Chapter 7: Long Run vs. Short Run

1. The Voluptuary's Fallacy

There is no irreconcilable conflict between the interests of the individual and those of society. If there were, society could not exist. Society is the great means through which individuals pursue and fulfill their ends. For society is but another name for the combination of individuals for cooperation. It is the means through which each of us furthers the purposes of others as an indirect means of furthering his own. And this cooperation is in the overwhelming main voluntary. It is only collectivists who assume that the interests of the individual and of society (or the State) are fundamentally opposed, and that the individual can only be led to cooperate in society by Draconian compulsions.

The real distinction we need to make for ethical clarity is not that between the individual and society, or even between "egoism" and "altruism," but between interests in the short run and those in the long run. This distinction is made constantly in modern economics. It is in large part the basis for the condemnation by economists of such policies as tariffs, subsidies, price-fixing, rent control, crop supports, featherbedding, deficit-financing, and inflation. Those who say mockingly that "in the long run we are all dead" (1) (2) are just as irresponsible as the French aristocrats whose reputed motto was Apres nous le deluge.

The distinction between short-run interests and long-run interests has always been implicit in common-sense ethical judgments, particularly as concerns prudential ethics. But it has seldom received explicit recognition, and more seldom still in those words. (3) The classical moralist who came nearest to stating it systematically is Jeremy Bentham. He does this not in the form of comparing short-run interests with long-run interests, or short-run consequences of actions with long-run consequences, but in the form of comparing greater or smaller amounts of pleasure or happiness. Thus in his effort to judge actions by comparing the quantities or "values" of the pleasures they yield or lead to, he measures these quantities by "duration" (among seven standards) as well as by "intensity." (4) And in his Deontology a typical statement is: "Is not temperance a virtue? Aye, assuredly is it. But wherefore? Because by restraining enjoyment for a time, it afterwards elevates it to that very pitch which leaves, on the whole, the largest addition to the stock of happiness." (5)

The common-sense reasons for temperance and other prudential virtues are frequently misunderstood or derided by ethical skeptics:

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.

So sang Byron. The implication is that the sermons and soda water are a short and cheap price to pay for the fun. Samuel Butler, also, cynically generalized the distinction between morality and immorality as depending merely on the order of precedence between pleasure and pain: "Morality turns on whether the pleasure precedes or follows the pain. Thus it is immoral to get drunk because the headache comes after the drinking, but if the headache came first, and the drunkenness afterwards, it would be moral to get drunk." (6)

When we talk seriously, it is of course not at all a question whether the pain or the pleasure comes first, but which exceeds the other in the long run. The confusions that result from failure to understand this principle lead not only, on the one hand, to the sophisms of the ethical skeptics but, on the other, to the fallacies of anti-utilitarian writers and of ascetics. When the anti-utilitarians attack not merely the pleasure-pain calculus of the Benthamites but the Greatest Happiness Principle, or the maximization of satisfactions, it will be found that they are almost invariably assuming, tacitly or expressly, that the utilitarian standards take only immediate or short-run consequences into consideration. Their criticism is valid only as applied to crude forms of hedonistic and utilitarian theories. We shall return to a longer analysis of this later.

2. The Ascetic's Fallacy

The confusion in another form leads to the opposite result to the theories and standards of asceticism. The utilitarian standard, consistently applied, merely asks whether an action (or more properly a rule of action) will tend to lead to a surplus of happiness and well-being, or a surplus of unhappiness and ill-being, for all those whom it affects, in the long run. One of Bentham's great merits was that he attempted to apply the standard thoroughly and consistently. Though he was not wholly successful, because there were several important tools of analysis that he lacked, what is remarkable is the degree of his success, and the steadiness with which he kept this standard in mind.

In the interests of the individual's long-run well-being, it is necessary for him to make certain short-run sacrifices, or apparent sacrifices. He must put certain immediate restraints on his impulses in order to prevent later regrets. He must accept a certain deprivation today either in order to reap a greater compensation in the future or to prevent an even greater deprivation in the future.

