Dusseldorf Aren’t all people “good people”? At least that’s what most people would probably say. The fact that at this point there is a big gap between self-perception and the lived reality of the human species is shown in all the injustice in this world. And the fact that climate change, for example, can progress almost unchecked, although it has been clear for decades what it would take to contain it.
Why is it that people find it so much harder to be a “good person” than they like to admit to themselves? And what can be done to help the good get started? The behavioral economist Armin Falk follows these two key questions in his new book.
A look at the author’s research CV suggests that this is not just one popular scientific publication among many: For decades he has been dealing with psychological aspects of the economy and the labor market – with the core of this book. So it happens that a large part of the chapters are not fed from the ruminated treatises of other authors, but from their own experiments.
But what makes a “good person” anyway? A question that only at first glance provokes digressions in the philosophy of the kitchen. Because the answer could hardly be simpler: A good person is someone who puts the common good above their own benefit. In other words: “Behaviour is moral if it produces positive effects on other people.” It is this social “minimum consensus” that Falk uses as a “working definition” of what is good.
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“Our everyday life is a single impertinence,” the author writes in this context – only half jokingly: “He challenges us to decide again and again between right and wrong, between good and evil, between altruism and self-interest.” which each of us faces a hundred times a week – and which all too often does not turn out in favor of the general public.
Armin Falk: Why it is so difficult to be a good person
Settlers publishing house
Munich 2022
336 pages
24 euros
On the one hand, this is because, as Falk writes, people are “surrounded by moral stumbling blocks”. On the other hand, because a degree of egoism, measured according to personality characteristics, is quite simply the basis of human nature. Ultimately, it is “the interplay of situation and personality” that determines whether someone puts their own advantage above the common good.
Falk extensively dissects these moral pitfalls of everyday life – using numerous examples from economic history and using his own and other research work. In the end, there is always a conflict of goals: “weighing the benefit of the ‘good deed’ against the associated costs”.
Social norms also play an important role, as does the relationship with the person to whom it is important to behave morally – and, most importantly, the perceived level of personal responsibility. The “diffusion of responsibility” is one of the most central obstacles to moral behavior. And this effect, which is expressed in frequently heard statements such as “If I don’t do it, someone else will” or “I can’t do anything on my own anyway” is one of the undeniable evils of Western, capitalist society. If you like: the origin of all evil in the modern market economy.
In markets, morality gets “caught between the wheels because nobody really feels responsible,” writes Falk. “Because there could always be someone else running things because we follow directions and delegate responsibility. Or because we lose track of the complex structure of production based on the division of labour, international sales, delivery and trade relationships and finally the vastly diverse range of consumer products on offer.”
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So abolish markets? Falk doesn’t go that far. And yet he contradicts the neoliberal economic credo of the market, which can regulate everything, in no uncertain terms. Only state intervention and regulation could limit the “undesirable and sometimes violent side effects” of capitalism.
In the final chapter of the book, Falk gives further important pointers towards a more moral society. And they are not always easy to digest – precisely because they want to break with the diffusion of responsibility. The author calls for conscious clarification. And it’s “out[zu]come from the self-created feel-good corner, in which we make ourselves comfortable with a good self-image despite selfish behavior”.
A first step in this direction and a piece of advice that Falk may have consciously refrained from – after all, being a “good person” also includes a healthy measure of modesty: Put this book on your and other reading lists.
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