Money-Hedonism from Ibn Khaldūn’s Notion of Morality
Authors: ILGAROĞLU Muhammet Caner 
Published: December 2019

According to Ibn Khaldūn, man is a social entity deeply influenced by
the geo-economics-politics of the environment in which he lives. The effect is
seen as so strong that nearly all of these structures in their relationship to
human beings are dominated by it. In this system, we see human beings as a
creature who is both able to adapt himself to the environment and able to
evolve in this harmony. From the
perspective of Ibn Khaldūn, man
cannot be evaluated or defined separately from the environmental conditions,
the technique and architecture he has developed. Ibn Khaldūn sees the primary source of this change to be the
desire to make life both more prosperous and bearable. Therefore, the most
natural motivations that affect man’s desire to alter the natural world are the
environmental challenges that he encounters. The challenges that are imposed
upon man in the natural world are those that have led to human progress. From
badāwa (nomadic society) to ḥaḍāra
(sedentary society) and so to the ceaseless drive of human progress that has
served to make life more endurable, every effort in this sense leads to a
physical and moral loosening as the incessant struggle to survive that defines
human existence is made more bearable. Physical slack by breaking the
resistance of man to resist the environmental conditions; and moral looseness
by making man more vulnerable to the temptation of desires, pleasures and
welfare that are the cause of moral dilemmas. Ibn Khaldūn’s moral thought with
its social, political, and other fields of application are all contexts that
enable an understanding of the devaluation of money-hedonist morality in all
ways. This article aims to analyze the social, political and economic dilemmas
and challenges that the capitalist, consumption-based money-hedonist morality (obesity,
social media addiction, consumption, and moral devaluation in the face of
financial, virtual and imagined valuations, etc.) from the perspective of Ibn
Khaldūn.

Summary: Man is
endowed with both good and evil. Ibn Khaldūn notes that man tends to misuse
these two orientations with a higher inclination towards evil, and that social
conditions have an effect on this. He sees another characteristic of man, that
they develop habits; accordingly, man is the child of his habits. Habits are
second nature to man and affects all of his perceptions, particularly notions
concerning truth. At the same time, human beings are under the constant
influence of both habits, culture, and climate and geography; and all of these
together affect our ethics, psychology and characteristics. Thus, man is a
historical, social being that is changed, transformed and determined by
adapting to these cultural, social, political and ecological conditions.

The concept of Money-Hedonism is one that we have
created by combining the terms monetarism, an economic concept, and hedonism,
a concept in moral philosophy; the resulting term we seek to produce
essentially translates as the adoration of Money. As is well known,
hedonism refers to a philosophy of life that has its origins in the ancient
Greek world which sees the purpose of life as one in which the pursuit of
pleasure is the highest good.

Whereas, Monetarism is
an American-based economic view developed by Milton Friedman in 1970, linking
all the balance in the economy to the supply and demand of money. According
to this, the demand for money is operation, precaution and motives of
speculation of individuals the amount of money they want to keep in cash on
them. The power of an exchange tool increases with the amount and quality of
what it is achievable in its utilization. In this respect, money
has been an unprecedented source of power in modern society as a means by which
change can be achieved. The increase in the power of money as an
effective means as manifesting power has led to a socio-cultural and
socio-economic superstructure around this power. In the life of an individual
that is part of such a culture and is unable to isolate himself from the
economy in which he lives, the values that can be expressed with money are consequently
formed. In this structure, since the measure of life is money, money determines
the quality of human life and human pleasure to a far greater degree than at
any time in history.

Thus, those living in
this age have developed a new moral philosophy of value formed by the
combination of these two concepts (monetarism and hedonism), which we have
defined as Money-Hedonism.

The money-hedonist
individual is one that is in love with money, the joy of having it, the
pleasure of using it, who desires it with immeasurable passion and ambition and
is willing to use all legitimate and illegitimate methods of obtaining it. The
most prominent characteristics of this type of individual is egoism, a desire
to possess, hatred and mistrust.

Ibn Khaldūn argues
that the inhabitants of a city that live a settled life and who are living in
the city have become economically prosperous and absorbed by consumption and
pleasure, and, consequently morally degenerate as a result of the abuse of
their evil nature.

As can be understood
from Ibn Khaldūn’s explanations, the basic element that determines the
transition of people from the badāwi way of life to ḥaḍāri (settled) is the
change in the livelihoods and related needs. He perceives this change as
progressing from necessity to luxury, and, with this change, ethical concern in
the nature of people being replaced by aesthetic care. In this way, since
aesthetic concern reveals the dissatisfaction of the human self, man always
pursues what is perceived to be better and more beautiful, and therefore he
easily tends to any malignancy that may disrupt his religious and worldly
peace.

The ḥaḍāra community
of Ibn Khaldūn versus the badāwa represent a modern society with a much more
heterogeneous population, with a significant increase in lifestyle diversity
along with urbanization. However, the determinative effect of the relationship
with nature or the way in which society engage in economic activities have not
changed. While modern people are urbanized, they are also heterogeneously shaped
by psycho-social necessities demanded by urbanization.

Man has created a new
socio-psychological condition that not only affects the socio-economic but the
way of forming a relationship through the accelerated development of new
communication methods, facilitating access to information, and the opening of
new methods of communication field between institutions. While man’s connection
to nature has become disconnected, he no longer perceives himself as human
being in nature but as a human within the city, the individual urban life and
the law define this perception. The rupture from nature has created an
inevitable result of alienation to nature as well as the estrangement of man
with his own nature.

The liberal policies
adopted with capitalism have encouraged competition and free entrepreneurship.
In the time that Ibn Khaldūn lived, man who created himself with his struggle
in the nature brings himself / herself into the economic structure of
competition in the modern period. Unlike in more traditional societies of the
past, the modern way of life not only expresses itself in our new way of life
and moral values, but also by statistical values. The exploitative and
mathematical world, which forms the current economic science, shapes the
socio-economic and socio-psychological structure of modern man.It
is understood that the life brought by luxury renders the dynamic, subjective,
disciplined sense of morality dysfunctional by destroying the moral values of
man, particularly by reducing their feeling of shame. As a result, while the
world of value of money-hedonism is solid, materialistic and cold; man in
trying to exist in this world of value carries a flexible, spiritual and
emotional nature. As such, human beings are pushed into social anomaly
situations such as a constant conflict, dilemma, suicide, insecurity and
solitude in this world of value.