What were the highlights of my second trip to India?

 

The highlights of my recent trip to south-west India included visiting waterfalls and historical sites, seeing elephants and tigers in the wild, and enjoying some cultural experiences as well Indian food.

The waterfalls, elephants and history were included on my list when I discussed the possibility of a trip to southern India with Ms Bharathi of Tour Seed over a year ago. I knew before the trip that some lucky tourists also see tigers in the wild but I wasn’t overly optimistic about that. I knew I would enjoy the food but I didn’t expect the cultural experiences to be as enjoyable as they were.

My first trip to India occurred in 2022 and was confined to the north of the country. I wrote about it here. I enjoyed my first trip to India so much that I wanted to see more.

My recent trip began in Bangaluru. From there I went to Mysore, Kabini, Ooty, Athirappilly, Thekkady, Alleppey, and Kochi. The places I visited are shown as red dots on the map.

 

Since this post is about highlights, I will focus on a small selection of experiences.

The first highlight I have chosen is the palace of Mysore. It was the royal residence of the Wadiya family, maharajas, who ruled the Kingdom of Mysore from the late 1300s until 1950. The Kingdom of Mysore covered a large slab of southern India.

The Mysore palace is not particularly old. It was completed in 1912, replacing a wooden palace that had burnt down.

It is easy to see why the palace is a major tourist attraction. It is both opulent and beautiful.

The second highlight is the Kabini wildlife sanctuary, where I saw tigers, elephants, spotted deer and other animals.

 

Athirappilly falls is the third highlight. The person in the photo is my driver, Raju Gowda, who accompanied me to the base of the waterfall. Raju showed great skill in driving under fairly challenging conditions - on narrow winding roads in hilly country as well as in city traffic.

 

The fourth highlight was my visit to Thekkady. I enjoyed being shown spice gardens, and a trekking and rafting experience but the display of martial arts and gymnastics at the Kadathanadan Kalari Centre was an unexpected pleasure.

 

I have chosen a food experience as the fifth highlight. This is a meal I was served on a houseboat at Alleppey. I cannot claim to have eaten it all, but I was able to eat much more than I had anticipated when the meal was served to me.

Finally, there is my visit to Kochi. I enjoyed being shown the historical sites of Fort Kochi, including tourist attractions celebrating Vasco da Gama’s voyage of discovery. However, I have chosen the cannon ball tree, with flowers growing out of its trunk, as one of the highlights of my visit. I also enjoyed the Kathakali performance of the Mahabharata story. A handout in English explaining the story line helped me to understand what was happening.

 

Perhaps I should add a final word about the way my trip was organized. When I tell people that the trip was tailored to my specifications, that I had a driver, and stayed in excellent hotels, I sometimes also feel that I need to explain that it was not particularly expensive. In saying that, I am making a comparison with the cost of staying in similar hotels in group tours, or self-drive holidays, in countries such as Britain or Canada, rather than with the cost of backpacking. At this stage of my life, I feel inclined to leave backpacking to people who are younger than I am.

Is it possible for humans to flourish if they don't live good lives?

 

I asked myself whether it is possible for humans to flourish if they don't live good lives after reading an article by Markus Knee and Damiel Haybron entitled "The Folk Concept of the Good Life: Neither Happiness nor Well-Being” (SSRN Electronic Journal, Jan. 2024).

I am not sure whether my attention was drawn to the article serendipitously or because of some kind of algorithmic conspiracy. An email from ResearchGate alerting me to the article arrived in my inbox on the same day that I had participated in a roundtable discussion on human flourishing with Ed Younkins, Roger Bissell, and Vinay Kolhatkar. We each presented views based on our three books:

Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society, by Edward W Younkins;

Modernizing Aristotle’s Ethics, by Roger E Bissell and Vinay Kolhatkar; and

Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, by Winton Russell Bates.

The roundtable discussion can be viewed on The Savvy Street Show. (The transcript of the discussion is available here.)

The article by Knee and Haybron

Knee and Haybron tested whether the folk view that a person “leads a good life” differs from the folk view that a person “is happy” and “is doing well” by asking survey participants to respond to vignettes involving socially sanctioned wrongdoing toward outgroup members. Their findings indicated that, for a large majority, judgments of bad character strongly reduce ascriptions of the good life, while having no impact at all on ascriptions of happiness or well-being.  They conclude that the lay concept of a good life is clearly distinct from those of happiness and well-being, likely encompassing both morality and well-being, and perhaps other values as well. Importantly, morality appears not to play a fundamental role among the folk in their views of either happiness or well-being.

So, who are the folk? There were 283 participants in this study (recruited on Prolific). It seems likely that the views of participants are representative of Americans. The sample has a bias towards females (64% female), but there is no obvious bias in the age of participants (average age 36, age range 19 to 78). I expect that folk in other countries with similar cultural heritage would have similar views, but that has not been tested   

Why should philosophers be interested in what folk think about the meaning of concepts? Socrates wandered around Athens asking people what they thought about the meaning of concepts, but I think modern philosophers have different motives. Socrates asked questions that were designed to encourage people to think more deeply rather than conducting surveys to assess their current views about the meaning of concepts.

I think the main reason why philosophers should be interested in what folk think about the meaning of concepts is because communication is easier if definitions accord with common usage of terms.

Differences between the views of the folk and the philosophers

Knee and Haybron claim that most philosophers assume that a good life is equivalent to well-being. I am not sure that “assume” is the correct word to use. Philosophers are usually careful to define the terms they use, so perhaps the authors mean that philosophers’ definitions of a good life and of well-being are at variance with the meaning that most folk give to those concepts.

One of the philosophers who has influenced my understanding of the meaning of human flourishing has adopted a definition of well-being that seems to me to make it equivalent to a good life. As I explain in the Introduction to Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, Neera Badhwar uses well-being in her definition of the highest prudential good (HPG):

“Well-being as the HPG consists of happiness in an objectively worthwhile life.”

