Institutions and Ethics

Are morals and institutions processes? Do they change? They do. In the first wave of corona there was solidarity and conformance to the rules, but in the second wave there has been rising rebellion from loss of individual freedom of movement and association. More generally, democratic ethics has declined, in increasing acceptance of authoritarian rule. Climate change requires a shift of virtues.

Institutions and ethics are needed to enable society. Hodgson (1998, 183) discussed the meaning of institutions. He reported Veblen's (2009, 239) definition of institutions as ‘settled habits of thought common to the generality of men’ and North's (1990, 3) definition as ‘the rules of the game or […] the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction’. Let us here define institutions as humanly devised rules of the game and habits that guide human conduct. They are enabling constraints: they not only constrain but at the same time enable conduct. Richard Nelson once gave the example of a path through a swamp. It limits your steps, not to fall into the swamp, but it enables you to cross that swamp. Rules are, originally at least, explicit and conscious, but they can develop into habits. Habits can be and are often tacit or even unconscious, assimilated in education. They are not, however, instinctive, innate. Hodgson (1989, 179) characterised institutions as having five common characteristics: they involve interaction of agents, have common conceptions and routines, sustain and are sustained by shared conceptions and expectations, are relatively durable, incorporate values, and are seen as morally just.

Examples of rules are laws, as of property and the voluntary nature of trade, regulations of many kinds, including, say, traffic signs, but also language with its grammar and syntax. Organisations such as business firms are also institutions. I propose that next to institutions or as part of them, morality yields more informal rules for conduct in relations. I define ethics as the values and assumptions underlying morality. Ethics is the philosophy of morality.

Much of philosophy has been dedicated to finding a secure religious or other foundation for ethics and morality. Once it was God, but Feuerbach claimed that God was a diversion from man's own task of fixing ethics.