The economics of corruption

 In a country where the Corruption Perceptions Index of 2012 was ranked 69 (#1 being the least perceived corrupt country in the world), we, Brazilians, often see uncovered corruption scandals on the news and how there should be measures taken about it. In addition, people usually associate "corruption" as being related to the government; there are even some who define this term as being "an abuse of power by a public official for private gain." Although this is certainly a type of corruption, someone who bribes a boxer to purposefully lose a match to win a bet is also committing a form of corruption -- and there is nothing public about that. And this is one of the many reasons why corruption is not something "black and white" in society, which leads us to one of the knowledge issues linked to this question, "how do we know what is corrupt?" and "how does perception affect the way people view corruption?" Another term that needs to be defined is what exactly is to live a "good" life. As we study a variety of the most prominent philosophers of our time, when developing an ethical philosophy, it is common to mention reaching happiness as being good. But not even this handful of intellectuals could come to an agreement of what exactly is happiness. That is why the study of economics and the theory of utilitarianism will help us answer the question of "Is it possible to live a good life in a corrupt society?"
     In the study of economics, many assumptions about humans and how they make decisions were developed over time in order to facilitate economists' job of making conclusions about a certain topic. The first one states that people are rational and make decisions that will maximize their "utility," which is the economists' way of measuring, per se, happiness. Another assumption made by economists is that information is perfect and consistent to everyone -- which means that people know exactly what they are "getting into" when they make a decision. However, we all know that to assume these things actually happens in "real life" is to be very naive. In relation to corruption, if information was actually perfect, the people committing these scandals would have been long sent to jail by now. 
     As people study countries economically as a whole, on the other hand, and begin to notice trends, conclusions become more realistic. There is a branch of studies called "economic development" which deals with the concept of low-income countries promoting the increase of standard of living of the population, where they take into account indices of health, education, among other rates. This pertains to the "good life" part of the question, where there is a mathematic approach to knowing whether someone is living a good life or not, one of the areas of knowledge. In addition, a relationship between reduction of corruption and economic development has been highly accepted over time. Statistically, this trend is clear; however, there is more than meets the numbers. One of the main criticisms in regards to creating conclusions off of one of the most used indexes, the Human Development Index (HDI), which composes of statistics of life expectancy, education, and income indices, is the fact that, although it draws attention from governments, there is no way it could possibly "calculate" each individual's happiness and take these into account. This well-being index could say that a country has one of the worst indices of well-being for the population overall (possibly because of the gnawing corruption issues inside the government, for instance) -- but it takes one really happy person (read: living a "good" life) to disprove this index, making it very possible to live a good life in a corrupt society, just like disproving a deduction argument. 
     Utility in economics and utility in ethics have similar principles; they are both a measure of happiness. However, the theory of utilitarianism in the eyes of philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham or John Stuart Mill, utility contrasts with economics in that it also takes into account the good of all -- not just of the individual. For a "good" life, in their opinion, corruption is completely out of the question. Mathematically, it is easy to estimate how much money has been taken from the people due to corruption in Brazil, which is just one step from estimating how many schools could have been created, or how many doctors could have been better paid in public hospitals. The concept of corruption is completely out of question in a Utilitarian's eyes because of the number of people that are affected by this occurrence, making it completely unethical. However, Bentham was greatly influenced by Hobbes' way of interpreting human nature; he understands and acknowledges that humans are driven by both pleasure and pain, calling these ethical columns the "two sovereign masters." Bentham even states that it is in human nature to seek pleasure and avoidance of pain. As soon as we go deeper in to the roots of what drives an individual to make a decision, contrary to the utilitarian belief, we start to notice that people who corrupt may possibly live a good life -- especially if he/she does not foresee any direct consequences with him/her or with anyone for that matter. So, if someone who steals public money genuinely thinks that this will not be bad for the population and knows that this will give him/her pleasure, then isn't that utilitarian after all? Although the utilitarian theory may seem as mathematical and straightforward as 1+1=2, it actually needs to take into account of the perception of the "corrupter" and the "corrupted." And again, going back to the rules of deduction, it only takes one person to think it is bad to steal money from the public share, and it the utilitarian thought is out of question once again. 
     As we saw in both ways of exploring utility, economically and ethically, perception plays a big role in both theories of utilitarianism, whether the intellectuals who developed them knew it or not! Mathematically is only one way of perceiving happiness and if someone is living a "good" life, such as the complex economic HDI or the Bentham's simple "whatever will do more good goes" theory. Overall, it is definitely possible to live a good life in a corrupt society. 