I prefer to use the term flourishing, rather than well-being because flourishing better captures the dynamic nature of individual human development.

My understanding of human flourishing has also been strongly influenced by Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen, who argue that human flourishing can be best understood as “the exercise of one’s own practical wisdom”.

I combined the Dougs’ perspective with Badhwar’s to define human flourishing as:

“the exercise of one’s own practical wisdom, with integrity, in the pursuit and achievement of happiness in an objectively worthwhile life”.

Objective worth entails moral virtues and choice-worthiness. In my book, I endorse the idea that the basic goods of a flourishing human constitute “living well” and “are the actual elements of a good life”. Perhaps the folk might not agree that the same elements are involved in the same proportions in “living well” as in “a good life”.  However, I hope most folk would agree with me that “living well” requires more virtue than “doing well”.

In any case, I claim that my view of human flourishing is close to the folk view of leading a good life.

I am not aware of any tests having been made of the folk view of human flourishing. Casual observation suggests to me that the concept of human flourishing is not used widely enough for there to be a general “folk view” of what it means. When I tell folk I have written a book about human flourishing I am often asked what flourishing means and how it differs from related concepts such as happiness and thriving.

How do Knee and Haybron view human flourishing?

Knee and Haybron seem to view human flourishing as involving no more virtue than lay perceptions of happiness and well-being. They claim that their results suggest that “philosophers following Plato in claiming that serious immorality precludes flourishing are defending a less-than-intuitive position”. Neo-Aristotelians who claim that lack of integrity impairs flourishing would presumably be viewed in the same light.

In his book, The Pursuit of Unhappiness (published in 2008) Dan Haybron discussed the question of whether Genghis Khan - who claimed to obtain happiness by conquering his enemies, taking their property, and outraging their wives and daughters – could be considered to have been a flourishing human (pp 159-60). In that context, he claims that it is “neither here nor there” to assert that Genghis Khan didn’t have a good life – a life that is desirable or choice-worthy. He is asserting that consideration of goodness is irrelevant to the question of whether a person is flourishing.

A Google search for “human flourishing” suggests to me that a view of human flourishing which has no reference to goodness is not currently widely accepted in the literature discussing human flourishing. Most of the items I found near the top of the list linked human flourishing to living a good life, being holistically good, engaging in meaningful activities, having regard to traditional virtues etc.

Does it matter if different people define human flourishing in different ways? Perhaps it adds only minor confusion to intellectual discourse. However, the way terms are used in intellectual discourse is likely to influence the folk view (common usage) over the longer term.  I think it would be unfortunate if we end up with a folk view of human flourishing that is indistinguishable from current folk views of happiness.

Conclusion

An empirical study by Marcus Knee and Daniel Haybron has found that the folk view that a person leads a good life differs from the folk view that a person is happy or doing well. Judgements of bad character strongly reduce ascriptions of the good life but have no impact on ascriptions of happiness or well-being.

I claim that the view of human flourishing that I have adopted is close to the folk view of living a good life.

However, Knee and Haybron seem to have a view of human flourishing that has no reference to goodness. Their view of human flourishing seems to be at variance with widely accepted views in relevant literature.

I doubt whether there is a folk view of human flourishing at present but one seems likely to develop with increasing use of the term. In my view, it would be unfortunate if we end up with a folk view of human flourishing that is indistinguishable from folk views of happiness and doing well. Those who wish to avoid that outcome should take advantage of every available opportunity to assert that human flourishing means living a good life.

Addendum

1. The Aristotle “quote” at the top of this essay is my interpretation of part of Nichomachean Ethics, Book 1, Chapter 7. In the 5^th paragraph, Aristotle considers the function (ergon) of a human (the capacities and activities that make a being human). That is the context in which he is considering what activities or actions eudaimonia, or human flourishing, requires. (Eudaimonia is often translated as happiness but it involves more than the modern, emotional state, concept of happiness). Aristotle asserts that human flourishing (the chief good) is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. What he means by “activity of the soul” is closely related to exercise of practical wisdom.

2. A revised version of this essay has been published on "The Savvy Street". The revised version incorporates quotes about flourishing from the books by Ed Younkins and Roger Bissell and Vinay Kolhatkar.

Why has "Norms of Liberty" made a lasting impression on me?

 

Norms of Liberty is a work of political philosophy written by Douglas B Rasmussen and Douglas J Den Uyl, and published in 2005.

The blurb on Amazon provides a good description of what the book is about:

“How can we establish a political/legal order that in principle does not require the human flourishing of any person or group to be given structured preference over that of any other? Addressing this question as the central problem of political philosophy, Norms of Liberty offers a new conceptual foundation for political liberalism that takes protecting liberty, understood in terms of individual negative rights, as the primary aim of the political/legal order.” 

Rasmussen and Den Uyl argue for construing individual rights as metanormative principles. These principles establish the political/ legal conditions under which full moral conduct can take place.

The authors distinguish metanormative principles from normative principles that provide guidance for moral conduct within the ambit of normative ethics. This crucial distinction allows them to develop liberalism as a metanormative theory rather than as a guide for moral conduct.

The authors show that the moral universe can support liberalism without either being minimized or requiring morality to be grounded in sentiment or contracts. Rather, liberalism can be supported, and many of its internal tensions avoided, with an ethical framework of Aristotelian inspiration―one that understands human flourishing to be an objective, inclusive, individualized, agent-relative, social, and self-directed activity.

Readers who are looking for a more expansive synopsis should read Ed Younkins’s essay, ‘Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s Trilogy of Freedom and Flourishing’, published on The Savvy Street.

Some explanation of the authors’ use of the term ‘liberalism’ might be helpful at this point. As well as defending classical liberalism and libertarianism, the authors seek to defend other types of political liberalism (as the term is used in the United States) which still subscribe to some of the tenets of classical liberalism e.g. that people should be free to pursue their own conceptions of the good life.   

My purpose here is not to review the book but to explain why the book has made a lasting impression on me. First, I will explain why I thought the book made an important contribution when I first read it in 2007. Then, I will explain why I still think the book provides the most appropriate framework in which to consider the rights of individuals.

