Chapter 10

Self-Love, Social Cooperation, and Justice

1INTRODUCTION

This essay is more an excursion into the history of ideas than into intense philosophical argumentation. Still, it has an overarching philosophical theme. That theme involves a contrast between two conceptions of cooperation – especially economic cooperation. This contrast is intended to cast a very favorable light upon one of these conceptions and a very unfavorable light upon the other.

On one conception cooperation does not at all require – indeed, characteristically does not involve – a shared end or a unity of purpose among the cooperating parties. On this conception, the fact that the respective parties are each moved by self-interest or the prospect of personal advantage or some other highly individualized end, such as benefits for their own family and friends, does not at all inhibit cooperation among those parties. On this conception, individuals do not have to override or transcend their partiality on behalf of their separate and distinct ends for cooperation among them to flourish. Nevertheless, within this conception, some motivational element beyond the parties’ pursuit of their separate and distinct ends is needed for cooperation to thrive. That further element is general and reciprocal compliance with constraining norms, which, to use the common metaphor, constitute the rules of the economic cooperation game. It is the expectation of reciprocal compliance with these rules of the game that enables parties who do not share ultimate ends to play the game with one another to mutual advantage. Friends of this conception of cooperation characteristically take these rules to be basic principles of justice. I will refer to this as the separateness of ends conception of cooperation or, for short, the separateness conception.

On the other conception, cooperation – or at least stable and ongoing economic cooperation – requires that the parties to cooperative interaction share some unifying end. There must be some common goal that they all seek to achieve, some guiding unity of purpose. If parties only bring their own separate and distinct ends to the table, cooperation among them will not really be possible. Assuming that we start out as individuals with separate and distinct ends, on this conception, cooperation requires a fundamental transformation of our motivational structure. Each party must come to care about the other party’s attainment of her ends as much as he cares about his attainment of his own ends; or in some other way they must move toward unity of purpose. The sort of constraining rules or principles of justice that play so central a role according to the separateness conception can at most play a secondary, heuristic role according to this second conception. I will call this second conception the unity of purpose conception – or, for short, the unity conception.

These two conceptions of cooperation adhere to two radically different ways of dealing with the separateness of the interests and ends of prospective cooperators. Friends of the separateness conception envision the addition of constraining principles or rules (of the interaction game) that channel individuals with their separate interests and ends away from conflictual interaction and toward cooperative interaction. In contrast, friends of the unity conception envision the substitution of some common goal for the separate interests and ends with which the parties approach opportunities for interaction.

Section II of this essay describes the articulation of the separateness conception in Hugo Grotius’ The Rights of War and Peace and David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature. Section III points to John Stuart Mill’s subscription to the unity conception in Utilitarianism. In my concluding section IV, I tip my hat to F. A. Hayek, who did more in the twentieth century than anyone else to renew appreciation for the separation conception and many kindred ideas.

2THE SEPARATENESS CONCEPTION

In his enormously influential 1625 work The Rights of War and Peace,1 the Dutch moral and legal theorist Hugo Grotius set out to create a new theory of natural law and natural justice, a new theory of property rights, a new account of state authority and its limits, and a new account of just war and justice in the conduct of war. At the beginning of this massive work, Grotius takes note of the doctrine that individuals seek and have reason to seek only their own personal advantage. He says that, if this doctrine is correct, his entire project – especially his advocacy of certain principles of justice – will be undermined. Hence, he must rebut the view that individuals only go for and only rationally go for their personal advantage.

Grotius focuses on the Greek skeptic, Carneades, who held (in Grotius’ words) that,

Nature prompts all Men … to seek their own particular Advantage: So that either there is no Justice at all, or if there is any, it is extreme Folly, because it engages us to procure the Good of others, to our own Prejudice.

(Grotius 2005: 79)

According to Carneades, either there is no justice because all human action necessarily is simply a matter of people pursuing their own interests, or there is such a thing as justice – which sometimes calls for one not to pursue one’s own advantage; but to pursue such justice rather than personal advantage is folly.

