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Virtues and Economics Virtues and Economics Volume 3 Series Editors Peter Róna, University of Oxford, UK László Zsolnai, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary Editorial Advisory Board Helen Alford, Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (“Angelicum”), Rome, Italy Luk Bouckaert, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium Luigino Bruni, LUMSA University, Rome and Sophia University Institute, Loppiano Georges Enderle, University of Notre Dame, USA Carlos Hoevel, Catholic University of Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina John Loughlin, Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford and Von Hügel Institute David W. Miller, Princeton University, USA Sanjoy Mukherjee, Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management Shillong, India Mike Thompson, GoodBrand, London, CEIBS Shanghai, and University of Victoria, Vancouver, Canada Johan Verstraeten, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium Stefano Zamagni, University of Bologna, and Johns Hopkins University – SAIS Europe and Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Italy The series is dedicated to virtue ethics and economics. Its purpose is to relocate economic theory to a domain where the connection between the virtues and economic decisions, as that connection is actually experienced in everyday life, is an organic component of theory rather than some sort of an optionally added ingredient. The goal is to help develop a virtue-based economic theory which connects virtues with the contents of economic activities of individuals, unincorporated and incorporated economic agents. The primary context is Catholic Social Teaching but other faith traditions (especially Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism) will also be explored for their construction of virtues in economic action. Special attention will be made to regulatory and policy issues in promoting economic justice. The series connects virtue ethics with the core of economic theory and practice. It examines the basic and irreducible intentionality of human activities concerned with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. It considers the incommensurability of values as the central problem of economic decision making and examines whether that problem can be overcome by any means other than practical reason. This series will cover high quality edited volumes and monographs. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15627 Peter Róna • László Zsolnai Editors Economic Objects and the Objects of Economics Editors Peter Róna László Zsolnai Blackfriars Hall Business Ethics Center University of Oxford Corvinus University of Budapest St. Giles, Oxford, UK Budapest, Hungary Includes one non exclusive license agreement - Dave Colander: Is Economics a Moral Science? ISSN 2520-1794 ISSN 2520-1808 (electronic) Virtues and Economics ISBN 978-3-319-94528-6 ISBN 978-3-319-94529-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94529-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949115 © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface The papers collected in this second volume of our Virtues and Economics series were delivered at a symposium held at the Las Casas Institute, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University on 7th and 8th of July, 2017. Papers delivered at previous sym- posia, also at the Las Casas Institute and the Catholic University of Leuven, were published in our previous volume titled Economics as a Moral Science. These papers concern the moral content of economic life and the capacity of economic theory to accommodate that moral content. Our first volume traced and reflected the transformation of economics as a moral science into an analytic disci- ple and the consequences of that transformation. The essays in this volume address, from a variety of perspectives, the ontological characteristics of the subject matter of the discipline and challenge the assumption that the methodology of the natural sciences can be productively applied to the economy. The exclusion of the moral dimension of economic life from the axioms, models, and paradigms of modern economic theory, the notion that the economy is the prod- uct of the sorts of law-like regularities that characterise the natural sciences instead of being the product of human will, desire and action have had increasingly trou- bling consequences. Instead of the sort of stability that the discovery of law-like regularities are expected to secure, the search for analogies between the natural and the social sciences has generated increasing social, economic, environmental and political instability. If the wealth of the world has greatly increased, so has human suffering. A re-examination of the foundations of modern economic theory seems to be needed. The editors would like to thank the authors of these papers for their contribution and to express their enthusiastic support of the dialogue that has developed among them. We would also like to express our gratitude to the Mallinckrodt Foundation for its generous financial support without which these symposia could not have been organised, and thank the Las Casas Institute for its hospitality and administrative support to the 2017 symposium. Peter Róna László Zsolnai v Acknowledgement The editors would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Mallinckrodt Foundation to the workshop held at Blackfriars Hall in 2017. vii Contents Part I Introduction 1 Ontology and Economics ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 3 Peter Róna Part II The Importance of Ontology 2 Objects of Nature and Objects of Thought �������������������������������������������� 11 Peter Róna 3 Positioning and the Nature of Social Objects ���������������������������������������� 35 Stephen Pratten 4 Central Fallacies of Modern Economics ������������������������������������������������ 51 Tony Lawson Part III Ontology of Modern Economics 5 Social Scientific Naturalism Revisited ���������������������������������������������������� 71 Daniel M. Hausman 6 Is Economics a Moral Science? �������������������������������������������������������������� 85 David Colander 7 New Theoretical City or Dispersed Tribes? An Exploration Journey through Contemporary Heterodox Economics and Methodology ������������������������������������������������������������������ 97 Carlos Hoevel ix x Contents Part IV Temporality, Reactivity and Crowding 8 Rational Choice Theory and Backward-­Looking Motives ������������������ 117 Roger Teichmann 9 Time-Value in Economics ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 125 Kevin T. Jackson 10 The Crucial Role of Reactivity in Economic Science ���������������������������� 141 Bruno S. Frey 11 Economic Actors and the Ultimate Goal of the Economy �������������������� 151 László Zsolnai Part V Implications for Economic Policy 12 How Does the Methodology of Neoclassical Economics Eliminate the Question of Fairness? ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 163 Zoltán Pogátsa 13 Economics Is a Moral Science: A Value Based Approach �������������������� 169 Arjo Klamer Part VI Conclusion 14 Postscript on Ontology and Economics �������������������������������������������������� 185 Peter Róna Index ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 193 About the Contributors David Colander is Distinguished College Professor at Middlebury College, Vermont, USA. He has authored, co-authored, or edited 30 books and over 100 articles on a wide range of topics. These include Principles of Economics (McGraw-­ Hill), History of Economic Thought (with Harry Landreth) (Houghton Mifflin), Macroeconomics (with Ed Gamber) (Prentice Hall), Why Aren't Economists as Important as Garbagemen? (Sharpe), and MAP: A Market Anti-Inflation Plan (with Abba Lerner) (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and has taught at Columbia University, Vassar College, the University of Miami, and Princeton University. He has been on the board of numerous economic societies and has been Vice President and President of the Eastern Economic Association and Vice-President of the History of
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