Why Do Good?

In the first volume of his biography of John Maynard Keynes, Robert Skidelsky reports that in the late days of the 19th century, the senior professors of political philosophy at Cambridge University were worried about a serious matter. They sensed that religion was losing its influence over people’s lives, and they were concerned about the consequences. In the absence of hope for the pleasures of heaven and without fear of the tortures of hell, why would anyone do good? Why would anyone work hard? Why would anyone be honest? Why would people care about each other? If people didn’t feel that God was watching, why would they avoid committing an evil act that might go undetected or doing a good deed that might go unnoticed?

Being good academics, these professors quickly formed not one but two schools of thought. One group, the intuitionists, said that people would be good because they naturally know what good is, and that they would continue to allow this intuitive knowledge to guide their lives. That idea, which sounded quaint even at the time, did not catch on. Intuition is free. It involves no calculation. It cannot be analyzed. For obvious reasons, intuitionism did not attract the best young minds at Cambridge, or anywhere else. The idea has passed from the academic scene (though the geneticists are now beginning to have their suspicions). Modern universities do not have departments of intuition — at least any that they are willing to acknowledge.

The other group, the utilitarians, said that people would continue to do good in the absence of God’s watchful eye because they would see that it was in their interest to be good. After one (intuitive) leap, this idea did catch on. Suppose people calculated their interest locally. Suppose people were interested only in their own welfare. Suppose people were interested only in themselves. Would that lead them to do good? Clearly, it would. Careful consideration of their personal interest would reveal to people that bad behavior would ultimately lead to a world they would not like. On the basis of this calculation, they would therefore choose to do good. This idea sounded like a testable proposition bearing on an interesting and important question, and — not surprisingly, perhaps — it did attract bright young minds both at Cambridge and elsewhere, minds attracted to data, models and arcane calculations. As a result, academic departments of economics are now well and widely established.

If one simply counts published articles, the utilitarians have clearly carried the day. All the towering accomplishments of modern economic theory are built firmly on the notion that utility maximization guides human behavior. Propositions and predictions derived from this notion affect virtually every aspect of our lives. And judging by historical standards, a few of us, at least, live quite well as a result.

The utilitarians demonstrated that, contrary to what one might expect, the pursuit of self-interest leads many people to do a surprising amount of good. It gets them up in the morning. It leads them to work hard all day, and as a result of their hard work a lot of good is done, even if they think they are only trying to make ends meet. As Adam Smith pointed out, we sometimes do good by doing well — a comforting thought to many of us.

Just as predicted by the utilitarians, there are those among us who appear to calculate their self-interest quite broadly without the assistance of legal restraints or monetary incentive. People do important public service at great personal sacrifice. People work hard as volunteers. Philanthropy is a source of national pride. Accomplished individuals, who have no obligation or economic need to do so, choose to become independent directors of public corporations and even chair audit committees. Managers respect and care about the welfare of their employees. Employees care about the quality of the products they produce. These folks may well be serving their own personal interests by these actions, but they appear to consider their interests quite broadly.

However, even the most devoted utilitarians have had to admit that the pursuit of self-interest needs a bit of guidance if society is to prosper. It turns out that actions based on the unbridled utility of individuals may conflict with what even utilitarian theorists see (intuitively) as a good society. The result is that we have devised a rickety structure of laws (antitrust, child labor, etc.) and regulations (EPA, OSHA) whose penalties are the utilitarian version of hell, as well as incentives (cash bonuses, stock options) whose rewards constitute the utilitarian vision of heaven. Why? Because we hope that such a structure will help utilitarians to see their self-interest more clearly than they might without these forms of assistance.

Despite our best efforts to help them, from time to time we find there are a few among us who still press a bit hard for their individual self-interest, to the detriment of what others might think of as the general good. Such occurrences encourage us to elaborate our structures of reward and punishment. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is only the most recent example.

As it has turned out, the utilitarians were only partly right. Although self-interest is an important element in human behavior and it may well be the reason many of us do good, it seems to be an unreliable guide. We have had to impose our old-fashioned intuitive preferences upon ourselves through legislation, regulation and the courts. It is in these domains where the intuitionists among us hold sway — as lawmakers, regulators and judges. Rather than by formal utilitarian analyses and empirical tests, these folks’ intuition is tested at the ballot box.

Intuitionists also continue to be leaders in the arts, where the calculation of what is good remains elusive. Entrepreneurs, businesspeople, managers and investors — who for the most part try to do good — report that they act mostly on the basis of intuition, though they pay well for offers of help from a consulting industry full of utilitarians. We choose our political leaders on the basis of our intuitive estimates of how well their intuitions will guide what they will do in the many undefined situations that may arise during their terms in office. Even professional utilitarians report that they choose what model to develop next, and which of their modeling results to apply to particular situations, on their intuitive estimates of their potential for doing good.

Utilitarians are well aware that many of us deny the ability to calculate how to do good, and they even admit to their own intuitive tendencies. They accept what we say and what they do but they point out that despite our denials, they find evidence that we behave as if we are self-interested utilitarians. The evidence is spotty but the work goes on.

It is easy to quibble, but if one had to bet, the best bet by far is that we each do what we perceive to be in our own best interest — and that by doing so we often do much good. In this sense the utilitarians have helped us understand an important part of ourselves. Still, the fact that so many important issues seem to defy even our most sophisticated utilitarian analysis is unfortunate and may well account for much that is wrong with our world — one still ruled, led, entertained and operated from day to day by intuition.

As it turns out, both groups of Cambridge dons were right. Utilitarian analysis explains a lot and informs our judgments. But when we enter the realms defined by laws, political preferences, religious beliefs, tastes, styles and other mysteries, we are reminded that intuition continues to be an important part of all our lives.