Good Works

WHEN I WAS an undergraduate, among my favorite instructors was a then-untenured economist who preached a greed-is-good gospel ostensibly derived from Adam Smith: Man is homo economicus, a rationally selfish creature who, left free to compete, single-mindedly produces prosperity for himself but only serendipitously produces it for others. There was, he explained, really no room for such concepts as kindness, altruism, or sympathy in serious microeconomic analysis.

He elaborated that very point one fine afternoon when he kindly stayed after class to talk with me, and altruistically offered to help me land a better work-study job on campus the next summer. He also responded sympathetically when a group of us asked for extra help with an especially difficult problem set, buying us snacks on the way back to his office and leaving a tip. Some years later he got tenure, but several equally well-published assistant professors of economics who practiced me-first morality on the job did not.

Adam Smith would not be surprised, and he probably would pardon my other-regarding economics instructor for caricaturing Smith’s ideas as many do. Both in his most famous book, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” (1776), and in his earlier but less known work, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759), Smith taught that sympathy was every bit as natural a human propensity as selfishness.

It was, in fact, in “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” that he first discussed the “invisible hand,” writing that the rich “are led by an invisible hand” to “divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements . . . and afford means to the multiplication of the species.” The book’s first sentence declares: “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.” His arch-villains in “The Wealth of Nations” are mercantile capitalists whose unbridled greed, backed by government, begets neither individual productivity nor common prosperity. He argued that “in every improved and civilized society,” government should promote the “wealth of nations” by permitting merchants and manufacturers to compete freely yet fairly while taking “pains to prevent” prosperity being purchased “at the expense . . . of the labouring poor.”

It appears that contemporary social science and sociobiology are finally catching up to Adam Smith. Robert H. Frank’s new “What Price the Moral High Ground? Ethical Dilemmas in Competitive Environments” may have the least alluring title imaginable, but it is a readable and important study. A Cornell University economist, Frank summarizes what numerous theoretically sound and methodologically rigorous studies from diverse academic disciplines now suggest about human nature and the conditions under which nice guys–and corporations and nations–finish first.

“All but the most extreme socio-paths,” observes Frank, “have within them the capacity to experience sympathy for others and to weigh others’ interests when deciding what to do.” There is “persuasive evidence that in many situations we simply do not behave in the narrowly self-interested ways predicted by traditional theories.” Standard “rational-choice” behavioral models cannot explain why you will probably return a wallet if you find it in a taxi. Likewise, the “stereotypical Darwinian actor does not help a victim in distress unless that victim is likely to return the favor or is a sufficiently close genetic relative.” Instead, people make charitable gifts, and some love to do so anonymously. We sometimes strive to do a good job even when we know that we will get no material or social rewards for doing so. And total strangers sometimes risk life and limb for each other–but why?

Perhaps we are hard-wired to cooperate because cooperation often pays. We sympathetic souls have a biology-bred knack for finding, employing, marrying, and otherwise rewarding one another. Like my old economics instructor, we generally do better for ourselves–get promoted, attract more loyal mates, you name it–when we do well for others. Natural selection has bestowed “brain circuitry that enables us to experience sympathy, guilt, and other moral emotions,” and we tax those circuits constantly in assessing and reassessing each other’s trustworthiness and suitability as business partners, spouses, friends, bosses, and more. “People in every culture recognize” a given facial expression, Frank notes, “as an expression of sadness, distress, sympathy, or some closely related emotion. Most people cannot produce this expression on command,” but “the muscles of the human face create the expression automatically when the relevant emotion is experienced.” Through “animal-signaling” tutored by experience, even after quite limited interpersonal interaction we can often “identify people who are emotionally predisposed to cooperate” and sniff out selfishness.

Men will not be surprised that studies show women are much better at detecting liars and predicting trustworthiness than men. But, under a wide range of circumstances, both men and women behave as if “morality–defined as a willingness to put community interests ahead of one’s own interests at least some of the time–is not only consistent with individual survival but often even conducive to it.” Even bargain-hunting consumers often “incur costs on behalf of moral concerns,” which helps to explain why, for example, McDonald’s “sells more hamburgers because of its support for the parents of seriously ill children.” Likewise, it helps explain why talented college graduates who could easily make more bucks in the for-profit sector flock to the nonprofit sector for jobs they consider “more satisfying in moral terms than otherwise similar jobs.” In sum, “unselfish motives figure prominently in economic behavior” and in virtually every other realm of human endeavor and excellence as well.

