DOCSLIB.ORG

Ethics and Economics by Amartya

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Ethics and Economics by Amartya ON ETHICS & ECONOMIC AMARTYA SEN On Ethics and Economics Copyrighted material The Royer Lectures Series Editor: John M. Letiche University of California, Berkeley On Ethics and Economics Amartya Sen Blackwell Publishing Copyrighted material ©1987, 1988 by Amartya Sen BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 108 Cowley Road, Oxford 0X4 1JF, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton., Victoria 3053, Australia All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. First published 1987 First published in paperback 1988 Reprinted 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 (twice), 2002, 2003, 2004 Library of Congress Cataloging- -in-Publication Data Sen, Amartya On ethics and economics. 1. Economics—Moral and ethical aspects L 174'.4 HB72 ISBN 0-631-16401 -4 (pbk) A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Set in 11 on 13 pt Times by Columns of Reading Printed arid bound in the United Kingdom by Athenæum Press Ltd, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear The publisher ' s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a. sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards. For further information on Blackwell Publishing, visit our website: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com To Ken Arrow Copyrighted material Contents Foreword by John M. Letiche ix Preface xv 1 Economic Behaviour and Moral Sentiments 1 Two Origins 2 Achievements and Weakness 7 Economic Behaviour and Rationality 10 Rationality as Consistency 12 Self-interest and Rational Behaviour 15 Adam Smith and Self-interest 22 2 Economic Judgements and Moral Philosophy 29 Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility 30 Pareto Optimality and Economic Efficiency 31 Utility, Pareto Optimality and Welfarism 38 Well-being and Agency 40 Valuing and Value 41 Agency and Well-being: Distinction and Interdependence 43 Utility and Well-being 45 Achievements, Freedom and Rights 47 Self-interest and Welfare Economics 51 Rights and Freedom 56 3 Freedom and Consequences 58 Well-being, Agency and Freedom 58 Plurality and Evaluation 61 Incompleteness and Overcompleteness 65 Copyrighted material Contents Conflicts and Impasse 68 Rights and Consequence 70 Consequential Assessment and Deontology 74 Ethics and Economics 78 Welfare, Goals and Choices 80 Conduct, Ethics and Economics 88 References 90 Author index 123 Subject index 129 Foreword This small book is a 'treasure-chest' for economists, philosophers and political scientists interested in the relations between contemporary economics and moral philosophy. Written in a clear. crisp and stimulating style, Professor Amartya Sen provides more than a terse synthesis of the relevant literature on ethics and economics. In the sense of being substantially new, he shows the contributions that general equilibrium economics can make to the study of moral philosophy; the contributions that moral philosophy and welfare economics can make to mainstream economics; and the harm that the misuse of the assumption of self-interested behaviour has done to the quality of economic analysis. Sen demonstrates that there has occurred a serious distancing between economics and ethics which has brought about one of the major deficiencies of contemporary economic theory. As he persuasively argues. since the actual behaviour of human beings is affected by ethical considerations, and influencing human conduct is a central aspect of ethics, welfare -economic considerations must be allowed to have some impact on actual behaviour and, accordingly, must be relevant for modern logistic economics. But while logistic economics has had an . influence on welfare economics, Sen points out that welfare economics has had virtually n.o influence on logistic economics. He shows that both the ethics -related origins and the logistic-based origins of economics have cogency of their Copyrighted material Foreword own. The logistic approach of modern economics, he emphasizes, has often been extremely productive, providing better understanding of the nature of social interdependence and illuminating practical problems precisely because of extensive use of the logistic approach. The development of formal 'general equilibrium theory' is a case in point, and Sen illustrates its application to critical problems of hunger and famine. The foundation of Seri's arguments rests, however, in the view that economics, as it has emerged, can be made more productive by paying greater and more explicit attention to the ethical considerations that shape human behaviour and judgment. With illuminating brevity, he analyses certain departures from standard behavioural assumptions of economic theory that may arise from distinct ethical considerations. They may arise from intrinsic evaluations and from instrumental ones, either individually or from the group. Sen draws attention to the various causes from which they may arise, causes that give credence to the instrumental role of contemporary social behaviour. Such behaviour may go against each person's apparently dominant strategy, but group-rationality conditions of a specified type often influence actual behaviour without involving any defect in people's knowledge. In consequence, Sen discusses the ways in which welfare economics can be enriched by paying more attention to ethics; how des- criptive economics, prognosis, and policy can be improved