Grotius rejects Carneades’ conclusion by pointing to a further and different type of motivation that Grotius takes to be unique to human beings.2 Grotius calls this motivation the “Desire of Society.” He says that this desire is

a certain inclination to live with those of his own Kind, not in any Manner whatsoever, but peacefully, and in a community regulated according to the best of his Understanding … Therefore the Saying, that every Creature is led by Nature to seek its own private Advantage, expressed thus universally, must not be granted.

(Grotius 79–81)³

Moreover, in human beings, the satisfaction of this “exquisite Desire of Society” is attained through “a Faculty of knowing and acting, according to general Principles; so that what relates to this Faculty is not common to all Animals, but properly and peculiarly agrees to Mankind (Grotius 84–5).

So, Grotius is not saying that the Desire of Society is a counterbalancing or even overriding altruistic desire to promote the well-being of other people. Grotius’ response to Carneades is not that everyone or nearly everyone cares deeply about everyone else or nearly everyone else. Instead, Grotius broadly accepts the pervasiveness and the rationality of individuals pursuing their own interests and ends. Carneades’ claim, “expressed thus universally,” is not granted because, aside from being moved directly by considerations of self-interest, individuals are moved by a “Disposition to Society” (Grotius 86n2) which is an inclination to live peacefully with others in accord with principles that our Understanding recommends to us as societal norms. Our Understanding can detect certain norms which will provide a framework for a peaceful and desirable community; and the Desire of Society is the inclination in us to abide by these principles which our Reason can detect. This is the way in which “a Disposition to Society” and “Reason” combine to make peaceful and desirable community possible (Grotius 86n2).

What norms does Reason especially commend to us? Grotius’ answer seems to be that Reason recommends principles compliance with which it creates a social environment that is conducive to everyone’s pursuit of their particular good. Grotius refers to this social environment in a number of different ways, for example, as the “Union of Mankind” or as the “Maintenance of Society.” Grotius cites Seneca’s remark, “Take away the Disposition to Society, and you will at the same Time destroy the Union of Mankind, on which the Preservation and Happiness of Life depend” (Grotius 86n2). Grotius refers to the principles that we are inclined to obey because of our Desire of Society as “Laws of Nature,” and he asserts that “People which violate the Laws of Nature break down the Bulwarks of their future Happiness and Tranquillity” (Grotius 95). According to Grotius, it is “Folly” to act contrary to these Laws of Nature because, in seeking some “present Advantage,” a man “saps the Foundation of his own perpetual Interest,” (Grotius 95) which is “the Maintenance of Society” (Grotius 91).⁴

We are rationally disposed to abide by these Laws of Nature even though a short-sighted calculation of our interests might lead us to violate those principles. According to Grotius, we are subject to “Temptations” – “from Avarice, or Lust, or Anger, or imprudent Pity, or Ambition.” Succumbing to these temptations leads us into “the greatest Injuries,” for such submission undermines “Human Society,” which is crucial to the well-being of each of us. In contrast, compliance with Natural Right or the principles of justice preserves “Human Society inviolable” (Grotius 121):

it must … be agreeable to human Nature, that according to the Measure of our Understanding we should … follow the Dictates of a right and sound Judgment, and not be corrupted either by Fear, or the Allurements of present Pleasure, nor be carried away violently by blind Passion. And whatsoever is contrary to such a Judgment is likewise understood to be contrary to Natural Right, that is, the Law of our Nature.

(Grotius 87)

So, Reason detects principles, compliance with which creates a structure of interaction among human beings that benefits each of us in terms of our likely attainment of our particular ends.

However, our desire for our own particular ends does not directly motivate us to comply with the principles that sustain this social structure. If we were motivated only by such direct considerations of private advantage, we would often act contrary to these principles and thereby undermine our own preservation, happiness, and tranquility. Fortunately for all of us, we also have the Desire of Society, which directly motivates us to abide by principles that Reason understands must be abided by if the background framework for our personal well-being, “Human Society,” is to obtain.

What are these norms of “Natural Right” that are the “Bulwarks” of our happiness and tranquility? According to Grotius, the “Foundation of Right properly so called” consists in

the Abstaining from that which is another’s, and the Restitution of what we have of another’s, or the Profit we made by it, the Obligation of fulfilling Promises, the Reparation of a Damage done through our own Default, and the Merit of Punishment among Men.

