Tag Archives: Morality

Surely, You Must Pay Your Debts!

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Not necessarily, and don’t call me Shirley!

Below is a link to a fairly long review by journalist Robert Kuttner of a book called Debt: The First 5,000 Years. I’ll summarize:

People, especially poor people, have been borrowing from other people, especially rich people, for thousands of years.

As long as people have borrowed, lenders (not all of them, but some of them) have accepted partial payment, especially in difficult economic times. Sometimes it makes economic sense for lenders to suffer a loss, if that’s what’s required to make the economy as a whole (and possibly the lenders themselves) more prosperous. It isn’t mentioned in the review, but Babylonian kinds periodically canceled debts so their wealthy subjects didn’t end up owning all the land. 

The modern form of bankruptcy was invented 300 years ago in England. The idea was that both creditors and debtors would be better off if debtors were allowed to start over, repaying what they could instead of wasting away in debtor’s prison.

Our current laws are tilted in favor of banks and the people who run corporations. Corporations are allowed to declare bankruptcy, sometimes more than once. Corporate officers generally remain in control of their bankrupt companies. On the other hand, countries like Greece can’t declare bankruptcy, although this has been proposed. Homeowners can’t use bankruptcy to deal with their mortgages. Students can’t even refinance their student loans at lower rates. In Kuttner’s words: “The obligations of a student loan follow a borrower to the grave”.

The Germans use the same word for “debt” and “guilt” (Schuld). They’re strongly in favor of other countries paying everything they owe, but seem to have forgotten that, after World War II, the Allies forgave almost all of Germany’s debts and allowed the Germans to postpone their remaining payments for 50 years, helping Germany rebuild and eventually become a creditor to other nations: “Germany, whose debt-to-GDP ratio in 1939 was [a whopping] 675 percent, had a debt load of about 12 percent in the early 1950s—far less than that of the victorious Allies”.

Most of us believe there is a moral aspect to paying our debts, but that’s not the way it’s generally thought of in the business world:

The double standard in debt relief that favored large merchants, present at the creation of bankruptcy law in 1706, persists today in many different forms. It gets surprisingly little attention in the debt debates. Despite the tacit assumption that “surely one has to pay one’s debts,” the evasion of repayment is both widespread and selective. Corporate executives routinely walk away from their debts via Chapter 11 of the national bankruptcy law when that seems expedient. Morality scarcely enters the conversation—this is strictly business.

It’s an excellent, eye-opening article. It even includes some recommendations for changing how various kinds of debt are handled today.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/may/09/debt-we-shouldnt-pay/?page=1

On the Genealogy of Morality by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Maudmarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen

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On the Genealogy of Morality (more often translated as “On the Genealogy of Morals”) is Nietzsche’s attempt to explain why many of us subscribe to Judeo-Christian morality, and why we’re wrong to do so.

The book is divided into three treatises. In the first treatise, Nietzsche argues that there was an ancient distinction between “good” and “bad”. “Good” referred to the powerful, i.e. the nobility; “bad” referred to the weak, i.e. the slaves. Then Judaism and Christianity popularized a new distinction, replacing “bad” with “evil”. “Good” people were now those who followed strictures like the Golden Rule and evil people were those who didn’t. Judeo-Christian morality embraces ideas like compassion for the weak in place of respect (including self-respect) for the strong. It is “slave morality”.

The second treatise describes the origins of punishment in the ancient relationship between creditor and debtor and the subsequent creation of the guilty conscience. God was erected as the ultimate creditor to which we owe absolutely everything. We are not worthy. We feel guilt. Nietzsche says that having a guilty conscience is a kind of sickness. We should accept the fact that we all have a fundamental “will to power” or, what he says is an equivalent phrase, an “instinct for freedom”. If we suppress our will to power, if we do not act as we will, our internal energy bursts forth in other ways. We become sick. We suffer. 

According to Nietzsche, bad conscience should really be wed to “the unnatural inclinations, all those aspirations to the beyond, to that which is contrary to the senses, contrary to the instincts, contrary to nature, contrary to the animal — in short, the previous ideals which … are hostile to life, ideals of those who libel the world” (section 24).

Not everyone recommends reading the third treatise. It is an extended rant concerning the ill effects of religion as practiced by the “ascetic priest”. To quote Nietzsche: “the ascetic ideal and its sublime-moral cult, this most ingenious, most unsuspected and most dangerous systematizing of all the instruments of emotional excess under the aegis of holy intentions, has inscribed itself in a terrible and unforgettable way into the entire history of man” (section 21). But not all is lost: “It is from the will to truth’s becoming conscious of itself that from now on — there is no doubt about it — morality will gradually perish” (section 27).

Nietzsche apparently believes that the will to power or instinct for freedom is such a large part of human psychology that it is foolish to deny it. In order to live good, healthy lives, we need to create our own morality, one that meets our need for power and freedom, if we are capable of doing so. This does not necessarily mean that we must treat other people badly. We just have to remember that we should always come first. It isn’t surprising that this philosophy appeals to some people, since it is awfully one-dimensional. Fortunately, cooperation, compassion and even altruism are natural too.  (4/2/12)

The Sources of Normativity by Christine M. Korsgaard

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Professor Korsgaard argues that ethical normativity or value results from autonomous agents like ourselves reflecting on what we ought to do and then endorsing a rational course of action, i.e., a course of action based on reasons we can truthfully endorse. This is “reflective endorsement”. Actions and the reasons for those actions are good if they are well-considered and promote our “practical identity”, the conception of ourselves as valuable beings with lives worth living. And since we value our own humanity, we should value the humanity of others as well. 

Korsgaard says that obligations only exist in the first-person perspective: “in one sense, the obligatory is like the visible: it depends on how much of the light of reflection is on”. She also believes that we are subject to moral laws that we ourselves create (until we as individuals change those laws).  

She admits, however, that her argument will fail to convince someone who is completely skeptical about morality. She does not provide a non-moral foundation for morality (who could?). What Korsgaad does provide is an explanation of the role morality plays in our lives and how trying to be moral contributes to our self-image as proper human beings. 

Included in the book are responses from four well-known philosophers. I thought that their criticisms were more sensible and understandable than Korsgaard’s replies.  (5/2/11)

Moral Clarity: a Guide for Grown-Up Idealists by Susan Neiman

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Abraham did the right thing when he argued with God about God’s intention to kill everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah (not when he agreed to sacrifice his son Isaac). By standing up for his ethical ideals in opposition to the demands of his religion, Abraham foreshadowed the values of the Enlightenment.

Neiman believes that we should adopt certain key Enlightenment values, in opposition to cultural trends on both the right and the left (but mostly the right). She focuses on happiness, reason, reverence and hope. She contends that Enlightenment thinkers understood the limitations of reason. They also realized that progress is not inevitable. But thinkers like Kant showed the way to a universalist morality that favors reason over tradition, knowledge over superstition, and hope over fear.  (12/26/10)