by making more room for welfare economics in the determination of individual and group behaviour; and how the study of ethics can, in turn, benefit from a closer contact with economics. Understandably, though Sen is critical of economics as it stands, he does not think that the problems raised have been adequately dealt with in the ethical literature. Therefore, it is not a problem of merely incorporating the Foreword xi lessons from the ethical literature into economics. Indeed, he suggests that some of the ethical considerations can be helpfully analysed further by using various approaches and procedures now utilized in economics (p. 71). Illustrating this argument by the modern literature on rights and consequences, he notes that if rights are considered not only as primarily legal entities with instrumental use but rather as having intrinsic value, the literature can be much improved. Furthermore, he sets forth systematic suggestions as to how an adequate formulation of rights and of freedom can make substantial use of consequential reasoning of the type standardly used in general interdependence economics. hi one of his most original discussions, Sen indicates that while the richness of the modern literature of ethics is much greater than has been accommodated in economics, the extremely narrow assumption of self-interested behaviour in economics has impeded the analysis of very significant relationships. Mainstream economic theory, however, identifies rationality of human behaviour with internal consistency of choice and, further, with maximization of self-interest, But, as Sen notes, there is neither evidence for the claim that self-interest maximization provides the best approximation to actual human behaviour nor that it leads necessarily to optimum economic conditions. He refers to free market economies, such as Japan, in which systematic departure from self-interested behaviour in the direction of rule-based behaviour — duty, loyalty and good will — has been extremely important for the achievement of individual and group economic efficiency. An accurate interpretation of Adam Smith, he demonstrates, does not lend support to believers in, and advocates of, a narrow interpretation of self-interested behaviour either in ethics or in economics. Technically, as Sen demonstrates, under a scheme of extremely limited conditions, welfare economics admits of Copyrighted material xii Foreword circumstances in which acting entirely according to self- interest could be ethically justified. But the practical significance of this theorizing is highly questionable Therefore he identifies the limitations of the 'wellfarist' concepts on which, inter alia the analysis is based_ By distinguishing between the 'well-being aspect' which covers a person's achievements and opportunities in the Context of the individual's personal advantage from the 'agency aspect' which examines them in terms of broader objectives, the analysis goes beyond the pursuit of one's own well being, with productive results. Sen distinguishes between elements of distributive justice and more extensive valuations of the individual or group. This leads to a discussion on 'plurality and evaluation'; 'commensurability'; 'completeness and consistency'; 'impossibility theorems', as well as positive possibility results and constructive characterization. In apptying the recent philosophical literature on consequentialism to economics, Sen shows how this reasoning - including interdependence and instrumental accounting - can be combined not only with intrinsic valuation but also with position-relativity and agent-sensitivity of moral assessment, In effect. he shows that under realistic conditions, a broad consequential
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Market Design in the Presence of Repugnancy: a Market for Children
    Shane Olaleye Market Design in the Presence of Repugnancy: A Market for Children Shane Olaleye Abstract A market-like mechanism for the allocation of children in both the primary market (market for babies) and the secondary market (adoption market) will result in greater social welfare, and hence be more efficient, than the current allocation methods used in practice, even in the face of repugnancy. Since a market for children falls under the realm of repugnant transactions, it is necessary to design a market with enough safeguards to bypass repugnancy while avoiding the excessive regulations that unnecessarily distort the supply and demand pressures of a competitive market. The goal of designing a market for children herein is two-fold: 1) By creating a feasible market for children, a set of generalizable rules and principles can be realized for designing functioning and efficient markets in the face of repugnancy and 2) The presence of a potential, credible and efficient market in the presence of this repugnancy will stimulate debate into the need for such markets in other similar areas, especially in cases creating a tradable market for organs for transplantation, wherein the absence of the transaction is often a death sentence for those who wish to, but are prevented from, participating in the market. Introduction What is a Repugnant Transaction? Why Care About It? Classical economics posits that when the marginal benefit of an action outweighs its marginal cost, a market mechanism can be implemented wherein an appropriate price emerges that balances the marginal benefit and marginal cost of the action through a suitable transaction between counterparties.