My initial impression

Rasmussen and Den Uyl advanced their argument for construing individual rights as metanormative principles in large part as a response to communitarian and conservative critics who claimed that liberalism had undermined its own principles.

I had read some communitarian literature prior to reading Norms of Liberty but I was more concerned about the threat to individual rights posed by people who wanted to make happiness a goal of national economic policy. The people concerned wanted to use survey data on average life satisfaction to monitor achievement of that goal. I was concerned that responses to life satisfaction surveys don’t give appropriate weight to everything that is important to people and that using such surveys to pursue a national happiness goal would interfere with individual choice. (I wrote an article about such matters in 2004. It can be found here.)

I read Norms of Liberty at a time when I was ready to move beyond utilitarianism. The welfare economics that I had been imbued with decades earlier seemed to imply that it would be good for governments to adopt aggregate welfare as an over-arching policy goal if only it was possible to measure individual utility in a manner suitable to be aggregated (or averaged) in some way. However, after some economists began to claim that life satisfaction surveys provided a way to do that, the potential conflict with individual liberty could not be ignored. It seemed wrong for liberty to be viewed as just an element in an individual’s utility function. But how could one avoid viewing liberty in that way if the sole goal of individuals is to maximize utility functions?

The answer that Norms of Liberty provided to me was that I needed to step aside from a framework in which all goals of individuals could be summarised neatly in terms of maximizing a nebulous concept referred to as “utility”. I needed to think more broadly in terms of individual flourishing as a multidimensional process. Liberty is integral to individual flourishing because individual flourishing is an inherently self-directed process.

I began blogging soon after reading Norms of Liberty. Some of my initial posts reflect the favourable impression the book had on me soon after I had read it. For example:  What does flourishing mean? , and Is Freedom and necessary condition for human flourishing?

 Later views

Over the years, I have discussed many different things on this blog.  Blogging has been a learning process. I cannot claim that the views I have expressed have always been philosophically coherent.  

Nevertheless, I claim a degree of consistency in advocating for a political/legal order which protects the possibility of individual self-direction, and ensures that the flourishing of any person or group is not given structural preference over any other. I also claim consistent optimism about the potential for the vast majority of individuals to flourish – with help from family and friends – if governments protect their natural rights and refrain from interfering with the manner of their flourishing. (I don’t deny that government assistance has helped some people to flourish but I observe that government assistance is often offered in a manner that encourages people to languish.)

Those ideas are also themes of my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, as well as being reflected in many of the essays on this blog.

While re-reading Norms of Liberty a few days ago, I was struck by its relevance to recent political developments in many of the countries often referred to as western liberal democracies. When I first read the book, I had the impression that groups who sought to have their modes of flourishing given structural preference over others lacked the political power to implement their policies. At that time, the main threat to individual self-direction seemed to come from well-meaning paternalists who wanted to use the coercive powers of the state to make people happy.

More recently, it seems to me that some groups are increasingly seeking to use the coercive powers of the state to have their modes of flourishing given structural preference over others. I don’t see this tendency as being confined to any one religious or political group, although some are more prone than others to advocate restrictions on liberty.

One development that seems to me to be of particular concern is the increasing prevalence of the idea that freedom of speech should be restricted to protect people from being offended by what others may say about their ethnicity, religious views etc. If the legal system gives people greater incentives to take offence at what others say, it is reasonable to predict an increase in the extent to which people take offence, leading to demands for further restriction of freedom of speech. Threats of violence should be prohibited because they are incompatible with peaceful coexistence. Beyond that, however, restriction of freedom of speech is a slippery slope that is likely to increase, rather than lessen, conflict between different community groups.

Conclusion

My purpose in writing this essay has been to explain why Norms of Liberty, by Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl, has made a lasting impression on me.

At the time I first read Norms of Liberty, in 2007, I was particularly concerned about threats to liberty posed by the proposals of some utilitarians who want to make happiness a goal of national economic policy and to use survey measures of average life satisfaction to monitor achievement of that goal. I was concerned that average life satisfaction doesn’t adequately account for liberty. That provided the context in which I was ready to step aside from the idea that all the goals of individuals could be summarized in terms of utility maximization. It made more sense to think of individual flourishing as a multidimensional process which is largely self-directed and to think of liberty as the metanormative principle that protects the possibility of individual self-direction.

I still think the best defence of liberty is to view it as the means of protecting the possibility of individual self-direction, and ensuring that the flourishing of any person or group is not given structural preference over any other. While re-reading Norms of Liberty it struck me that since the book was written, groups seeking to have their modes of flourishing given structural preference over others have come to pose an increasing threat to liberty in the western liberal democracies. Peaceful coexistence among different groups is likely to break down if norms of liberty are not adequately defended.

Do people obtain more benefit from a walk in the park than from a walk in the suburbs?

 

I have previously written on this blog about the relationship between nature connectedness and happiness. In one essay, written in 2015, I referred to a meta-study (by  Diana Bowler et al) which suggested that exercise in natural environments promotes greater emotional health benefits – in terms of feelings of energy, and less anxiety, anger, fatigue and sadness - than exercise in an artificial environment. 

Since that study was undertaken there has been further research on the benefits people obtain from exercise in the natural environment.  I focus here on the conclusions of a review of experimental studies on psychological benefits of outdoor physical activity in natural versus urban environments. The review was authored by Claire Wicks , Jo Barton , Sheina Orbell , and Leanne Andrews, and published in Appl Psychol Health Well Being, 2022 Aug;14(3):1037-1061.

Natural versus Urban Environments

The authors identified 24 experimental studies which met their eligibility criteria, including a focus on psychological outcomes, broadly defined to include well-being, self-esteem, depression, anxiety, mood, and stress.

In the included studies, the natural environment includes forest, grasslands, nature reserves and urban parks. The urban environment includes commercial districts, city areas and residential streets.

The most common physical activity in the studies was walking.

