Less is More

Abstract

When it comes to economic consumption, less is more. Not always, and not beyond a certain minimum level. Sometimes more really is more, and less really is less. But often, less is more; especially for the middle and upper class members of wealthy societies. This essay argues that we should judge economic consumption on whether it improves or detracts from our lives, and act on that basis. It seeks to place the issue of consumption in the context of living a good life, in order to discuss its justifiable limits. Environmental Virtue Ethics Many writers in the ancient eudaimonist or virtue ethics tradition argued that human lives could be improved through decreasing consumption, and indeed decreasing economic activity generally: consuming less food, avoiding ostentatious building or entertaining, thinking less about money. For Plato and Aristotle, Seneca and Epicurus, the good life was equally a life devoted to right thinking and a life not devoted to wealthgetting or sybaritism.1 These two positions supported each other. They were held to be key to achieving eudaimonia, that complex term usually translated as happiness, but often better thought of as well-being, or flourishing.2 A leading issue in ancient ethical debate was whether the pursuit of the good life entailed limiting and harshly disciplining our natural desires and acquisitiveness, or providing for their moderate fulfillment. This question in turn was related to the role that pleasure and physical satisfaction were thought to play in a good life: whether defining of it, irrelevant to it, or a more or less important part of it. A wide variety of positions were staked out on these issues which I will not attempt to summarize here. My main point is that almost all of the ancient writers argued for limiting material acquisition and limiting our attempts to satisfy our physical desires through consumption. This was true for those who thought pleasure the greatest human good and for those who declared physical pleasure irrelevant to questions of how humans should live their lives. It was true for those who argued that people should set moderate goals and accept moderate successes in life, and for those who advocated the pursuit of perfection. The major philosophical schools all preached limited consumption and disciplining appetite, because they all accepted the idea that the proper level of consumption was a function of its role in furthering good human lives. In what follows, I attempt to show that such economic restraint remains in our self-interest today. If our goal is to live well, we should consume less. Such restraint has a further benefit, for those worried about the fate of the many non-human beings with whom we share our planet. Individuals focused on developing their better selves and on fulfilling their true needs, would demand less of Nature. We would demand less as a matter of course in the West, where we already have a surfeit of money and material goods, and more ofthe same will not improve our lives. And we would actively protect nature in our own self-interest, because pursuing our higher goals demands it. Environmental pollution and the transformation of wild nature into managed natural resources, are primarily the result of human economic activities. More benign forms of production and lower levels of consumption are therefore typical goals of environmentalists, in addition to the direct preservation of wildlife and wild places. These goals reinforce each other. For example, less paper consumption allows for less wood-pulp production. This in turn lessens the pressure to log previously unlogged lands, or to convert natural forests into more productive, managed tree farms. One type of argument for such economic reforms builds upon the intrinsic value of wild nature.3 If there is a value or integrity to individual non-human organisms, wild species, or wild places, then our right to use, modify or destroy them is called into question. …