    [Show full text]
  • Oikos and Economy: the Greek Legacy in Economic Thought
    Oikos and Economy: The Greek Legacy in Economic Thought GREGORY CAMERON In the study of the history of economic thought, there has been a tendency to take the meaning of the term “economics” for granted. As a consequence, when considering economic thought in ancient Greece, we turn to what the Greeks said about wealth, about money or about interest. This seems relatively straightforward. Problems emerge when we consider that the term “economics” had a different meaning in ancient Greece than it does today. As a rule, we project back onto history what we mean by “economics” and more or less ignore what it meant during the period in question. On one level, there is nothing wrong with this way of proceeding; after all we have no choice, ultimately, but to study the past with the concepts that are at our disposal. But the procedure can have certain drawbacks. The tendency of positive investigations is that they risk overlooking the kinds of transformations that give rise to our own concerns and even what is essential to our own thought and assumptions. The term “economics” has a long and varied history; the following is a brief attempt to turn things on their head and consider the history of economics not from the perspective of the modern notion of economics, but from the perspective of its ancient Greek ancestor and to begin to indicate the non-obvious ways in which the Greek legacy continues to inform even our most recent economies. As such, while brief mention is made of some modern economic historians, the primary focus is on the meaning of PhaenEx 3, no.
    [Show full text]
  • GDP in the Dock
    COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS free online services, because the relevant statistics are not col- lected or do not fit easily into existing categories. There is even a mini-boom in ALFRED EISENSTAEDT/GETTY books about economic statistics. A decisive The Great coalition is shaping Invention: The up in favour of mov- Story of GDP and ing away from GDP. the Making (and The question is what Unmaking) of the Modern World to use instead. EHSAN MASOOD In The Great Inven- Pegasus: 2016. tion, Ehsan Masood, editor of policy peri- odicals Research Europe and Research Fort- night, argues for an improved GDP. Into this single metric for economic-activity indica- tors — defined as the monetary value of all goods and services produced in a country — he would combine environmental impacts and human well-being. His book traces the history of GDP since its creation, as well as the calls for alternatives, mainly from environ­mentalists. Masood agrees with the sentiment of suggestions to use ‘dashboards’ that incorporate other economic data and supplementary indicators, but he concludes that GDP matters. As he writes of countries that adopted it: “The act of measuring their economies would ultimately determine how their economies would be managed.” And it matters despite, or because of, its flaws. GDP is too entrenched to be successfully replaced, he finds; instead, it needs radical reform. FORMATIVE FACTORS GDP began, as Masood notes, as an aggre- gate measure when the need arose for govern­ments to manage economies during the Depression in the 1930s and the Sec- ond World War. Pioneers of the statistics involved, such as US economist and Nobel John Maynard Keynes (right, with Henry Morgenthau) laid the foundations for the GDP metric.