The authors hypothesized that physical activity in nature would provide more favourable results for all psychological outcomes.

I focus here on the narrative synthesis of findings which was conducted across all studies. The authors conclude:

“Although there are some inconsistencies across outcomes, this analysis revealed results generally supporting our hypothesis. The majority of tests showed greater benefits following green exercise for anxiety, anger/hostility, energy, general affect and engagement, whereas four out of 10 tests found in favour of the natural environment for depression and one in four for tranquillity. Where studies did not find in favour of the natural environment, the results often indicated either favourable changes in both conditions or no changes in either condition.”

A personal view

I believe that most humans have deep-seated intuitions about their kinship (relatedness) to other living things. That led me, in Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, to agree with the view that living in harmony with nature is intrinsic to individual flourishing and should be acknowledged as one of the basic goods of a flourishing human.  If living in harmony with nature is intrinsic to individual flourishing, I think it is reasonable to expect that exercising in the natural environment would provide greater psychological benefits than exercising in urban environments.

I walk regularly in a park close to where I live and obtain psychological benefits from doing so. I try to persuade others to do likewise.

However, I think my testimony about the benefits I obtain from walking in natural environments might be treated with some skepticism because of my belief that living in harmony with nature is intrinsic to individual flourishing. It is possible to argue that the psychological benefits that I obtain can be attributed to acting in accordance with my beliefs rather than to the impact of nature.

I am drawing attention to the findings of survey discussed above in the hope that it will receive serious consideration. Hopefully, it will induce more people to obtain the benefits of a walk in the park, and some of them will be led to view living in harmony with nature as intrinsic to their personal flourishing.

How would you describe your philosophy?

 

I don’t think anyone has ever asked me the question posed above. When I tell people that I am an economist, some of them ask about my views on economics before regaling me with their opinions. When I tell people that I am a blogger, they usually ask what I blog about before telling me what I should blog about. I don’t claim to be a philosopher, so there has been no reason for anyone to ask me to describe my philosophy.

However, a comment by Ed Younkins in the addendum to the preceding post on this blog prompted me to think about whether it would be possible for me (as a casual reader of philosophy) to prepare a coherent summary of my philosophical beliefs.

Some readers might be interested in the process I used to summarise my views. I asked ChatGPT to ask a series of questions to help me to explore my philosophical beliefs. I responded to her questions by providing copies of extracts from blog posts etc. that I had written, and asked her to summarise my responses. The summary she produced was done competently, but I did some further editing.

I view the outcome as a work in progress. If anyone points to holes in my reasoning, I will endeavour not to be excessively defensive in my responses.

Summary

I am a Neo-Aristotelian classical liberal.

As will be apparent from what follows, I am strongly of the opinion that it is appropriate to consider what kind of thing an individual human is before engaging in philosophical reasoning related to any aspect of human experience. That is why many of my beliefs are grounded in current scientific knowledge (and speculation) about human evolution, neurology, and psychology.

It seems appropriate to begin with philosophy of mind because awareness of our own awareness is the starting point for all consciousness reasoning. I will then proceed to outline views on epistemology, metaphysics, human nature, ethics, and political philosophy.

Philosophy of Mind:

We cannot doubt that we think. When we are thinking, we may be aware of the flow of inner thoughts and feelings and of our experience of the world in which live. Our observations of other animals suggest that they share with us some awareness of their surroundings. That awareness is a product of evolution – it serves a purpose in helping animals to survive and reproduce. Similarly, our awareness of our own awareness is just another step in the evolutionary process – the purpose it serves is to help individual humans to flourish within the cultures in which they live.  (Main influence: Richard Campbell).

Epistemology:

Humans are born with a potential to acquire knowledge that is particularly relevant to human flourishing. However, knowledge acquisition is primarily experiential. Experiences during early childhood have a major impact on brain development. As brains mature, neural maps become increasingly solidified, but brains retain some plasticity throughout life. Brains learn by evaluating feedback from actions taken – they adjust internal models when predictions are incorrect.

Conscious reasoning plays a crucial role in determining what knowledge adult humans acquire. It makes sense to use probabilistic reasoning when considering alternative explanations for observed phenomena.

Practical wisdom (wise and well-informed self-direction) is integral to individual flourishing. As well as being important in its own right, it helps individuals to maintain good physical and psychological health, good relations with other people, and to live in harmony with nature. (Influences: Aristotle, David Eagleman, Michael Huemer).

Metaphysics:

Metaphysical realism: We exist as part of a real world. Beings exist independently of our cognition of them. (Influences: Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl).

Human Nature:

Humans have inherent potentialities that are good. (Main influence: Abraham Maslow).

Ethics:

Our awareness that we need to make something of our lives emerges before we can make conscious choices relating to our individual flourishing. Ethical intuitions relating to traditional virtues – practical wisdom, integrity, courage, temperance, justice – are a product of social evolution and family upbringing.

Ethical intuitions provide only a foundation for ethical reasoning. Although everyone has a natural inclination to engage in activities that contribute to their own flourishing, actualization of their individual potential requires some understanding of that potential, and the application of practical wisdom that is linked to that person’s dispositions and circumstances. Each individual is responsible for developing his or her own character, and adopting the good habits required to flourish more fully. (Influences: Robert Nozick, Aristotle, Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen).

Political Philosophy:

Individuals should be free to pursue their own ends provided they do not encroach upon the rights of others. Recognition of individual rights enables individuals to flourish in different ways without interfering unduly with the flourishing of others.

The role of government is protection of individual rights. Performance other roles should be contingent upon consent of the governed. (Influences: Friedrich Hayek, James M Buchanan, Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl).

Notes

The summary presented above focuses on some broad categories of philosophical beliefs. I have left out some categories of beliefs (philosophy of science and methodology of economics) because they are too specific to be covered in this overview. One of the most popular posts on this blog is about aesthetics, but I have not read widely on that topic. Some other important categories (e.g. religion) have been left out because I prefer not to display my ignorance.

