planet, and at the same time, understand the links between certain actions and the suffering of these same beings that they have directly shared experiences with the sooner this most enlightened form of self interest will take root.

J.S.

Comments

[kebko]

I think it's unfortunate that many people see markets and self-interest as unseemly & less noble than altruism.

When it comes down to it, altruism requires one party in the transaction to relinquish all of their power to the giver. No contractual demands are made of them, which means that they have no power in enforcing the terms of the transaction.

If, instead, we trade via an arms-length transaction, both parties have power, both can work to improve their position & to make demands on the other.

In 70's psych-lingo, it's the difference between an adult-adult relationship & a parent-child relationship. The adult relationship is far superior. So, to me, there is a heavy strain of paternalism & elitism in the idea that we are better people for playing the parent in the altruistic transaction than we are playing the adult in the market transaction.

I think Tim Harford had some great examples in "The Undercover Economist" showing how the altruist context is full of potential problems.

I'm not sure if altruism, on a social scale, over the long term, does much good. I think it can feed the soul of the giver. But, infinitely more good in the world has been done for the receivers when they have been promoted to "adult".

Obviously, if you see a man that's hungry, you should feed him. But, you can't base a long term social system on that.

I suppose this is slightly tangential to the environmental context here, but I think it actually applies just as well, even if it is a little more complex.

IMHO

[Lars Smith]

I left a comment here,
http://conservationfinance.wordpress.com/2006/08/26/selfishness-and-altruism/