    [Show full text]
  • ADVANCED JURISPRUDENCE CONCEPTIONS of SOCIAL JUSTICE: RAWLS, HAYEK, NOZICK, SEN and NUSSBAUM Component-I (A)- Personal
    LAW < ADVANCED JURISPRUDENCE CONCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE: RAWLS, HAYEK, NOZICK, SEN AND NUSSBAUM Component-I (A)- Personal Details Principal Investigator Prof. Ranbir Singh VC NLU Delhi Co-Principal Prof. G.S. Bajpai Registrar, NLU Delhi Investigator Paper Coordinator Prof. Sri Krishna Deva VC NLU Odisha Rao Content Writer Dr. Afroz Alam Associate Professor, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad Content Reviewer Component-I (B)- Description of Module Description of Module Subject Name Law Paper Name Advanced Jurisprudence Module Name/Title Conceptions of Social Justice: Rawls, Hayek, Nozick, Sen and Nussbaum Module Id Module 3 Pre-requisites A general understanding of social justice is required for a proper understanding of this module. Objectives After going through this module, you should be able to: understand the meaning and nature of social justice; understand the overarching theoretical frameworks of social justice developed by John Rawls, Friedrich Hayek, Robert Nozick, Amartya Sen, and Martha C. Nussbaum articulate your own positions in a clear, coherent and logical manner on the issues of social justice; and examine issues concerning social injustice, and critically analyse them with remedial tools. Key Words Social Justice, Difference Principle, Primary Goods, Spontaneous Order, Capability, MODULE OVERVIEW: For centuries, human society is constantly assessed with the principle of social justice. Yet the demands and principles of social justice are not always clear. What is social justice? Why does social justice matter? Is it concerned with equal opportunity or outcome or distribution of resources or capabilities or removal of poverty or creation of just institutions? As a result, there are great theoretical disagreements on the issues and remedies of the social justice concepts.
    [Show full text]
  • Political Correctness and Freedom of Expression
    POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTERS IN POLITICS of RHODES UNIVERSITY Supervisor: Dr Antony Fluxman By: Geoffrey Embling January 2017 Abstract A brief history of political correctness is discussed along with various definitions of it, ranging from political correctness being a benign attempt to prevent offense and avert discrimination to stronger views equating it with Communist censorship or branding it as "cultural Marxism". The aim of the research is to discover what political correctness is, how it relates to freedom of expression and what wider implications and effects it has on society. The moral foundations of rights and free speech in particular are introduced in order to set a framework to determine what authority people and governments have to censor others' expression. Different philosophical views on the limits of free speech are discussed, and arguments for and against hate speech are analysed and related to political correctness. The thesis looks at political correctness on university campuses, which involves speech codes, anti­ discrimination legislation and changing the Western canon to a more multicultural syllabus. The recent South African university protests involving issues such as white privilege, university fees and rape are discussed and related to political correctness. The thesis examines the role of political correctness in the censorship of humour, it discusses the historical role of satire in challenging dogmatism and it looks at the psychology behind intolerance. Political correctness appeals to tolerance, which is sometimes elevated at the expense of truth. Truth and tolerance are therefore weighed up, along with their altered definitions in today's relativistic society.
    [Show full text]
  • HOW DOES CULTURE MATTER? Amartya Sen 1. Introduction
    Forthcoming in "Culture and Public Action" Edited by Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton. HOW DOES CULTURE MATTER?1 Amartya Sen 1. Introduction Sociologists, anthropologists and historians have often commented on the tendency of economists to pay inadequate attention to culture in investigating the operation of societies in general and the process of development in particular. While we can consider many counterexamples to the alleged neglect of culture by economists, beginning at least with Adam Smith (1776, 1790), John Stuart Mill (1859, 1861), or Alfred Marshall (1891), nevertheless as a general criticism, the charge is, to a considerable extent, justified. This neglect (or perhaps more accurately, comparative indifference) is worth remedying, and economists can fruitfully pay more attention to the influence of culture on economic and social matters. Further, development agencies such as the World Bank may also reflect, at least to some extent, this neglect, if only because they are so predominately influenced by the thinking of economists and financial experts.2 The economists’ scepticism of the role of culture may thus be indirectly reflected in the outlooks and approaches of institutions like the World Bank. No matter how serious this neglect is (and here assessments can differ), the cultural dimension of development requires closer scrutiny in development analysis. It is important to investigate the different ways - and they can be very diverse - in which culture should be taken into account in examining the challenges of development, and in assessing the demands of sound economic strategies. The issue is not whether culture matters, to consider the title of an important and highly successful book jointly edited by Lawrence Harrison and Samuel Huntington.3 That it must be, given the pervasive influence of culture in human life.