Anyone interested in further explanation of my beliefs is welcome to ask me. Many of the relevant topics are covered in my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing. There are also relevant articles on this blog that have been written since that book was published e.g. a discussion of Richard Campbell’s views on the emergence of consciousness (here), and David Eagleman’s views on neural mapping and plasticity (here).

References

Philosophy of Mind

Campbell, Richard, The Metaphysics of Emergence, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Epistemology

Aristotle, The Complete Works (Kindle Edition), ATN Classics, 2023.

Eagleman, David, Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain, Canongate Paperback, 2021.

Huemer, Michael, Understanding Knowledge, 2022.

Metaphysics

Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Den Uyl, Douglas J, The Realist Turn, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

Human Nature

Maslow, Abraham, Toward a Psychology of Being (Chapter 14), D Van Nostrand, 1962. 

Ethics

 Nozick, Robert. Invariances, The Structure of the Objective World, Harvard University Press, 2001.

Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics (Translator: F.H. Peters) Online Library of Liberty, 1893

Den Uyl, Douglas J., and Douglas B Rasmussen, The Perfectionist Turn: From metanorms to metaethics, Edinburgh University Press, 2016.

Political Philosophy

Hayek, Friedrich. The Constitution of Liberty, The University of Chicago Press, 1960.

Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Den Uyl, Douglas J, Norms of Liberty, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.

How has the Neoplatonism of my youth influenced my current beliefs?

 

The kid in the photo believed that the material world is an illusion. Those beliefs about the nature of reality probably led him to be somewhat less materialistic than he would otherwise have been. However, an observer would have had to look closely to find any evidence that he, and his school colleagues who held similar beliefs, were behaving as though they did not believe the account of reality provided by their sense organs. They didn’t attempt to survive without food, to defy gravity by jumping off tall buildings, or to do much else to suggest that they had a different view of reality than most other teenagers living in Australia in 1960. The main difference an astute observer would have seen was their practice of treating illness as an error of thinking and viewing medical intervention as unnecessary and undesirable under most circumstances.

I am writing this article because a few people who have known me at different times of my life might be interested to know something about the process by which my beliefs have changed over the years.

Youthful preoccupations

When I was a child, I liked sitting on the gate post of a fence separating our garden from the farmyard. That was my favorite spot for observing what the horses, sheep dogs, cows, pet lambs, humans etc. were doing in the farmyard. One day when I was sitting there – I would have been about 6 years old - my father told me that everything I saw in the farmyard was an illusion. I thought at first that he was joking, but he was in the process of informing me that he had decided to attend the Christian Science church and had arranged for me to attend their Sunday school.

Over subsequent years, I gradually became immersed in the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, and her book, Science and Health (S&H). The final 3 years of my secondary education were spent as a border at Huntingtower, a school run by Christian Scientists in the Melbourne suburb of Mount Waverley. At that time, the school only accepted students who had a family background in Christian Science. Huntingtower still has a focus on the individual personal development of students and provides excellent educational opportunities. I am grateful that one of my aunts paid the fees to enable me to attend that school.

I have long been aware that there was some similarity between Mrs. Eddy’s teachings and the philosophy of Plato. I now see a closer resemblance to the Neoplatonism of Plotinus. Plotinus believed that “The One”, the absolutely simple first principle of all, was the cause of being for everything else in the universe.  Mrs. Eddy wrote: 

“Principle and its idea is one, and this one is God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Being, and His reflection is man and the universe” (S&H, 465-6).

The Neoplatonists saw life’s purpose as being “to bring back the god in us to the divine in the All”. Mrs. Eddy urged her followers:

“We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love — the kingdom of heaven — reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear” (S&H, 248).

Secular pursuits

I abandoned Neoplatonism at the end of my teen years. At that time, I didn’t consciously reject that belief system even though I can remember becoming increasingly frustrated at the difficulty of attempting to follow Mrs. Eddy’s injunction: “Stand porter at the door of thought” (S&H, 392). My social life and academic interests made me less inclined to spend time engaging in what I was coming to view as speculations about the nature of “ultimate reality”.  I was beginning to study economics, so my thinking focused increasingly on how human aspirations could best be met. At that time, I became interested in the writings of J S Mill on liberty and utilitarianism.

Over the years, my philosophic interests developed along with a work career focused on public policy relating to economic development, international trade, productivity growth and technological progress. That led to increasing interest in the role of liberty in economic progress, and human flourishing more generally.

As a consequence of my interest in human flourishing, I have come to view Aristotle as the greatest of the philosophers of Ancient Greece. My book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, explains the framework of my current thinking.

These days, the idea that the evidence of our senses is illusory seems as strange to me as it was when I was the child sitting on the gate post. Our senses provide the direct experience of reality that members of our species require to thrive. Since we are conscious beings, we are aware of our own use of maps, and models (both metaphorical and actual) to communicate and reason about what we experience. However, we also know that maps and models do not always correspond to reality. The search for truth is about seeking better maps and models.

The lurking questions

There were two questions lurking in the back of my mind after I had abandoned Neoplatonism. First, how could a change in thinking bring about the healing of serious illnesses which seemed to have a physical cause? Second, why did the same techniques sometimes fail to provide the lasting healings hoped for in respect of disorders that seemed to have a psychological rather than physical cause?

I do not doubt the veracity of most of the large number of testimonials that church members presented about healings that they experienced. As I remember it, most of the church members I knew either had personal experience of healings themselves or were family members of people who had obtained healings. The prevalence of healings seems to me to be the most obvious factor explaining the rapid growth of this church in the first half of the 20^th century, when medical science was less advanced than it is today. Advances in medicine provide the most obvious explanation for the decline in church membership in recent decades.

