Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy

Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy

Daniel M. Hausman

Language: English

Pages: 354

ISBN: 052160866X

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


This 2006 book shows through accessible argument and numerous examples how understanding moral philosophy can improve economic analysis, how moral philosophy can benefit from economists' analytical tools, and how economic analysis and moral philosophy together can inform public policy. Part I explores rationality and its connections to morality. It argues that in defending their model of rationality, mainstream economists implicitly espouse contestable moral principles. Part II concerns welfare, utilitarianism and standard welfare economics, while Part III considers important moral notions that are left out of standard welfare economics, such as freedom, rights, equality, and justice. Part III also emphasizes the variety of moral considerations that are relevant to evaluating policies. Part IV then introduces technical work in social choice theory and game theory that is guided by ethical concepts and relevant to moral theorizing. Chapters include recommended readings and the book includes a glossary of relevant terms.

Foundations for Moral Relativism

Happiness and Greek Ethical Thought (Continuum Studies in Ancient Philosophy)

The Ethical Journalist

Global Violence: Ethical and Political Issues (Global Ethics)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morality are discussed in Frank (2003). The argument in Section 5.3 concerning the evaluative implications of accepting explanations in terms of reasons was suggested by some remarks of Frank Knight (1935). six Rationality, Norms, and Morality Every society has moral norms, although none can boast of perfect compliance. People approve of behavior that conforms to the dictates of their morality and disapprove of behavior that violates established moral norms. Those who violate moral norms.

The wages of a group of workers will motivate them, other things being equal, to work more effectively. Efficiency wages are wages above the market-clearing rate that motivate workers to be more productive, not high wages that reward high productivity. Efficiency wage theory has attracted a great deal of attention because it apparently helps to explain two important features of industrial economies. The first feature is involuntary unemployment, an issue we discussed in Chapter 3. If there are.

1.2.1 makes it easy to see why economists have thought it was so important to argue that economics is and should be “value neutral”: that it makes (and should make) no evaluative claims. Economists believed that only factual claims can be studied by the methods of science. In this view, economists trespass beyond the boundaries of science when they take stands concerning evaluative matters. This view of the separation between scientific claims, which are the subject matter of economics, and.

Make well-being more readily measurable. In addition to material self-interest, one objective view of what matters for economic policy – which may be relevant to normative economists – is John Rawls’s notion of “primary goods.” This is not an alternative theory of well-being. In A Theory of Justice (1971) Rawls takes well-being to be the satisfaction of rational preference, but he does not think that justice should focus on well-being. The reason is that people’s well-being depends in part on.

Prioritarian is an individual’s “absolute” level of well-being, not the relative position in a distribution – with how well-off an individual is compared to how well-off he could be. So, for example, a prioritarian would place more moral weight on benefiting a middle-income Bolivian than the poorest Austrian if the former were at a lower level of well-being than the latter. Distribution is of no intrinsic importance to the prioritarian, but – in weighting the good of those who are worse-off more.

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