    [Show full text]
  • Economic Theory, Freedom and Human Rights
    Briefing Paper November 2001 Economic Theory, Freedom and Human Rights: The Work of Amartya Sen This Briefing Paper reviews the ways in which the Nobel Prize expanding the types of variables and influences that are winning economist Professor Amartya Sen has focussed accommodated in theoretical and empirical economics. His international attention on the significance of fundamental human contributions include far-reaching proposals for incorporating freedoms and human rights for development theory and practice. individual entitlements, functionings, opportunities, capabilities, In the past, dominant approaches have often characterised freedoms and rights into the conceptual foundations and development in terms of GDP per capita; food security in terms technical apparatus of economics and social choice. These of food availability; and poverty in terms of income deprivation. proposals reflect a number of central recurring themes Emphasis was placed on economic efficiency – with no explicit including: role being given to fundamental freedoms, individual agency and • the importance of pluralist informational frameworks that human rights. In contrast, Sen’s research has highlighted the central take account of both the well-being aspect of a person idea that, in the final analysis, market outcomes and government (relating to his or her own personal physical and mental actions should be judged in terms of valuable human ends. His well-being) and the agency aspect (relating to the goals work has contributed to important paradigm shifts in economics that a person values, desires and has reasons to pursue; and development – away from approaches that focus exclusively and being sensitive to processes as well as to outcomes – on income, growth and utility, with an increased emphasis on reflecting the intrinsic value of individual choice and individual entitlements, capabilities, freedoms and rights.
    [Show full text]
  • Aristotle & Locke: Ancients and Moderns on Economic Theory & The
    Xavier University Exhibit Honors Bachelor of Arts Undergraduate 2015-4 Aristotle & Locke: Ancients and Moderns on Economic Theory & the Best Regime Andrew John Del Bene Xavier University - Cincinnati Follow this and additional works at: http://www.exhibit.xavier.edu/hab Part of the Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, and the Ancient Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Del Bene, Andrew John, "Aristotle & Locke: Ancients and Moderns on Economic Theory & the Best Regime" (2015). Honors Bachelor of Arts. Paper 9. http://www.exhibit.xavier.edu/hab/9 This Capstone/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Undergraduate at Exhibit. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Bachelor of Arts by an authorized administrator of Exhibit. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Aristotle & Locke: Ancients and Moderns on Economic Theory & the Best Regime Andrew John Del Bene Honors Bachelor of Arts – Senior Thesis Project Director: Dr. Timothy Quinn Readers: Dr. Amit Sen & Dr. E. Paul Colella Course Director: Dr. Shannon Hogue I respectfully submit this thesis project as partial fulfillment for the Honors Bachelor of Arts Degree. I dedicate this project, and my last four years as an HAB at Xavier University, to my grandfather, John Francis Del Bene, who taught me that in life, you get out what you put in. Del Bene 1 Table of Contents Introduction — Philosophy and Economics, Ancients and Moderns 2 Chapter One — Aristotle: Politics 5 Community: the Household and the Πόλις 9 State: Economics and Education 16 Analytic Synthesis: Aristotle 26 Chapter Two — John Locke: The Two Treatises of Government 27 Community: the State of Nature and Civil Society 30 State: Economics and Education 40 Analytic Synthesis: Locke 48 Chapter Three — Aristotle v.
    [Show full text]
  • Involuntary Unemployment Versus "Involuntary Employment" Yasuhiro Sakai 049 Modern Perspective
    Articles Introduction I One day when I myself felt tired of writing some essays, I happened to find a rather old book in the corner of the bookcase of my study. The book, entitledKeynes' General Theory: Re- Involuntary ports of Three Decades, was published in 1964. Unemployment versus More than four decades have passed since then. “Involuntary As the saying goes, time and tide wait for no man! 1) Employment” In the light of the history of economic thought, back in the 1930s, John Maynard J.M. Keynes and Beyond Keynes (1936) wrote a monumental work of economics, entitled The General Theory of -Em ployment, Interest and Money. How and to what degree this book influenced the academic circle at the time of publication, by and large, Yasuhiro Sakai seemed to be dependent on the age of econo- Shiga University / Professor Emeritus mists. According to Samuelson (1946), contained in Lekachman (1964), there existed two dividing lines of ages; the age of thirty-five and the one of fifty: "The General Theory caught most economists under the age of thirty-five with the unex- pected virulence of a disease first attacking and decimating an isolated tribe of south sea islanders. Economists beyond fifty turned out to be quite immune to the ailment. With time, most economists in-between be- gan to run the fever, often without knowing or admitting their condition." (Samuelson, p. 315) In 1936, Keynes himself was 53 years old be- cause he was born in 1883. Remarkably, both Joseph Schumpeter and Yasuma Takata were born in the same year as Keynes.