I think the answer to my first question lies in the potential impact of a change of an individual’s thinking on their body’s natural defences against disease. For example, a substantial amount of evidence has accumulated about the relationship between psychological stress and the human immune system. There is a lot of advice available about the importance of stress management in maintaining good health, and about how to manage stress via physical exercise, breathing exercises, yoga, meditation, and so forth. However, I don’t think many people give enough attention to the potential for negative thinking associated with medication to influence its efficacy. Before you decide to take any medication prescribed to you, it seems to me to be wise to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of how the medication works and the impacts that most users experience. If that doesn’t provide a basis for you to expect positive outcomes, perhaps you should seek another opinion.

My answer to the question of why lasting healings didn’t always occur in respect of psychological disorders is that an appropriate change of thinking had not actually occurred. That was not necessarily attributable to insufficient vigilance as “porter at the door of thought”. In my own experience, I think the opposite was the case. Trying hard to keep fear of stuttering and blocking out of my mind resulted in greater fear of disfluency than I would otherwise have experienced.  The reason for that became clear when someone suggested that I try the “don’t think of a pink elephant” exercise. The exercise consists of trying very hard not to think about pink elephants and then observing what images come to mind. Deliberate attempts to suppress thoughts makes them more likely to occupy your mind.

The questions lurking in the back of my mind made me receptive to Neuro-Semantics – a model of how we create and embody meaning developed by Michael Hall and Bobby Bodenhamer - when I learned about it 20 years ago. For present purposes, I think the message of Neuro-Semantics can best be  illustrated by the following quote from an article by Michael Hall entitled, “The Inner Game of Frame”:   

‘The frames we set about our experiences are much, much, much more important and critical than our experiences.  In this, “there is no good or bad but thinking makes it so” as Shakespeare noted.  In this, “men are not disturbed by things, they are disturbed by their interpretation of things.”  In this, “as we think in our heart, so we are.”  In this we have the cognitive-behavioral foundation for human functioning.’

Readers of my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, will find a reference to Hall’s views on the importance of frames of meaning in the discussion of why people do not always move on to satisfying higher needs, as Abraham Maslow suggested they would, once their basic needs have been met (p 168-9).

Beyond utilitarianism

One aspect of Mrs. Eddy’s teachings that I have held on to is the idea that the identity of the individual person is a metaphysical concept. Mrs. Eddy made the point persuasively as follows:

‘If the real man is in the material body, you take away a portion of the man when you amputate a limb; the surgeon destroys manhood, and worms annihilate it. But the loss of a limb or injury to a tissue is sometimes the quickener of manliness; and the unfortunate cripple may present more nobility than the statuesque athlete, — teaching us by his very deprivations, that “a man’s a man, for a’ that.” ‘ (S&H, 172)

The Neoplatonism of my youth has also left me receptive to the idea that to fully flourish we need to be willing to transcend utilitarian preoccupations. That idea is, of course, also present in Aristotle’s view that practice of the virtues is central to individual flourishing. In Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, I summarised my current view as follows:

“Liberty and technological progress give us potential to obtain more of the basic goods of flourishing humans. To fully flourish, however, we need to be willing to transcend utilitarian preoccupations and to contemplate what our human nature requires of us as individuals. Perhaps it is in our nature to bring wonder into our lives by seeking the essence of truth, beauty, and goodness. If so, we may take pleasure in doing that, whilst rejecting the idea that it is appropriate to employ the metrics of pleasure and pain to assess the worth of our endeavors” (197).

Postscript

I neglected to mention my guru, Tim Gallwey. I have been a fan of Tim Gallwey's books for more than 20 years. I found "The Inner Game of Golf" particularly helpful in aspects of my life that have little to do with golf. Tim Gallwey's insights about the inner game of golf helped me to see some personal problems in perspective. (By the way, I play golf about once a year and play no better might be expected!)

Tim Gallwey describes how people tend to interfere with their performance in activities requiring muscle coordination when they respond to self-doubt by "trying harder". Trying harder often entails increasing muscle tension. Gallwey's books offer practical suggestions to circumvent self-doubt.

Tim Gallwey says: “We all have inner resources beyond what we realize”.  You discover your true identity as you draw on those resource to master the inner game.

In this video Tim Gallwey talks about the personal philosophy that motivates him.

My podcast episode entitled, "Tim Gallwey, my Inner Game guru", can be found here.

Who should read "Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing"?

 

I have dedicated the book to those who reflect on what it means to be a flourishing human.

When individuals think about their own personal development, they are reflecting on what it means to be a flourishing human.  I believe that reflection on what it means to be a flourishing human also holds the key to understanding the importance of liberty, and its role in economic development.

What is the book about?

The book explains how freedom (liberty) enables individuals to flourish in different ways without colliding, how it fosters progress and enables growth of opportunities, and how it supports personal development by enabling individuals to exercise self-direction.

The importance of self-direction is a theme of the book. The introductory chapter explains that wise and well-informed self-direction is integral to flourishing because it helps individuals to attain health and longevity, positive human relationships, psychological well-being, and an ability to live in harmony with nature.

Part I discusses natural rights and the evolution of freedom since ancient times. It explains how most people living in the liberal democracies today came to enjoy greater freedom than their ancestors.

Part II discusses progress. It explains how cultural change made economic progress possible by supporting the rule of law, liberty, and interpersonal trust, as well as the advance of knowledge, respect for innovators and tolerance of diversity. It notes that progress has led to increasingly widespread opportunities for people to meet their aspirations. It also discusses reasons for apprehension about the continuation of progress.

Part III considers how it is possible for individuals to meet the challenges of self-direction and to enhance their potential to flourish by investing in personal development. It explains that while the exercise of practical wisdom has always been integral to the flourishing of individuals, it has become commonplace for people to aspire to exercise meaningful self-direction over their lives to a greater extent than has ever been possible in the past.

The main message of the book is that people who live in Western liberal democracies should count their blessings. They have many blessings to count!

What are reviewers saying about the book?

Doug Rasmussen, a philosopher, and joint author with Douglas Den Uyl of a trilogy of books about liberty and human flourishing writes:

“Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing is a highly informed, but not an unduly technical, account of human flourishing and the need for a political/legal order that has the primary goal of protecting individual rights. This work is informed by not only philosophical but also by psychological and economic studies. This work provides an excellent entry point for deeper discussions of these fundamental claims.”

