Economic Man and Parenting

The title of Beyond Self-Interest, edited by Jane Mansbridge, intrigued me enough to borrow it. One chapter by Virginia Held describes the mother/child relation as follows. I put parenting in the title because much of it applies to fathers, too.

1. To a large extent the relation is not voluntary, and for this reason among others, not contractual. Deciding to have children is voluntary, but the relation is not so after the child is born. The child certainly does not enter the relationship voluntarily.

2. The relations between mother and child are largely permanent and not replaceable.  The market makes of everything, even human labor and artistic expression and sexual desire, a commodity to be bought and sold, with one unit being replaceable by another of equivalent value. No child and no mothering person is to the other a mere replaceable commodity.

3. The relation between mothering parent and child provides insight into our ideas of equality. Equality is not equivalent to having equal legal rights.

4. The relation between mothering parent and child makes it clear that we do not fulfill our obligations by merely leaving people alone.

5. The relation between mothering parent and child provides an understanding of privacy very different than among adults.  In the former each party making demands on the other is the normal state. A mother is subject to the continual demands and needs of the child. A child is subject to the continual demands and expectations of parents and other authorities.

6. The mother-child relation provides an understanding of power different than something that can be wielded by one person over another. The mother seeks to empower the child to act responsibly and become independent.

Held contrasts this relation with that of “economic man”, or homo economicus, whose relations are voluntary and largely contractual. Concepts of rationality typically assume that human beings are independent, self-interested or mutually disinterested, but that it is rational for humans to enter into contractual relations with each other. To see contractual relations between self-interested or mutually disinterested individuals as constituting a paradigm of human relations is to take the idea of “economic man” as representative of humanity.

She doubts that morality should be based on any one type of human relation. She even wrote a book, Rights and Goods, to argue for moral approaches for different contexts and try to map out which approaches are suitable for different contexts.  The different contexts she names in the BSI chapter are law, economic activity, and the family. I agree that context matters, but will say no more since I have not read her book.