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People are motivated not only by a quest for satisfaction but also by an ambition to live up to their sense of what is moral. This sense cannot be reduced to a form of satisfaction or pleasure maximization because, among other reasons, it often engenders pain and sacrifice. Further more, studies repeatedly show that income beyond a certain level does not make people happier, while “higher” sources, like spirituality, community involvement, intellectual activity, and family bonding, pay dividends with respect to individual happiness. Analysis and public policy are enriched when we realize that people take moral commitments seriously and will sometimes eschew their own pleasure to pursue them. This conception of well-being, which crucially incorporates moral affirmation, is a step forward in a deep-rooted dialogue in the social sciences and philosophy about human motivation, behavior, ethics, and how one goes about living “the good life.”

Each branch of social science bears within it an implicit characterization of human nature. To an economist, humans are self-interest maximizers; to a behavioral economist, they are hopelessly irrational; to an anthropologist, they are products of a cultural time and place; to a sociologist, they are units in broad social webs and power structures; and so on. Each discipline makes a contribution to the aggregated conception of what constitutes human nature, but none can convincingly account for humans as “moral wrestlers,” as creatures that are concerned about themselves as well as questions of right versus wrong. Historically, the world’s major religions have carried the torch for man’s moral nature. Since the Enlightenment project has not sent religion off into obsolescence as promised, the practitioners of human-based sciences can still today learn from the religious conception of humans as moral wrestlers. This chapter calls on social scientists to break with their disciplines’ consensuses and refocus their image of human nature.

Economists tend to assume that preferences are given and stable. This assumption is central to their research because it allows them to explain changes in behavior largely in terms of variables such as changes in income and relative prices, and more generally in terms of incentives and disincentives. However, sociologists and psychologists have shown that preferences are formed during the socialization process and continue to be reformulated during adulthood through methods like persuasion, leadership, and advertising. Hence when one compares behavior at two points in time, one must take into account changes in preferences that may well have occurred during the given period. The challenge manifested in both perspectives is that there is no consolidated theory of what factors drive preferences. “Crossing the Rubicon;” that is, breaking the wall that separates economic and non-economic disciplines in order to understand preference formation could engender a new and more complete framework for policymakers.

Outside the walls of capitol buildings throughout the country, citizens engage every day in moral dialogues—organic, disorganized, and sometimes heated interactions, from the intimate to the transnational, at the office, on the internet, in the media, and anywhere else people might address one another’s moral positions. Through these dialogues, people’s stances can shift and even form “shared moral understandings” (SMUs) that can influence policymaking. The chapter points to the change in attitudes toward environmental protection, same-sex marriage, and smoking as cases in SMU formation, and uses these and other examples to outline the process through which a SMU emerges. Finally, the chapter discusses “megalogues”—dialogues that are amplified and interlinked through multiple large groups—and the role moral dialogues in general play in community bonding and deliberating power structures.

Over the past two decades, dozens of studies have explored the relationship between exposure to economics and antisocial behavior. With a few exceptions, these studies find that economists and economics students are more likely to exhibit a range of “debased” moral behavior and attitudes, both in the controlled environment of the laboratory and in the outside world. This chapter presents a review of this research. It draws on the various studies to address the question of whether the found differences are due to a selection effect—that is, those with antisocial tendencies tend to study economics—or an indoctrination effect whereby exposure to economic theory causes antisocial behavior. The chapter suggests there is evidence that both effects play a role in explaining the debased behavior of economists and students of economics, and finally recommends that MBA programs institute course requirements in business ethics.

The case that America will not be able to replace jobs lost to technological advances is gaining adherents. Indeed, it is becoming one of the central issues of our time. This chapter assesses the economic issues around job loss and provides practical assessments of proposals like retraining, income security, and education reform. To address the quandary that the chapter outlines, the author then tests the core assumption that underlies the fear of a so-called Job Armageddon—that is, the assumption that income and materialism lie at the heart of one’s well-being. The author argues that society could improve itself through a shift in values that would discard the notion that wealth and consumerism are surefire sources of happiness. In proposing a realignment of values (and thus, economics), the chapter ultimately asks: can we find in community involvement, social bonding, and costless transcendental pursuits the answer to a fuller life?

The recent history of American and European politics has been marked by the ascension of right-wing populism, evidenced in public support for Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, several right-wing political parties throughout Europe, and the Brexit referendum. This chapter first outlines the defining traits of populism, especially in contrast to globalism, and argues that liberalism offers an insufficient response to the populist fever, as the individualism endorsed by liberals does not soothe the wounded sense of community that leaves the populist estranged. For this reason, the chapter argues, elements of communitarianism are needed to offer effective and acceptable guiding principles to quell radicalism and xenophobia, ones that would address typical populist issues: free trade, immigration, and rights. The chapter concludes by acknowledging that liberal and communitarian positions may come into conflict, and thus proposes a method to reconcile competing principles to protect individual rights and shore up the common good.

The free speech debate in the United States offers a screen against which the profound societal design championed by communitarians is illuminated. Some on the left have implored the federal government to ban “hate speech,” while libertarian voices have cried censorship in response to any measure of backlash against offensive or incendiary speech in public. This chapter argues that, in effect, communitarian informal social controls are well managing this iteration of the struggle between individual rights and the common good. That is, widespread public censure of offensive speech, and the subsequent firings, dis-invitations, and resignations of offensive speakers, has allowed citizens to impose severe costs on harmful speech while avoiding the difficult and potentially dangerous task of trying to legislate it. The discussion of shared moral understandings in Chap. informs the argument that public pressure can be far more effective in shifting attitudes than the coercion of law. The chapter finally, in a discussion of so-called “microaggressions,” warns against informal social controls that push the agenda too far, and encourages a judicious employment of censure.

The American ethos is imbued with the belief in second chances—from immigrants who came to start over, to born-again Christians, to workers eyeing the promise of upward mobility. But for those who have committed indiscretions that have been stored in the endless archives of the internet, Google poses as an albatross around their necks. Noting this obstacle to redemption, some have called for a “right to be forgotten,” which would through law empower citizens to gain some degree of control over the content published and maintained about them online. This chapter analyzes the possible benefit and harm that would be incurred by such a policy. Pointing to evidence in the areas of criminal recidivism, medical malpractice, and sexual crimes, the chapter contends that a full-scale right to be forgotten is not in the best interest of communities, that the potential harm outweighs the potential benefit. As an alternative, the chapter advocates for a hedged right to be forgotten, which would take into account the severity of the misdeed that the subject would like to erase from public memory.

When one motions to deploy shaming as punishment, a seconder is often hard to find. Yet, this chapter argues, shame is a deeply democratic and communitarian form of social control, as punishment is administered in accordance with the values of the community of which the offender is a member. Far from colonial floggings and witch hunts, modern forms of shaming, like a thief who must confess his crime in the local newspaper, can be a humane and effective form of deterrence. The chapter explores the history of shaming as judicial punishment, the forms it takes, and the conditions under which it is best practiced, and considers how shame can reintegrate offenders into modern communities, rather than ostracize them. The chapter points to the current state of criminal justice, where prisons turn criminals into hardened outsiders likely to reoffend, and asks the reader to consider how returning to the pillory, so to speak, could be a progressive alternative to the status quo.