But ascetics, by a confused association, conclude that the restraint, deprivation, sacrifice, or pain that must sometimes be undergone in the present for the sake of the future, is something virtuous and praiseworthy for its own sake. Asceticism was caustically defined by Bentham as "that principle, which, like the principle of utility, approves or disapproves of any action, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question; but in an inverse manner: approving of actions in as far as they tend to diminish his happiness; disapproving of them in as far as they tend to augment it." (7) And he continued: "It is evident that any one who reprobates any the least particle of pleasure, as such, from whatever source derived, is pro tanto a partizan of the principle of asceticism." (8)

A more favorable judgment of asceticism is possible if we give it another definition. As Bentham himself explained, it comes etymologically from a Greek word meaning exercise. Bentham then went on to declare that: "The practices by which Monks sought to distinguish themselves from other men were called their Exercises. These exercises consisted in so many contrivances they had for tormenting themselves." (9)

However if, rejecting this definition, we think of asceticism as a form of athleticism, analogous to the discipline that athletes or soldiers undergo to harden themselves against possible adversity, or against probable trials of strength, courage, fortitude, effort, and endurance in the future, or even as a process of restraint to sharpen "the keen edge of seldom pleasure," then it is something that serves a utilitarian and even a hedonistic purpose.

Confusion of thought will continue as long as we use the same word, asceticism, in both of these senses. We can avoid ambiguity only by assigning separate names to each meaning.

I am going to reject the semantic temptation to take advantage of the traditional moral prestige of the ascetic ideal by using asceticism only in the "good" sense of a far-sighted discipline or restraint undertaken to maximize one's happiness in the long run. If I did this, I would then be obliged to use exclusively some other word, such as flagellantism, for the "bad" sense of mortification or self-torment. No one can presume to set himself up as a dictator of verbal usage. I can only say, therefore, that in view of traditional usage I think it would be most honest and least confusing to confine the word asceticism to the anti-utilitarian, antihedonist, anti-eudaemonist meaning of self-denial and self-torment for their own sakes, and to reserve another word, say self-discipline, or even to coin a word, like disciplinism (10) for the doctrine which believes in abstinence and restraint, not for their own sakes, but only in so far as they serve as means for increasing happiness in the long run.

The distinction between the consideration of short-run and long-run consequences is so basic, and applies so widely, that one might be excused for trying to make it, by itself, the whole foundation for a system of ethics, and to say, quite simply, that morality is essentially, not the subordination of the "individual" to "society" but the subordination of immediate objectives to long-term ones. Certainly the Long-Run Principle is a necessary if not a sufficient foundation for morality. Bentham did not have the concept (which has been made explicit mainly by modern economics) in just these words, but he came close to it in his constant insistence on the necessity of considering the future as well as the present consequences of any course of conduct, and in his attempt to measure and compare "quantities" of pleasure not merely in terms of "intensity" but of "duration." Many efforts have been made to define the difference between pleasure and happiness. One of them is surely that between a momentary gratification and a permanent or at least prolonged gratification, between the short run and the long run.

3. On Undervaluing the Future

Perhaps this is an appropriate point to warn the reader against some possible misinterpretations of the Long-Run Principle. When we are asked to take into consideration the probable consequences of a given act or rule of action in the long run, this does not mean that we must disregard, or even that we are justified in disregarding, its probable consequences in the short run. What we are really being asked to consider is the total net consequences of a given action or rule of action. We are justified in considering the pleasure of tonight's drinking against the pain of tomorrow's headache, the pleasure of to night's eating against the pain of tomorrow's indigestion or unwelcome increase in weight, the pleasure of this summer's vacation in Europe against this fall's precarious bank balance. We should not be misled by the term "long run" into supposing that pleasure, satisfaction, or happiness is to be valued only in accordance with its duration: its "intensity," "certainty," "propinquity," "fecundity," "purity," and "extent" also count. In this insight Bentham was correct. In the rare cases of conflict, it is the rule of action that promises to yield the most satisfaction, rather than merely the longest satisfaction, or merely the greatest future satisfaction, that we should choose. We need not value probable future satisfaction above present satisfaction. It is only because our human nature is too prone to yield to present impulse and forget the future cost that it is necessary to make a special effort to keep this future cost before the mind at the moment of temptation. If the immediate pleasure does indeed outweigh the probable future cost, then refusal to indulge oneself in a pleasure is mere asceticism or self-deprivation for its own sake. To make this a rule of action would not increase the sum of happiness, but reduce it.

In applying the Long-Run Principle, in other words, we must apply it with a certain amount of common sense. We must confine ourselves to consideration of the relevant long run, the finite and reasonably cognizable long run. This is the grain of truth in Keynes's cynical dictum that "In the long run we are all dead." (11) That long run we may no doubt justifiably ignore. We cannot see into eternity.

