The Definition of Morality

This week, I had the pleasure to read Freakonimics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. While I give the book my highest recommendation to the curious reader, I want to take this opportunity to pick a bone with the definition of morality that the authors use repeatedly in the book. This is how they state their definition of morality, “Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work—whereas economics represents how it actually does work” (p. 11).

This definition of morality makes the people who care about living moral lives seem like naïve do-gooders who go around wearing rose colored glasses and are oblivious as to what the world is actually like. Considering myself a moral person, I take offense at that characterization.

The authors define economics elsewhere in the book as the study of how people get what they want. They argue that people respond to incentives and that sometimes incentives are set up that encourage immoral behavior. These incentives motivate teachers to change their students’ standardized test scores, sumo wrestlers to throw matches, and real estate agents to accept a lower offer than could be found for a given house. I don’t disagree with the authors’ assessment of these situations. The incentives are set up to encourage cheating. I am a moral person and I understand how the world actually does work.

Morality, at least in its truest sense, is doing the right thing even though it is economically advantageous to you to do the wrong thing. I will most likely be taking the LSAT next summer. If I get a high score on that test I will be able to get into better schools, which will translate into a better chance of getting a job upon completing law school, and a strong likelihood of getting a better paying job at that. It also gives me a better chance to get financial aid. So, I have a lot of financial incentives to get the highest score possible on this test.

Since I’m fairly confident that the Law School Admissions Council has thought of most of the possible ways to cheat on the test and has put into place ways to catch potential cheaters, it isn’t in my best interest to cheat, because if I get caught cheating, I’m losing out on every economic incentive that is available to me using my own intellect. It is in my best interest to study and learn all I can before showing up on the test day. My decision to not cheat could be a manifestation of my own moral strength, or it could just be a manifestation of my desire to not get caught.

But let’s imagine that I have a group of friends who are also going to take the LSAT and one of them has devised a method to game the system. He has detailed knowledge of all of the cheater finding strategies and is absolutely certain that this cheating will not be detected.

Here I am faced with a choice. I can take the test with my own abilities and risk getting a low score, or I can use this cheating method, and have a reasonable expectation that I will not get caught and can guarantee the greatest possible economic payout. I hope that the moral decision is obvious to you, the reader, and that you aren’t so naïve as to wonder why these hopeful law students would consider cheating.

Now I want to address the most controversial topic covered in Freakonomics. In Chapter 4, the authors argue that the single greatest factor causing the severe drop in crime over the past two decades is Roe v. Wade. They argue that the women who are getting the most abortions—low income, single, poorly educated—are the women who would be the worst mothers, giving their unwanted child a higher probability to live a life of crime. Since these children aren’t being born, there are fewer criminals around.

Some people have been outraged by this argument. They see abortion as morally reprehensible and can’t accept that anything good can come out of its practice. I also see abortion as morally reprehensible but can’t see any flaw with the authors’ reasoning. It makes perfect sense. But if abortion is bad but causes less crime, which is good, does that make abortion good?

Of course not. A moral person does not live under the delusion that there will be no negative consequences of moral behavior or no positive consequences of immoral behavior. Sure, because of abortion, many future potential criminals aren’t being born, but if we really wanted to lower crime, we could impose the death penalty for anyone convicted of any crime—murder, assault, drug trafficking, vandalism, shoplifting, speeding, etc. I am absolutely certain that this would cause the crime rate to plummet to next to nil. However, it doesn’t take a moral giant to see that it would be a very immoral thing to do.