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Narrative* ( l i a i a i t t i ofi ( li list ian Sochi I IM iU s
nothing from us but our willingness to abide by the rules ol lair competition.
We have been told that it is moral to satisfy our "wants” and “ needs,” but
we are no longer sure what our wants and needs are or should be. After all,
“wants” are but individual preferences. Americans, as is often contended,
are good people or at least want to be good people, but our problem is that we
have lost any idea of what that could possibly mean. We have made “ freedom
of the individual ’’ an end in itself and have ignored that fact that most of us do
not have the slightest idea of what we should do with our freedom. Indeed, the
idealists among us are reduced to fighting for the “ freedom” or “ right” of
others to realize their self-interests more fully.
Such a system is defended because, whatever its faults, it is at least
noncoercive. Therefore our public policies are formed in a manner that avoids
as much as possible impinging on anyone’s self-interest. As a result we fail to
notice that “ freedom” can become coercive by the very conception of
“choice” it provides. For example, in his remarkable book
The Gift Relation
ship,
Richard Titmuss compares the blood distribution systems in America
and Britain.25 In Britain the only way one is allowed to obtain blood is through
a voluntary donor who does not know to whom his or her blood is given. It is
against the law to sell one’s blood. In America we rely on diverse ways to
obtain blood, ranging from voluntary programs to buying it. We feel that our
system is inherently superior to the British because we do not prevent anyone
from giving or selling their blood. We have a choice and are therefore free.
What we fail to notice is that by giving a “choice” we also create the
assumption that blood, like cars and toothbrushes, can be bought and sold.
We thus ignore the fact that the choice of selling blood trains us to see blood
as simply one commodity among others. Put differently, what we have over
looked is that social policies should not only be efficient and fair, but they
should also train us to have certain virtues as citizens. By concentrating on
whether our policies are efficient, we have implicitly trained ourselves to
assume that all human relationships should as much as possible take the form
of an exchange model.26 Thus Kenneth Arrow, in criticism of Titmuss’ argu
ment in favor of the British system, suggests
I do not want to rely too heavily on substituting ethics for self-interest. I
think it best on the whole that the requirement of ethical behavior be
confined to those circumstances where the price system breaks down.
Wholesale usage of ethical standards is apt to have undesirable conse
quences. We do not wish to use up recklessly the scarce resources of
altruistic motivation, and in any case ethically motivated behavior may
even have a negative value to others if the agent acts without sufficient
knowledge of the situation.27