(Grotius 86)

“Right properly so called” forbids infringements upon others’ property, mandates the payment of restitution for such infringements, forbids non-fulfillment of agreements, and mandates the payment of reparations for damages done through violations of agreements; it also upholds the punishment of blameworthy violators of rights. Putting aside punishment, “Right properly so called” affirms the rights of property and contract and the obligations correlative to those rights. Compliance with this Right “consists in leaving others in quiet possession of what is already their own, or in doing for them what in Strictness others may demand” (Grotius 88–9). Grotius’ editor, Jean Barbeyrac, supplies the following accurate expansion of Grotius’ stance:

When we forbear striking, wounding, robbing, injuring or defaming any one, we only leave him in quiet Possession of what was his own; for the good Condition of his Limbs, His Goods, and Reputation, are actually his own, and no Man has a Right to dispossess him of them, while he has done nothing to deserve such Treatment. When we repair the Damage he has sustained in his Person, Goods, or Reputation, whether designedly or through Inadvertency, we restore what we had taken from him, and what was his own, which he had a strict Right to demand. When we keep our Word to him, when we perform our Promise, or make good an Engagement, we do not indeed restore, what he was once in actual Possession of; but we perform what he might strictly require at our hands.

(Grotius 88–9n7)

Justice limits the range of actions through which individuals may engage in the pursuit of their personal advantage while leaving considerable scope for persons to pursue their private interests. Grotius cites the Greek philosopher Chrysippus (c. 280–227 BC) who concludes that “There is no Injustice in seeking one’s own advantage; but it is contrary to Equity to take away from another” (Grotius 156n8). The principles of justice are like traffic rules. They limit the ways one can go about getting one’s vehicle from one point to another, but they do not tell anyone where she must go. Moreover, each driver gains greatly in her ability to get wherever she wants to go by all other drivers being constrained in how they can go about getting to their own particular destinations.

So, for Grotius, the reconciliation of self-love on the one hand and cooperation and justice on the other is provided by the fact that each agent’s personal advantage is best served by that agent’s strict compliance with the norms that underwrite cooperation and are the principles of justice. However, that strict compliance will not obtain if agents are only motivated by the prospect of personal advantage; personal advantage will only be attained if individuals are also steadily motivated by the Desire of Society. Were it not for the Desire of Society, we would make each decision about whether to abide by the principles of justice or defect for the sake of personal gain purely on the basis of our perceived self-interest, and we would expect others to approach their decisions between compliance and defection in the same way. And then compliance would fall away and, along with it, each agent’s attainment of his personal interests.

Thus, it is crucial for Grotius to maintain that individuals have reason to comply with the principles of justice above and beyond strategic calculations of personal advantage. And this is exactly Grotius’ claim. It is an error to “regard nothing in Right but the Profit arising from the Practice of its Rules.” And “Right has not Interest merely for its End.” (Grotius 97) According to Grotius, this is because “though there were no Profit to be expected from the Observation of Right, yet it would be a Point of Wisdom, not of Folly, to obey the Impulse and Direction of our own Nature” (Grotius 95), that is to say, to obey our Desire of Society. Grotius appeals to the proto-Lockean idea that our fundamental moral equality precludes our acting to the prejudice of one another.5 It is a Point of Wisdom to be circumspect in one’s conduct toward others because “Nature has made us all akin: Whence it follows, that it is a Crime for one Man to act to the Prejudice of another” (Grotius 92).

Grotius does not offer a full account of how compliance with one another’s property and contractual rights underwrites a Union of Mankind that is advantageous to everyone. Still, it is clear that he thinks that a crucial part of such an account is the fact that respect for property and contractual rights is crucial to the existence and expansion of commerce. Since “every Man in particular [is] weak in himself; and in Want of many Things necessary for living commodiously” (Grotius 93–4), Reason advises us to seek out mutually beneficial interactions and exchanges. Commodious life requires many different sorts of goods produced out of many different sorts of natural materials. However, in each particular region of the world, only relatively few of the natural materials and relatively few of the specialized skills needed to acquire and enrich those materials for commodious life are present. Hence, for everyone, trade – especially among nations – is of crucial importance for the attainment of their particular interests. Grotius repeatedly cites the Church Father, Saint Chrysostrom,6 who held that the existence of the Mediterranean Sea as an avenue for trade among the many nations around that sea was a sure sign of God’s benevolence. For the Mediterranean provides the physical pre-condition of commerce. The Desire of Society – combined with the Understanding’s grasp of the norms that make human society possible – provides the motivational and moral pre-condition for commerce.

