Introduction

Good social relations are an essential aspect of a good society and of the quality of life, a crucial factor of people's happiness and intrinsic value, and an important cause of other achievements of society and of its members. However, the explanation of the quality of social relations raises a number of puzzles.

The classical picture of human nature as being essentially motivated by individual egoism – which is the standard model of the ‘dismal science’ of economics – often seems all too real, and yet there are many instances of spontaneous pro-social behaviour of various types. People, however, commonly complain about the quality of social relations and attitudes and the paucity of good ones, even though these acts are in the end their own doing. And they cannot buy or sell most of this relational quality (even in exchange for similar behaviour), or have it imposed, because this quality basically rests on an aspect of the relationship in the category of gift giving, and it is in the very nature and definition of gift giving that it cannot be exchanged or imposed.

The existence and scope of these particular relational goods thus require a particular type of analysis, with a special concern for the possibilities of improvement within a realistic account of the capacities of human beings, who probably are ‘neither angels nor beasts’ (as Blaise Pascal puts it). The purpose of this chapter is to point out the crucial phenomenon underlying this question.