Yet no future, even the next five minutes, is certain, and we cannot do more at any time than act on probabilities (although, as we shall see, some probabilities of a given course of conduct or rule of action are considerably more probable than others). And there are people capable of concern regarding the fate of mankind far beyond the probable length of their own lives.

The Long-Run Principle presents still another problem. This is the value that we ought to attach to future pains and pleasures as compared with present ones. In his list of the seven "circumstances" (or, as he later called them, "elements" or "dimensions") by which we should value a pain or a pleasure, Bentham lists "3. Its certainty or uncertainty," and "4. Its propinquity or remoteness." Now a remote pain or pleasure is apt to be less certain than a near one; in fact, its uncertainty is widely considered to be a function of its remoteness. But the question we are asking now is to what extent, if any, Bentham was justified in assuming that we ought to attach less value to a remote pain or pleasure than to a near one, even when the element of certainty or uncertainty is disregarded or, as in Bentham's list, treated as a separate consideration. (12)

Most of us cannot prevent ourselves from valuing a future good at less than the same present and otherwise identical good. We value today's dinner, say, more than a similar dinner a year from now. Are we "right" or "wrong" in doing so? It is impossible to answer the question in this form. All of us "undervalue" a future good as compared with a present good. This "undervaluation" is so universal that it may be asked whether it is undervaluation at all. Economically, the value of anything is what it is valued at. It is value to somebody. Economic value cannot be thought of apart from a valuer. Is ethical value quite different in kind? Is there such a thing as the "intrinsic" ethical value of a good (as many moralists persist in thinking) apart from anybody's valuation of that good? I shall come to a fuller discussion of this point later. (13) Here we are concerned merely with the question of how we "ought" to value future goods or satisfactions as compared with present ones.

When we look at the relative value that we actually do assign to them, we find that in the economic world the market has worked out a "rate of interest" which is, in effect, the average or composite rate of discount that the market community applies to future as compared with present goods. When the interest rate is 5 per cent, $1.05 a year from now is worth no more than $1 today, or $1 a year from now no more than about 95 cents today. If an individual (who is in desperate need) values $2 a year from now at no more than $1 today, we are perhaps entitled to say that he undervalues future as compared with present goods. But whether we are entitled to say, simply because there is a rate of interest or a rate of time-discount, that the economic community as a whole "undervalues" the future, is very dubious. Backward communities have a higher rate of future time discount than progressive communities. The poor tend to put a higher relative valuation on present goods than the rich. But can we say that the lower valuation placed on future as compared with present goods by humanity as a whole is "wrong"?

I for one will no more attempt to answer this question in the ethical than in the economic realm. At best we can judge the individual's valuation against the whole community's valuation. What we can say, however, is that any course of action based on a real underestimation or under valuation of future consequences will result in less total happiness than one which estimates or values future consequences justly.

The distinction between short- and long-run consequences was implicitly, though not expressly, the basis of the ethical system that Bentham presented in his Deontology, in which he classifies all the virtues under the two main heads of Prudence and Beneficence, and further divides them, in four chapters, under the heads of Self-Regarding Prudence, Extra-Regarding Prudence, Negative Efficient Benevolence, and Positive Efficient Benevolence.

It is consideration of long-run consequences that gives Prudence a far larger role in ethics than it has been commonly assumed to have. This is suggested by Bentham's title head, "Extra-Regarding Prudence." The happiness of each of us is dependent upon his fellows. He depends upon their concurrence and cooperation. One can never disregard the happiness of others without running a risk to his own.

To sum up: The distinction between the short-run and the long-run effects of conduct is more valid than the traditional contrasts between the interests of the individual and the interests of society. When the individual acts in his own long-run interests he tends to act also in the long-run interest of the whole society. The longer the run we consider, the more likely are the interests of the individual and of society to become identical. Moral conduct is in the long-run interest of the individual.