    [Show full text]
  • Should Like Cases Be Decided Alike? a Formal Analysis of Four Theories of Justice
    Should Like Cases be Decided Alike? A Formal Analysis of Four Theories of Justice Benjamin Johnson Richard Jordan Princeton University Baylor University Abstract The maxim ‘treat like cases alike’ has underpinned theories of justice since Aristotle. It is commonly wielded as a shield against arbitrary rule and as a sword for civil rights. But it is not clear what the maxim actually means. In this paper, we formalize and evaluate possible definitions of the maxim, including those of John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, HLA Hart, and Aristotle. We demonstrate that, as a theoretical principle, the maxim is always either unhelpful or pernicious. It provides no moral reason to make any particular decision. Importantly, we limit our inquiry to pure theory, and so there may still be room for using the maxim in practice. But such pragmatic use could only be justified with reference to other values, since the maxim contains no moral force of its own. Our findings should encourage political and legal theorists to reexamine some core assumptions of our normative theories. 9973 Words 1 [J]ustice demands, wherever that concept is found, that like men be treated alike in like conditions. Why, I do not know; the fact is given. – Karl Llewellyn, The Bramble Bush 1 Introduction About 2,400 years ago, Aristotle argued that like cases should be treated alike. This Like Cases Maxim (LCM) has been a core feature of political philosophy ever since. The maxim was at the heart of some of the most important theoretical disputes of the last several decades. For political theorists in the liberal tradition like John Rawls, a maxim rooted in shared, objective features could hold ground against utilitarian theories that rest on subjective individual preferences.
    [Show full text]
  • Poor, Relatively Speaking Amartya Sen Oxford Economic Papers, New Series, Vol. 35, No. 2
    Poor, Relatively Speaking Amartya Sen Oxford Economic Papers, New Series, Vol. 35, No. 2. (Jul., 1983), pp. 153-169. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0030-7653%28198307%292%3A35%3A2%3C153%3APRS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1 Oxford Economic Papers is currently published by Oxford University Press. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/oup.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org Tue Oct 30 17:01:57 2007 POOR, RELATIVELY SPEAKING*' By AMARTYA SEN 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to the Elgar Companion to Economics and Philosophy John B
    Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Economics Faculty Research and Publications Economics, Department of 1-1-2004 Introduction to The Elgar Companion to Economics and Philosophy John B. Davis Marquette University, [email protected] Alain Marciano Université de Reims Champagne Ardenne Jochen Runde University of Cambridge Published version. "Introduction," in The Elgar Companion to Economics and Philosophy. Eds. John B. Davis, Alain Marciano and Jochen Runde. Chelthenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004: xii-xxvii. DOI. © 2004 Edward Elgar Publishing. Used with permission. Introduction John Davis, Alain Marciano and Jochen Runde The closing decades of the twentieth century saw a dramatic increase in interest in the role of philosophical ideas in economics. The period also saw a significant expansion in scholarly investigation into the different connections between economics and philosophy, as seen in the emergence of new journals, professional associations, conferences, seminar series, websites, research networks, teaching methods, and interdisciplinary collaboration. One of the results of this set of developments has been a remarkable distillation in thinking about philosophy and economics around a number of key subjects and themes. The goal of this Companion to Economics and Philosophy is to exhibit and explore a number of these areas of convergence. The volume is accordingly divided into three parts, each of which highlights a leading area of scholarly concern. They are: political economy conceived as political philosophy, the methodology and epistemology of economics, and social ontology and the ontology of economics. The authors of the chapters in the volume were chosen on the basis of their having made distinctive and innovative contributions to their respective areas of expertise.
    [Show full text]