Readers who are seeking deeper discussions will find much to think about in the books by Rasmussen and Den Uyl: Norms of Liberty, The Perfectionist Turn, and The Realist Turn: Repositioning Liberalism.

Ron Duncan, a distinguished Australian economist with particular expertise in the economics and governance of developing countries, writes:

“With so much attention on identifying issues we should be unhappy about, Winton Bates' book is a welcome relief, given its emphasis on how much the lot of most people—particularly those in western liberal societies—has improved, why the improvements have taken place, and why they should continue. Its historical coverage of the philosophical issues underpinning the role of liberty in western progress should delight all serious thinkers.”

Ed Younkins, author of Flourishing and Happiness in A Free Society and Capitalism and Commerce writes:

“This masterful feat of integration of a wide range of literature from philosophy, economics, political science, and the social sciences will inspire scholars to bring their disciplines together to advance the argument for a free society.”

What are my qualifications to write such a book?

I am an economist. I first became professionally involved in broad issues concerning human flourishing in the early 1990s. Before then, my career focused on public policy relating to economic development, international trade, productivity growth and technological progress. Whilst retaining my professional interest in such matters, I have become increasingly interested in economic history, happiness economics, behavioral economics, self-help psychology, politics, and Aristotelian philosophy. I have written extensively about freedom and flourishing and have been blogging on this site for about 12 years.

How do I perform when interviewed about my book?

Potential interviewers who need to make such an assessment should take a look at me being interviewed by Leah Goldrick. The interview entitled “Freedom Helps us Flourish” has been published on Leah’s Common Sense Ethics channel on YouTube. The interview is also a useful source of background information about the book and its author.

Where can the book be purchased?

The book has been published by Hamilton Books and can be purchased at the Rowman and Littlefield web site: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761872665/Freedom-Progress-and-Human-Flourishing

It is also available from Amazon and some other booksellers.

How good is this image of self-actualization?

When you think about Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, what is the image that appears in your mind? I expect that most people who have some knowledge of the concept would think of a pyramid in which needs are layered one on top of the other, with physiological needs at the bottom and self-actualization needs at the top. If you have no idea what I am talking about, there is no need to worry. Andy Ogden’s sailboat illustration, provided above, is better. That image has been used effectively by Scott Barry Kaufman in Transcend, his recently published book which seeking to update Maslow’s hierarchy.

Kaufman points out that the pyramid image was created by a management consultant rather than by Maslow. He argues that the pyramid “had the unfortunate consequence of reducing Maslow’s rich and nuanced intellectual contributions to a parody and has betrayed the actual spirit of Maslow’s notion of self-actualization as realizing one’s creative potential for humanitarian ends”.

I have read many books aimed at the self-help market, but Transcend has more endorsements by psychologists than any I have previously read. Those praising the book include Martin Seligman, Steven Hayes and Steven Pinker. My inner economist tells me that there must be something wrong with a book preceded by five pages of praise, but I haven’t found much wrong with this one.

Kaufman’s sailboat image captures Maslow’s idea that all needs can be grouped into two main classes, deficiency needs and growth needs. The planks of the boat represent deficiency needs and the sails represents growth (or self-actualization). 

In explaining his metaphor, Kaufman suggests:

“Life isn’t a trek up a summit but a journey to travel through – a vast blue ocean, full of opportunities for new meaning and discovery but also danger and uncertainty”.

The deficiency needs that comprise the boat, safety, connection, and self-esteem work as a dynamic system. Under good conditions they work together toward greater security and stability. Under unfavourable conditions, they can lead toward insecurity and instability, causing people to focus attention on defending themselves.

The growth needs comprising the sails are exploration, love, and purpose. Kaufman suggests that “the drive for exploration is the core motive underlying self-actualization”. It involves the desire to seek out and make sense of novel, challenging and uncertain events. Love and purpose can build on the fundamental need for exploration. Loving is noted to be a powerful force, linked to growth, compassion, coping and authenticity. Purpose is defined as “the need for an overarching aspiration that energizes one’s efforts and provides a central source of meaning and significance in one’s life”.

Kaufman sensibly emphasizes the hazards of attempting to fulfill a need for purpose without working on other areas of growth:

“It is entirely possible to choose a striving that brings out the worst in yourself and others because it is motivated by a desperate, never-ending quest to fill a deficiency in one of the security needs, whether it’s safety, belonging, or self-esteem”.

The need for transcendence is depicted as being in the sky above the sails. Kaufman suggests that transcendence “goes beyond individual growth (and even health and happiness) and allows for the highest levels of unity and harmony within oneself and with the world”. Some further explanation might be helpful for those who, like me, read that and think immediately that they don’t need mystical experiences. The transcending experiences written about are not all mystical. Kaufman notes that transcendence incorporates a “unitary continuum,” of experiences ranging from becoming engrossed in a book, sports performance, or creative activity (what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to as the flow experience), to experiencing awe at a beautiful sunset etc, all the way up to the great mystical illumination.

A particularly useful contribution of the book is to make a clear distinction between healthy self-esteem and narcissism. Kaufman points out that narcissism is not just high self-esteem, in the sense of a quiet and sturdy confidence in oneself. Narcissists feel superior; they are arrogant and unwilling to accept criticism.

In writing the book, Kaufman has drawn on Maslow’s unpublished writings to illustrate the range and depth of his thinking. This passage, written by Maslow about 50 years ago, has contemporary relevance:

 “It is … vital to emphasize that a democratic society is rooted in a set of feelings toward other people—feelings like compassion and respect. …  If we did not trust other people, if we did not like them, if we did not pity them, if we did not have brotherly or sisterly feelings for them, then a democratic society would of course be out of the question. Obviously, human history provides many examples to prove this point.”