Rightly noting that “a theory that can explain everything ends up explaining nothing,” Frank scolds die-hard Darwinists and others who, desperate to salvage their survival-through-self-interest theories from considerable counter-evidence, descend into tautology by explaining altruism or cooperation “after the fact simply by positing a taste for it”: Firefighters who rush into blazing buildings to rescue residents they cannot see through the soot and smoke are supposedly either impulsively indulging their needs for adrenaline rushes, or rationally calculating that they will not only survive but also get promotions and public salutes; people who bother to vote in presidential elections even though their vote will not affect the outcome, or who give money to public television even though their favorite shows will stay or go regardless, do so either because they are too stupid not to “free ride,” or because they receive selective benefits tied to their efforts (only voters get noticed by neighbors at the polling place, only contributors get the album or umbrella); and so on. As Frank states, to be “scientifically valuable, a theory must make predictions that are at least in principle capable of being falsified.”

I would say “amen” to that, but Frank makes only a few passing references to religion. This is an unfortunate omission, because there is a good and growing empirical research literature suggesting that, as a class, religious individuals and institutions are unsurpassed with respect to charitable giving and virtually all behaviors bearing on “the spontaneous emergence of pro-social behavior.” As the University of Pennsylvania scholar of social work Ram Cnaan likes to quip, religious people and congregations are America’s “invisible caring hand.” The faithful are the polar opposite of the economists, who, research shows, “behave less cooperatively than non-economists along a variety of different dimensions” (trust less, give less to charity). That helps explain why my old economics instructor was highly caring by his department’s standards, but only about average compared with my kindly professors in political science.

Frank notes that views “about human nature have important practical consequences” in “the public policy arena,” but he does not look into the literature on political campaigns or legislative affairs. If he did, he might find much suggestive evidence that people pay close attention not only to candidates’ policy positions but also to candidates’ personalities. That is why, for all that is said against them, face-to-face debates still matter and many voters care deeply about whether a candidate seems trustworthy and honest.

APART FROM tooting pro-social norms and cautioning readers not to get too giddy about the study’s wider implications–for example, he warns that the United States will not long have “the highest rate of tax compliance among large developed countries” if “we continue to cut the staff and budget of the IRS sharply”–Frank says nothing much about how civic life, government performance, or efforts to ensure the wealth, health, and security of nations can flourish or falter depending on whether they embody or enervate empirically correct beliefs about human nature.

That’s a shame, since it is only a slight stretch to say that America became a truly great nation because, in different ways and with varying degrees of fidelity over time, its mixed economy and representative democracy have assumed people to be what James Madison, echoing Adam Smith, described in “The Federalist Papers”: creatures “more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good” yet possessing many “other qualities” without which there would not be “sufficient virtue among men for self-government.”

No nation relies more heavily–or more reliably–than America does on civic sympathies channeled through churches and other volunteer-based organizations to deliver social services and meet a wide variety of human needs. None can count so strongly on individual charitable contributions to soar or people to pitch in when emergencies occur or disasters strike at home or abroad. None has more consistently enacted big-hearted immigration laws and free-but-fair trade policies. And, when our public policies have tilted toward either selfishness (for instance, overregulating corporate practices in ways that cost lots but cut environmental pollution little) or sympathy alone (say, under-punishing violent criminals in ways that rehabilitate little but compromise public safety lots), things have often gone awry.

Still, for a university press treatise that packs a serious academic punch, “What Price the Moral High Ground?” is wide-ranging and well written. So, despite my nitpicks, I intend to buy more copies and give them to several graduate students as gifts; besides, in his dustjacket’s photo, Robert Frank looks like a nice-enough guy–at least, for an economist.

Contributing editor John J. DiIulio Jr. is co-author with James Q. Wilson of “American Government: Institutions and Policies,” just released in its ninth edition.