Finally, according to Grotius, what drives trade is “Profit,” not friendship. Individuals (or nations) develop and improve upon the natural materials that they find at hand in order to profit from exchange with others who are likewise developing and improving upon the natural materials they find at hand in order to profit from exchange... and so on. Friendship does enter into Grotius’ story. However, friendship comes in not as the motivation that engenders mutually advantageous trade but, rather, as the consequence of commerce. Grotius cites the second-century Jewish philosopher, Philo, according to whom

Under a good Government, Merchant Ships sail securely on every Sea, in Order to carry on Trade whereby different Countries from the natural Desire of Society mutually communicate what each affords peculiar to itself.... [The Sea] furnishes [all nations] with the Means of supplying one another’s Wants; and forming Acquaintances and Friendships by the Exchanges they make.

(Grotius bk. II, 443–4)

Let us move on to David Hume’s much better known – but highly Grotian – account of cooperation and justice in Book III (“Of Morals”) of his A Treatise of Human Nature (1740).⁷ In a very famous passage in the Treatise, Hume argues that, compared to all other species of animals, human beings are very poorly endowed by nature with the means to satisfy their natural needs and passions.⁸ According to Hume, all other species fall into two categories. There are species that have very elaborate needs – such as lions, who need to consume large amounts of meat to stay alive – but who also have very elaborate natural means to satisfy these needs, for example, in the case of lions, great speed, sharp claws, and powerful jaws. And there are species that have very modest natural means to satisfy their needs – such as sheep, who can only ramble along and get their mouths down to the ground – but who only have modest needs, for example in this case, for mouthfuls of grass. For species in both of these categories, there is a nice fit between the natural needs of the species and the natural means possessed by members of the species for satisfying those needs.

Human beings are the exception. We have highly elaborate natural needs – needs for all sorts of food, shelter and clothing and for security against rampaging lions. And we have few natural features or powers to provide for these needs. We do not have nice thick fur or sturdy shells or sharp claws or teeth or great speed. “In man alone, this unnatural conjunction of infirmity, and of necessity, may be observ’d in its greatest perfection” (Hume 312).

Fortunately, human beings can overcome their individual natural weaknesses and satisfy their individual needs in a way that is not much available to non-human animals. The human route to the fulfillment of our respective interests is cooperative interaction. “‘Tis by society alone he is able to supply his defect, and raise himself up to an equality with his fellow-creatures, and even acquire a superiority over them” (Hume 312). By “society,” Hume has in mind the sort of network of cooperative interaction that Grotius had in mind when he presents commerce as our means of satisfying one another’s wants. Also, Hume follows Grotius in thinking that such a cooperative network depends upon people generally complying with certain rules – certain principles of justice – and on people generally expecting such compliance from others. This expected general compliance with the principles of justice is the social environment out of which cooperation arises.

However, according to Hume, there are severe motivational barriers to our acting justly and to our expecting just actions from others. (There is no Desire of Society that itself prompts us to abide by norms that our Understanding identifies as essential to Human Society.) These barriers to our cooperatively satisfying our natural needs consist in our natural motives for action. According to Hume, our two fundamental natural motivations are selfishness and limited generosity. Each of us has a very strong concern for our own private well-being, and each of us also has a strong concern for a limited number of other individuals who are close to us – for example, our friends and family members – but progressively less concern for more distant people.

