Commerce and reason

“Men make it such a point of honour to be fit for business that they forget to examine whether business is fit for a man.”—George Savile

As rational thought comes to be associated more and more over time with commerce, the sort of words that represent the non-commercial goals of mankind come to be heard less and less often in rational discourse. Such words are now found primarily in trite sentiments on greeting cards, in the emotionally overheated ranting of religious demagogues, in self-help manuals.

If I propose to have a calm and reasonable discussion about the question of what, for me, might constitute a life well lived, I get no more than a trite, dismissive remark. If I attempt to enlist the help of friends in calm and reasonable contemplation about the human condition, I get no more than an incredulous stare. No one believes anymore that such idle questions are amenable to reason. And, in any case, no one has time to discuss them. We are too busy with our commercial endeavors.

What all this busy commercial activity amounts to, effectively, is the implicit assertion that the question of what constitutes the best life for man has already been decisively and definitively answered—and that this decisive and definitive answer, which applies universally to everyone, is the life of commerce. Of course we allow for the fact that each individual has his or her own preferences. These are accounted for by determining which particular sort of productive activity the person engages in, and which particular assortment of consumer goods he purchases. What no longer makes sense to us is an extended discussion of these preferences. Such a discussion now makes no more sense than an extended discussion of one's favorite color, or one's favorite flavor of ice cream. The general character of the best life for mankind has, allegedly, now been decisively and definitively decided, and the particulars in each individual case are merely a matter of personal preference. Such personal preferences might be disclosed, but certainly not rationally discussed or debated.

To rule the notion of virtue out of order in rational discourse is, effectively, to concede by default that all our existing attitudes and behaviors are virtuous. It removes the possibility of examining our own behavior and criticizing ourselves. By convincing ourselves that there is no true and rational standard by which to order our lives, we in effect concede that the false and irrational standard by which we presently order our lives is the true and rational one. The discussion of the good life will probably never rise to the level of pristine rationality found, say, in the proofs of Euclidean geometry. But it also need not be abandoned to the trite, vague, superficial and unsubstantiated sentiments of greeting cards, religious demagogues and self-help manuals.