Splenetic philosophy

In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith observes that wealth and the elaborate artifices it procures are of trifling significance, and hardly worth the great personal sacrifices we make to obtain them. This gloomy observation, although true, is one we are apt to make only in times of sickness or low spirits. In our better moods we cast off this “splenetic philosophy” and recover a healthy admiration for wealth. And it is precisely this that “rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.”

As if the inherent futility of industry were not enough to make one splenetic, we now also have our concerns about environmental degradation. Unfortunately for the industry of mankind, a busy life of procreation, production and consumption, as it turns out, produces far too much carbon dioxide to be sustainable.

When I find myself overcome by the splenetic philosophy—tempted to slack off and settle for a simple, ascetic life of contemplation rather than striving for extravagant feats of production and consumption—my first reaction is to search my medicine chest for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. From Adam Smith to my friendly family medicine practitioner, everyone seems to agree that the splenetic philosophy, no matter how true, is unhealthy. We need a salutary illusion, a noble lie, to keep our gears turning. Somehow the medicines make the lie easier to swallow.

The boy who cried "socially constructed"

Skeptics who cry ‘socially constructed’ whenever they hear any truth claim are, it seems to me, very much like the shepherd boy who cries ‘wolf’ merely to amuse himself. First they claim the truths of mathematics are socially constructed. Then they claim the truths of physics are socially constructed. Finally, it's time to criticize psychiatry’s credulous labeling of homosexuality as a disease. By then, no one is listening.

What the liberal epistemologists miss is that, in the case of physics, capitalism has no motive for falsifying results. If physics was wrong, the machines wouldn’t work. In the case of psychiatry, however, it is hard not to be skeptical about the designation of socially stigmatized habits as illnesses.

Diabolical definitions

antidepressant (noun): a remedy for corporate drapetomania.

antipsychotic (noun): humane hemlock for those still mad enough to philosophize.

Experiments in virtue

In an 1893 essay, Francis Newton Thorpe worries that Benjamin Franklin’s frequent essays on money-getting have misled his readers to conclude Franklin's primary purpose in life was to accumulate wealth. According to Thorpe's alternative interpretation, Franklin advocates a life of industry and thrift not as an end in itself, but as a means to independence. Time we would have spent meeting our needs can now be dedicated to improving ourselves morally and intellectually, or as Thorpe puts it, to conducting “experiments in virtue.”

The reason critics imagine Franklin’s sole purpose was to accumulate wealth is, of course, that the essays on money-getting were the ones that influenced America, while the ones where he discusses the finitude of human needs never really captured our imagination. Year by year, luxuries turn into necessities. By the time we reach our goal, it is no longer enough. The time for self-improvement and experiments in virtue is deferred from decade to decade and ends up never coming at all.