Hume maintains that both our natural self-love and our natural localized benevolence are barriers to cooperative relationships with others. It is by seeing what we need in order to overcome these barriers to cooperative interaction that we discover what the principles of justice are. To begin with, Ben’s natural selfishness and Jen’s natural selfishness will dispose each to grab whatever possessions of the other tickle his or her fancy. Further, Ben and Jen’s recognition that each is so disposed will lead each of them to expect to be unable to hold on to and enjoy the possessions they might briefly acquire. The more individuals there are rampaging around with this disposition to grab whatever possessions of others tickle their fancy, the more everyone will expect to be unable to hold on to and enjoy what he or she comes briefly to possess. The society constituted by these people – if we can call it a society – will lack what Hume calls “stability of possession.” And, according to Hume, the chief consequence of there being little or no stability of possession is that individuals will have little or no incentive to invest their time, talent, or effort in the production of goods that might tickle their own or other people’s fancy.

In addition, the natural selfishness of Ben and Jen makes each of them totally unreliable as trading parties. For each will be disposed to cunningly extract a service or transfer from the other party without himself or herself providing the agreed upon reciprocal service or transfer. When fancying a meal, each will be disposed to grab that cheeseburger at the fast food drive-through window and drive away without paying. When fancying some cash, each will be disposed first to collect the payment for the cheeseburger through the drive-through window and then slam the window shut. All or almost all possible mutually beneficial exchanges of cheeseburgers for cash will go unrealized because each party knows about the other’s unreliability. So, no one will plant or sow or cook or manufacture cheeseburgers or drive-through windows.

What about our second natural appetite, viz., our localized generosity? Hume points out that our special concern for those close to us – our beloved family members and friends – will similarly undermine cooperative non-predation and exchange. If you cultivate some beautiful flowers, I will be disposed to make off with them so that I can present them to my flower-loving spouse. If I assiduously raise a nice meaty pig, you will be disposed to make off with it to feed your pork chop–loving daughter. I will be disposed to drive off without paying for that cheeseburger so that I can still afford diapers for my infant child. You will be disposed to slam the drive-through window shut if I have been so foolish as to hand over the money first so that you can pass the cheeseburger over to your infant child. And, of course, the fact that we each anticipate that the other will attempt to welch on the deal will lead each of us not even to come to the bargaining table and not even to produce the goods or services that we would bring to the table if we thought honest exchange was available. Thus, according to Hume, all (or nearly all) of the mutually advantageous face-to-face exchanges that might take place among human beings will not arise as long as we merely act in accord with our natural selfishness or natural localized benevolence. And, of course, mutually beneficial exchanges that would extend over time – exchanges in which Ben would deliver some service to Jen today in exchange for Jen delivering some good to Ben in six months – are even more obviously undercut.

Notice that, with a nice extra twist, Hume has restated the problem posed by Carneades. The special twist is that even – or especially – if we add localized benevolence to self-love, cooperative and just conduct are undermined. How, then, does Hume answer this restated challenge from Carneades? Hume, like Grotius, seeks to supplement our immediate goal-oriented desires with some further, rule-oriented motivation that is activated by our Understanding. However, Hume does not appeal to a distinct natural motivational structure – like Grotius’ Desire of Society – that is informed by rules supplied by the Understanding. Rather, at least in the first stage of Hume’s account, rules supplied by the Understanding better inform the natural passions of self-love and localized benevolence. In their better informed condition, these passions will foster cooperative compliance rather than anti-cooperative defection.

Things go very badly for people when they act only on their uninformed natural sentiments of self-love and localized benevolence precisely because these people are not compliant with the rules that make human cooperation possible. Since cooperation is our best means to advance our personal interests and the interests of those near to us, we can best satisfy our natural desires by adopting rules that limit the ways in which we may seek to satisfy those desires. Recall how we are each better able to get to our respective personal destinations if we generally abide by certain constraints in our driving, for example, stopping at red lights.

Suppose everyone complies with the rule “don’t seize the fruits of other people’s labor.” General compliance with this “stability of possessions” rule both assures individuals that they will enjoy the fruits of their own labor and that they had better engage in productive labor because the option of seizing the fruits of others’ labor is not available. The result of the expectation of such compliance is that everyone has an enormously increased incentive to sow and to reap and to discover better and better methods of sowing and reaping and to invest in those better methods. As a further consequence, everyone is likely to be better off and to have friends and relatives who are better off than they would be absent general compliance with the stability of possessions rule.