To recognize this is to perceive the solution of a basic moral problem that otherwise seems to present a contradiction. The difficulties that arise when this is not clearly recognized can be seen from a passage in an otherwise penetrating writer:

Moralities are systems of principles whose acceptance by everyone as overruling the dictates of self-interest is in the interest of everyone alike, though following the rules of morality is, not of course identical with following self-interest. If it were, there could be no conflict between a morality and self-interest and no point in having rules overriding self-interest .... The answer to the question "Why be moral?" is therefore as follows. We should be moral because being moral is following rules designed to overrule self-interest whenever it is in the interest of everyone alike that everyone should set aside his interest. (14)

If we emphasize the distinction between short-run and long-run interests, however, the solution to this problem becomes much simpler and involves no paradox. Then we would rewrite the foregoing passage like this: Moralities are systems of principles whose acceptance by everyone as overruling the apparent dictates of immediate self-interest is in the long-run interest of everyone alike. We should be moral because being moral is following rules which disregard apparent self-interest in the short run and are designed to promote our own real long-run interest as well as the interest of others who are affected by our actions.

It is only from a short-sighted view that the interests of the individual appear to be in conflict with those of "society," and vice versa.

Actions or rules of action are not "right" or "wrong" in the sense in which a proposition in physics or mathematics is right or wrong, but expedient or inexpedient, advisable or inadvisable, helpful or harmful. In brief, in ethics the appropriate criterion is not "truth" but wisdom. To adopt this concept is, indeed, to return to the concept of the ancients. The moral appeal of Socrates is the appeal to conduct our lives with wisdom. The Proverbs of the Old Testament do not speak dominantly of Virtue or Sin, but of Wisdom and Folly. "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom .... The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom .... A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother .... As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly."

We shall reserve until later chapters the detailed illustration and application of the Long-Run Principle. Here we are still concerned with the epistemological or theoretical foundations of ethics rather than with casuistry or detailed practical guidance. But it is now possible to take the next step from the theoretical to the practical. It is one of the most important implications of the Long-Run Principle (and one that Bentham, strangely, failed explicitly to recognize) that we must act, not by attempting separately in every case to weigh and compare the probable specific consequences of one moral decision or course of action as against another, but by acting, according to some established general rule or set of rules. This is what is meant by acting according to principle. It is not the consequences (which it is impossible to know in advance) of a specific act that we have to consider, but the probable long-run consequences of following a given rule of action.

Why this is so, and how it is so, we shall examine in our next chapter.

Notes

1. The theme of the present author's Economics in One Lesson (New York, Harpers, 1946), is summed up on page 5 as follows: "From this aspect ... the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups." It is clear that this generalization may be widened to apply to conduct and policy in every field. As applied to ethics it might be stated thus: Ethics must take into consideration not merely the immediate but the longer effects of any act or rule of action; it must consider the consequences of that act or rule of action not merely for the agent or any particular group but for everybody likely to be affected, presently or in the future, by that act or rule of action.

2. John Maynard Keynes, Monetary Reform (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1924), p. 88.

3. See, however, Ludwig von Mises, Theory and History (New Haven: Yale, 1957), pp. 32, 55, 57.

4. Morals and Legislation, Chap. IV, pp. 29-30.

5. Deontology, II, 87.

6. Note-Books.

7. Morals and Legislation, p. 9.

8. Loc. cit.

9. Morals and Legislation, p. 8.

10. Discipline is also, unfortunately, used in several senses. Thus one meaning given in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is: "7. Correction; chastisement; in religious use, the mortification of the flesh by penance; also, a beating, or the like." And in Webster's New International Dictionary one finds: "7. R.C.Ch.: self-inflicted and voluntary corporal punishment, specif., a penitential scourge." But one also finds, in, say, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: "Training which corrects, molds, strengthens, or perfects." This last definition, I think, represents dominant present-day usage.

11. John Maynard Keynes, Monetary Reform (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1924), p. 88. As one who has written a whole book in criticism of Lord Keynes's economic theories (The Failure of the "New Economics" [Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1959]), I am bound to point out in justice that this dictum, which is the one for which Lord Keynes is most frequently criticized, was not without warrant in the particular context in which he used it. It is immediately followed by the sentence: "Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." This is a perfectly valid argument against the neglect of short-run problems and short-run considerations. But the whole trend of Keynes's thinking, as reflected not only in Monetary Reform but in his most famous work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, is to consider only short-run and neglect far more important long-run consequences of the policies he proposed.

12. I think I am warranted, from the whole context of his list, in assuming that Bentham is thinking of what value "the legislator" ought to attach to these seven "dimensions" rather than the value that any given person actually does or that "all" persons actually do attach to them.

13. See infra, Chap. 18.

14. Kurt Baier, The Moral Point of View (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958), p. 314.

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