Readers may have guessed already that I am impressed by Kaufman’s book. In my view he does an excellent job in bringing together many findings of psychologists relating to personal development. I particularly like the imagery in his use of the sailboat metaphor because it recognizes that each individual has prime responsibility for his or her own journey through life.

Which are the countries in which people have the best opportunities for psychological well-being?

This might seem like an odd question, so I will begin by explaining why I think it is worth considering.

Psychological well-being was identified in a recent post on this blog as one of five basic goods that a flourishing human would be expected to have. The post listed a range of aspects involved in psychological well-being: emotional stability, positive emotion, satisfaction with material living standards, engagement in doing things for their own sake and learning new things, perception of life as meaningful, a sense of accomplishment, optimism, resilience, vitality, integrity, and self-respect.

It seems reasonable to expect that opportunities for individuals to experience some of those aspects of psychological well-being might be greater in some countries than in others.

In compiling my list of aspects of psychological well-being, my starting point was the definition of psychological flourishing adopted by Felicia Huppert and Timothy So in their article ‘Flourishing Across Europe’ (published in Soc.Indic.Res. in 2013). These authors view psychological flourishing as lying at the opposite end of a spectrum to depression and anxiety. They identified 10 symptoms of flourishing (competence, emotional stability, engagement, meaning, optimism, positive emotion, positive relationships, resilience, self-esteem, and vitality) as the opposites of internationally agreed criteria for depression and anxiety (DSM and ICD). The study has previously been discussed on this blog.

My main modification to Huppert and So’s list is the addition of satisfaction with material living standards. In my view, people who feel miserable because they are dissatisfied with their material living standards are deficient in psychological well-being, even though they may not be suffering from the symptoms of depression or anxiety.

Despite my desire to modify the measure of psychological flourishing constructed by Huppert and So, it strikes me as providing a good basis for international comparison of psychological well-being. Unfortunately, this measure is only available for European countries, and for one year, 2006. That leads me to consider whether life satisfaction is a satisfactory alternative measure.

Is life satisfaction good enough?

The chart shown above suggests that, at a national level at least, the percentage of people who are satisfied “with how life has turned out so far” (ratings of 9 or 10 on a scale of 0 to 10) is a good predictor of psychological flourishing. In a simple linear regression, the percentage with high life satisfaction explains 83% of the inter-country variation in the percentage who are flourishing. (The chart was constructed using life satisfaction data from the 2006 European Social Survey used by Huppert and So to construct their psychological flourishing indicator.)

The idea that life satisfaction could a good enough measure of psychological flourishing might appear to be at variance with the findings of Huppert and So.  As discussed in an earlier post, Huppert and So found that only 46.0% of people who met the criterion for flourishing had high life satisfaction, and only 38.7% of people who had high life satisfaction met the criterion for flourishing.

 

However, the appropriateness of life satisfaction as an indicator of psychological flourishing depends on the purpose for which the indicator is to be used. If you want to know about an individual’s psychological well-being, it is hardly surprising that a single question about life satisfaction has been found to be a poor indicator. If your focus is on average psychological well-being at a national level, life satisfaction seems to be a good enough indicator because much of the measurement error at an individual level washes out in calculating national averages.

The countries with highest average life satisfaction

Average life satisfaction data from the Gallup World Poll is published annually in the World Happiness Report. This data set covers many countries and measures life satisfaction according to the Cantril ladder scale, with a rating of 10 being given to the best possible life and a rating of zero is given to the worst possible life.

In the 2018 survey, average life satisfaction ratings were greater than 7 in 15 countries: Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Sweden, New Zealand, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Germany and Czech Republic. Average ratings tend to be fairly stable from year to year, but a decade earlier, Ireland, Spain, U.S, Israel, Belgium and France had average ratings above 7, and U.K, Costa Rica and Germany had ratings below 7.

Regression analysis undertaken by John Helliwell et. al. show that almost three-quarters of the variation in national annual average life satisfaction scores among countries can be explained by six variables: GDP per capita, networks of social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and freedom from corruption. That list of variables has a strong overlap with determinants of other basic goods in my list of the five basic goods that a flourishing human could be expected to have. (See other posts in this series, here, here and here.) Apart from GDP per capita and healthy life expectancy, however, the data used in the analysis of Helliwell et al are based on perceptions of survey participants rather than objective measurement. (The analysis is a pooled regression using 1704 national observations from the years 2005 to 2018.)

Since my focus is on identifying countries where a person chosen at random would have the best opportunities, the median life satisfaction for each country would be a better criterion than the mean. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to such data at a national level. Estimates of median life satisfaction for broad regions (based on data here) suggest that median life satisfaction is typically lower than the mean. The difference between mean and median tends to be small for countries with relatively high life satisfaction: Western Europe (6.6 for mean cf. 6.4 for median) and North America and ANZ (7.1 cf. 6.9). The difference more substantial in some other parts of the world e.g. South East Asia (5.4 cf. 4.8).

Avoiding and reducing misery

In considering which countries offer the best opportunities for psychological well-being, countries with high average life satisfaction would be less attractive to risk averse people (most humans) if a relatively high proportion of the population of those countries nevertheless lived in misery. However, available evidence suggests that factors that lead to high life satisfaction also tend to reduce misery. For example, it is apparent from the graph below that the regions of the world with highest average life satisfaction tend also to have the lowest percentages with low life satisfaction.

A study by Andrew Clark et al for the World Happiness Report 2017 used data for the U.S., Australia, Britain and Indonesia to examine how much misery would be reduced if it was possible to eliminate one or more key determinants. The factors considered were poverty, low education, unemployment, living alone, physical illness, and depression and anxiety disorders. The authors found that the most powerful impact would come from the elimination of depression and anxiety disorders.

Conclusions

Life satisfaction is not a particularly good indicator of individual psychological well-being, but it seems to be a good enough indicator to use in international comparisons.

Countries with the highest average life satisfaction are characterised by relatively high income levels and life expectancy, accompanied by perceptions of strong social support, freedom and low corruption. The percentage of the population who are dissatisfied with life tends to be relatively low in such countries.