However, our understanding reveals that we will all be even better off with the addition of two further rules. Hume observes that, if each person labors fruitfully on the material resources immediately at hand to her, “persons and possessions must often be very ill adjusted” (Hume 330). One person (or nation) will produce lots of corn – much more than she (or it) can consume – while another person (or nation) will produce lots of herring – much more than he (or it) can consume. Unalterable stability of these possessions will be mutually disadvantageous. Thus, in another passage highly reminiscent of Grotius, Hume maintains that stability of possession must be supplemented with “the translation of property by consent.”

Different parts of the earth produce different commodities; and not only so, but different men both are by nature fitted for different employments, and attain to greater perfection in any one, when they confine themselves to it alone. All this requires a mutual exchange and commerce; for which reason the translation of property by consent is founded on a law of nature, as well as its stability without such consent.

(Hume 330)

However, the rules of the stability of possession and the transference of property – even if strictly observed – “are not sufficient to render [men] as serviceable to each other, as by nature they are fitted to become” (Hume 334). The reason for this is that many mutually beneficial exchanges cannot take place at one point in time because the goods or services to be exchanged will not be available or needed at the same time. This problem is overcome by the addition of a third rule, “the obligation of promises,” which requires that each agent fulfill her promises or contracts. If there is an expectation of general compliance with this rule, I will help you harvest your crop in June because of my assured expectation that you will fulfill your promise to help me with my crop in August. And, through this, we will each be serviceable to the other.

Compliance with these three rules is not natural in the sense of springing immediately from our natural and original passions. Rather, according to Hume, our understanding reveals to each of us that our separate and partial ends will best be advanced in a world in which there is general compliance with all three of these rules. Neither moralists nor politicians can “give a new direction to those natural passions,” but they can “teach us that we can better satisfy our appetites in an oblique and artificial manner, than by their headlong and impetuous motion” (Hume 334). We each come to value general compliance with these rules – including our own compliance – because we each come to see that such a social environment is conducive to our own good and to the good of those we especially care about. We each at least tend to abstain from plundering the fruits of our neighbor’s labor, to hand over the cheeseburger after the cash has been passed through the drive-through window, and even to abide by our long-term agreements. In these ways, we each become enormously serviceable to others.

This increase in our cooperative conduct does not depend upon any alteration in our basic, personal motivation. When I appreciate the mutual benefits of general compliance with the principles of justice and proceed to act in compliance with them,

I learn to do a service to another, without bearing him any real kindness; because I foresee, that he will return my service, in expectation of another of the same kind, and in order to maintain the same correspondence of good offices with me or with others. And accordingly, after I have serv’d him, and he is in possession of the advantage arising from my action, he is induc’d to perform his part, as foreseeing the consequences of his refusal.

(Hume 334–5)

For Hume (as for Grotius), our vital need for cooperation does not require “correcting the selfishness and ingratitude of men.” It does not require that we “new-mould the human mind, and change its character in such fundamental articles” (Hume 334). Rather, the principles of justice enable us to live at peace and positively to cooperate to mutual advantage with a significant range of people who do not share our pleasures or passions or plans of life. Single acts of injustice – such a retaining a wallet not voluntarily transferred to one or violating a particular contractual agreement – may appear to advance public or private interests. But, according to Hume, this is only if one focuses on the action’s momentary effects. Viewed more broadly,

this momentary ill [from acting justly and thereby forgoing some momentary gain] is amply compensated by the steady prosecution of the rule, and by the peace and order, which establishes society. And even every individual person must find himself a gainer, on ballancing the account; since without justice, society must immediately dissolve, and every one must fall into that savage and solitary condition, which is infinitely worse than the worst situation that can possibly be suppos’d in society.

(Hume 319)

Recall here Grotius’ claim that it is always “Folly” for an individual to act contrary to the Laws of Nature, that is contrary to the promptings of the Desire of Society, at least in part because, in seeking some “present Advantage,” a man “saps the Foundation of his own perpetual Interest” (Grotius 95).