Human Sciences Tug-of-War: Is It More Like Natural Sciences or History?

Renata Sayão

Block 5 TOK

Ms. Hunt

Aug. 23, 2013

Are the human sciences more like the natural sciences or more like history?

            Although in technical terms, the human sciences do not encompass history, to a large extent the validation of a most human science knowledge claim relies on historical evidence and reference. After hours of thinking and researching and sorting data into categories, I’ve come to this simple conclusion: the human sciences try to follow the paradigm that is applied in the natural sciences but nonetheless are still more like history because their subjects are conscientious animals.

            Let’s take the TED Talk by William Ury on “the walk from ‘no’ to ‘yes’” to begin. Ury is a writer and mediator who works to resolve and study conflicts throughout the world. He’s an unofficial sociologist and anthropologist. He begins by explaining, in a very scientific term, that humans are reaction-machines, and that they cannot get an outside view of the conflict they are facing because they have already reacted. This is a knowledge claim based significantly on psychology and the study of human behavior, and can be tested using the methods and established rules that the natural sciences laid out. A little later, however, he begins to talk about conflicts in the Middle East, and references Abraham, the first man to walk across this territory. He discusses how Abraham is a symbolic “third side” that reminds us [humankind and Middle-Eastern tribes] that we’re part of an extended family. In addition, he discusses that when angry or lost in the world, walking is the key to getting back in focus for humans. These proposals are heavily based on historical analysis, following the “make a justified claim that is testable” of the natural sciences but having at their cores historical evidence and reference because that is how they get their data samples and examples. Since it is very difficult to “remind humans that we’re part of an extended family” in a scientific and methodic way, it is only through history that it is justifiable.

            In addition, an article published in 2008 in the freakonomics website on the “Economics of Happiness” is, as the title clearly depicted, an economic report. Journalist and economist Justin Wolfers noted the trend in graphs comparing GDP and overall wellbeing in a spam of 60 years, from 1950 to 2010. He concluded that the income-well-being relationship “has appeared just about as strongly in surveys probing happiness as in surveys asking about life satisfaction”. The relationship between income and happiness is about as strong today as it was in the very first surveys, which were taken sixty years ago, hence concluding his point that there is and has always been a direct correlation between income and well-being in humans. Now… how did he come to that conclusion so fast? He used historical data and analyzed, with the paradigm of a scientist (looking for patterns and trends), that there was a correlation between the two sets of surveys. There is no natural-sciences-method that could prove this correlation to be true in a laboratory or through an experiment. It is with data originating from history that one is able to prove his or her point. Had anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists not observed from history general trends and behaviors, they would not be able to ever come to a “justified true belief” through a scientific lenses and would not be able to call themselves social scientists.

            One last example that clearly distinguishes human sciences as an area of study more like history is Brené Brown’s TED Talk on “the power of vulnerability”. She says in the beginning of the talk that she likes to put human chaos into boxes, to observe patterns, observe if her observations are correct, and sort human society into organized information matrices. This is, to an enormous extent, a natural sciences paradigm, because again these scientists are trying to find patterns and behaviors that can be tested by other scholars and proven correct. However, she claims that when she gathered interviews and her qualitative data (which is very obviously a historical approach to society), she noticed that some aspects of human behavior can only be proven by interacting with people not by testing them or changing their environment or building experiments to prove the point. Similarly, historians take different perspectives on one event or situation and must build their arguments and explain their logic with these perspectives. Both areas of knowledge work strongly with qualitative data and put pieces of human society and behavior together with such scattered mediums of data. Meanwhile, in the natural sciences knowledge claims can only be justified if it can be observed and tested with the same results, and does not include qualitative data or different sorts of data.

            All in all, after going through some of the studies published by human scientists, I have come to the conclusion that the area of study is very closely connected to history. Again, the studies appeal to the patterns and testable information that is encouraged by the natural scientist community, however they almost always go back for data in historical evidence and records. Some observations are made through peering into history, looking at the evolution of our species and our civilizations, and such data could not be considered 100% valid and testable and acceptable in a natural sciences community.