Still, for Hume, our motivating sentiments do evolve in a certain way. Through sympathy, we acquire an artificial sentiment on behalf of justice and against injustice. This evolution is necessary because the combination of our natural passions and our understanding may not suffice to generate compliance with the cooperative rules when the circle of people with whom we interact grows larger.

To the imposition, then, and observance of these rules, both in general, and in every particular instance, [people] are at first mov’d only by a regard to interest; and this motive, on the first formation of society, is sufficiently strong and forcible. But when society has become numerous, and has encreas’d to a tribe or nation, this interest is more remote; nor do men so readily perceive, that disorder and confusion follow upon every breach of these rules, as in a more narrow and contracted society.

(Hume 320)

Hume seems to hold that, even within an extended social order, one’s self-love and localized benevolence will in fact always be best served by reciprocal compliance with the principles of justice. No unilateral defection from these principles ever actually serves these passions. However, in many particular cases, the gains to one’s interests that will derive from one’s compliance and the losses to one’s interests that will derive from the “disorder and confusion” occasioned by one’s non-compliance will not be readily perceived. Thus, in a more extended social order, these passions may combine with our short-sightedness to induce counter-productive defections.

For Hume, this short-sightedness is counter-balanced by sympathy

when the injustice is so distant from us, as no way to affect our interest, it still displeases us; because we consider it prejudicial to human society, and pernicious to every one that approaches the person guilty of it. We partake of their uneasiness by sympathy. … Thus self-interest is the original motive to the establishment of justice: But sympathy with public interest is the source of the moral approbation, which attends that virtue.

(Hume 320–1)

Our partaking of the uneasiness of those subject to injustice yields a generalized disapprobation of unjust actions. This disapprobation makes injustice – or the disposition toward injustice – a vice, while approbation of justice makes justice – or the disposition toward justice – a virtue. And the perception of injustice as a vice and justice as a virtue reinforces our disposition to abide by the principles of justice and sustains our expectation of reciprocal compliance with these norms in more extended social orders. Nevertheless, Hume’s appeal to sympathy involves no shift at all in the view that fostering cooperation depends upon fellow-feeling, empathy, or commonality of purpose among the cooperating parties.9

3THE UNITY CONCEPTION

The separateness conception stands in stark contrast to the surprisingly common view that cooperation among human beings requires shared ends and unity of purpose. The renowned nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill is one of many thinkers who believed that, in order for people to cooperate, they have to have shared ends and to perceive their actions as being directed toward those shared ends.¹⁰ Mill’s stance here seems to be an application on the micro level of his conviction that desirable social order depends upon our identification of a summum bonum to which each member of society will be devoted (Mill 3–5).¹¹

Mill held that all cooperative interaction – that is, not a matter of a master ordering around his slaves – depends upon the cooperating parties having “the desire to be in unity with [their] fellow creatures” (Mill 40). For Mill, this unity with our fellow creatures takes the form of each of us according equal importance to each other individual’s interests. “Society between equals can only exist on the understanding that the interests of all are to be regarded equally” (Mill 40). Cooperation will be achieved insofar and only insofar as “each individual … never conceives himself otherwise than as a member of a body; and this association is riveted more and more, as mankind are further removed from the state of savage independence” (Mill 40).

According to Mill, if Ben and Jen each focus on his or her own interests, they will enjoy a type of independence, but it will be a savage independence, not a cooperative independence.

So long as they are cooperating, their ends are identified with those of others; there is at least a temporary feeling that the interests of others are their own interests.... [The cooperative agent] comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of course pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing naturally and necessarily to be attended to, like any of the physical conditions of our existence.

(Mill 41)

According to Mill, there will be “discordance in the general direction of their conduct in life” as long as individuals do not acquire an “entireness of sympathy with all others” (Mill 42). In Mill’s mind, the alternative to the cooperation grounded in sympathy and unity of purpose is zero-sum rivalry. The alternative to unity of purpose based on everyone having an equal regard for everyone else’s interests is each individual “think[ing] of the rest of his fellow creatures as struggling rivals with him for the means of happiness, whom he must desire to see defeated in their object in order that he may succeed in his” (Mill 42).

Mill is so taken with the idea that cooperation among human beings requires unity of purpose that he is attracted by the proposal that ‘this feeling of unity... be taught as a religion” – that “the whole force of education, of institutions, and of opinion [be] directed to giving to the service of humanity... both the psychological power and the social efficacy of a religion” (Mill 42). Mill was attracted to the idea – articulated but rejected by Hume – of invoking prestige of “omnipotence” to enable society to “new-mould the human mind, and change its character in [its] fundamental articles” (Hume 334). However, on reflection, Mill does not endorse this proposal out of concern that the systematic inculcation of a religion of humanity would “interfere unduly with human freedom and individuality” (Mill 42).12

4CONCLUSION

In the twentieth century, the theorist who most synthesized and extended the insights of Grotius and Hume (and Adam Smith) was F. A. Hayek. Hayek held that we cannot identify a summum bonum that we should all coordinate to promote.¹³ There is no common purpose – no social purpose – in the service of which individuals should be organized. One important implication of this is that there is no overarching societal outcome toward which central economic planning should aim.¹⁴ How, then, can economic coordination to mutual advantage arise among diverse individuals who neither have had their minds “new-moulded” nor have been assigned specific tasks or a role within a central plan? Hayek’s Grotian–Humean answer is that economic coordination to mutual advantage will arise to the extent that these individuals expect reciprocal compliance with certain constraining rules – in particular, Grotian–Humean principles of justice that recognize and require respect for property and contractual rights. Such rules

create an order even among people who do not pursue a common purpose. The observance of the rules by all will be important for each because the achievement of his purposes depends on it, but the respective purposes of different persons may be wholly different.

(Hayek 1973: 99)

Observance of such rules is not a matter of individuals adopting a unifying purpose. For individuals are not aiming at that convergence any more than individuals who are abiding by the rules of the road are aiming at convergence upon compliance with those rules as they proceed on their journeys. Moreover, compliance with such constraining norms is not in any ordinary sense a means to the respective diverse ends of the compliant agents. It is not a means in the way that pressing on the gas pedal is a means of getting to one’s vehicular destination. Rather, general rule compliance establishes a social setting – a framework – within which individuals are free to employ selected means toward the attainment of their diverse ends. Thus, Hayek asserts that “In the ordinary sense of purpose law [he means the fundamental rules of just conduct] is not a means to any purpose, but merely a condition for the successful pursuit of most purposes” (Hayek 1973: 113).

Were we purely purpose-seeking beings – beings who act solely for the sake of our ultimate (and distinct) ends or our perceived means to those ends – we would not (sufficiently) converge on compliance with the norms that facilitate cooperation to mutual advantage. And we would have to conclude that either there really is no such thing as justice or, if there is, compliance with the norms of justice is folly. However, according to Hayek, we are not purely purpose-seeking beings because we have a disposition toward rule-compliance. “Man is as much a rule-following animal as a purpose-seeking one” (Hayek 1973: 11). Indeed, as Hayek sees it, we have evolved as beings with this disposition – this Desire of Society – precisely because this rule-following disposition is so crucial for cooperation to mutual advantage.

The primary point for this essay is Hayek’s convergence with Grotius and Hume in recognizing that what we need for economic cooperation is mutual compliance and rules that are protective of property, trade, and contract rather than unity on substantive ends. This means that cooperation is possible with any other agent who is willing to abide by the rules of the game, no matter what particular goals that agent hopes to achieve. According to Hayek, pluralist, liberal, inclusive society

arose through the discovery that men can live together in peace and mutual benefitting each other without agreeing on the particular aims which they severally pursue. The discovery [was] that... substituting abstract rules of conduct for obligatory concrete ends made it possible to extend the order of peace beyond the small groups pursuing the same ends, because it [that substitution] enabled each individual to gain from the skill and knowledge of others whom he need not even know and whose aims could be wholly different from his own.

(Hayek 1976: 109)

In a society of increasing diversity of ends, it is vital to recognize that pluralism of ends does not threaten cooperation as long as we avoid conceptions of justice that demand that we march in lockstep toward some particular party’s conception of what the sanctified ends are. Only insofar as we recognize that cooperation does not require unity of purpose can we avoid Mill’s terrifying conclusion that people with their own distinct and divergent purposes are our enemies.