The Morality Of Economic Behaviour

The links between self-interest and morality have been examined in moral philosophy since Plato. Economics is a mostly value-free discipline, having lost its original ethical dimension as described by Adam Smith. Examining moral philosophy through the framework provided by economics offers new insights into both disciplines and the discussion on the origins and nature of morality. The Morality of Economic Behaviour: Economics as Ethics argues that moral behaviour does not need to be exogenously encouraged or enforced because morality is a side effect of interactions between self-interested agents. The argument relies on two important parameters: behaviour in a social environment and the effects of intertemporal choice on rational behaviour. Considering social structures and repeated interactions on rational maximisation allows an argument for the morality of economic behaviour. Amoral agents interacting within society can reach moral outcomes. Thus, economics becomes a synthesis of moral and rational choice theory bypassing the problems of ethics in economic behaviour whilst promoting moral behaviour and ethical outcomes. This approach sheds new light on practical issues such as economic policy, business ethics and social responsibility. This book is of interest primarily to students of politics, economics and philosophy but will also appeal to anyone who is interested in morality and ethics, and their relationship with self-interest.

Economics and moral philosophy have in recent years been considered to be distinct and separate fields. However, behavioural economics has started to reconcile various aspects of morality and economics, which has offered new conceptual opportunities to advance economics ethics and business ethics. This book aims to advance economic ethics and business ethics by combining normative principles and empirical evidence grounded on the key motivational forces in economic decision making. It has three core objectives: to assess order ethics as a theory of both economic ethics and business ethics, using behavioural economics methods and evidence; to identify cardinal virtues for modern business ethics; to to set up valuable guidelines for the implementation of economic ethics and business ethics.

This volume pulls together a remarkable collection of contributors designed to challenge the positive-normative dichotomy in economic methodology. . . The intent of this publication is to provide a reference manual for those seeking insights into the connections between economics and ethics. It succeeds in that goal and should become a starting point for anyone who believes that mainstream economics needs methodological reorientation. . . Anyone interested in ethics and economic methodology would do well to have this reference book handy. Highly recommended. J. Halteman, Choice This new Handbook of Economics and Ethics makes a substantial contribution as a wide-ranging up-to-date reference work, including original developments, on these two fundamentally interconnected fields. This contribution is particularly timely, given the increasing attention being paid to economics as a moral science. The Handbook contains seventy-five expert entries on subjects ranging from the history of economics and philosophy to conceptual analysis of ethics in various aspects of modern economics, while representing a diversity of views. Sheila Dow, University of Stirling, UK The Handbook of Economics and Ethics portrays an understanding of economic methodology in which facts and values, though distinct, are closely interconnected in a variety of ways. From theory building to data collection, and from modelling to policy evaluation, this encyclopaedic Handbook is at the intersection of economics and ethics. Irene van Staveren and Jan Peil bring together 75 unique and original papers to provide up-to-date insights on topics such as markets, globalization, human development, rationality, efficiency, and corporate social responsibility. The book presents contributions from an array of international scholars using methodological and theoretical approaches, and convincingly demonstrates the death of the positive/normative dichotomy that so long held economics in its grip. This invaluable resource will strongly appeal to students of economics and economic methodology, philosophy of science and ethics. It will also be of great benefit to academics and policy-makers involved in economic policies and ethics.

This book explains why moral beliefs can and likely do play an important role in the development and operation of market economies. It provides new arguments for why it is important that people genuinely trust others-even those whom they know don't particularly care about them-because in key circumstances institutions are incapable of combating opportunism. It then identifies specific characteristics that moral beliefs must have for the people who possess them to be regarded as trustworthy. When such moral beliefs are held with sufficient conviction by a sufficiently high proportion of the population, a high trust society emerges that supports maximum cooperation and creativity while permitting honest competition at the same time. Such moral beliefs are not tied to any particular religion and have nothing to do with moral earnestness or the set of moral values-what matters is how they affect the way people think about morality. Such moral beliefs are based on abstract ideas that must be learned so they are matters of culture, not genes, and are therefore able to explain differences in economic performance across societies.

A key issue in economic discourse today is the relation (or lack of it) between economic behaviour and morality. Few (presumably) would want to deny that human beings are in some sense moral or ethical creatures, but the devil is in the detail. Should we think of economic behaviour as an essentially amoral process – a process adequately characterised by a means-ends rationality – into which any number of subjective ethical concerns or orientations may be intruded to give a particular action its determinate moral content? Or is it rather the case that our moral being runs deeper than this, in the sense that all of our behaviour – ‘economic’ or otherwise – is enabled or capacitated by a competence that is fundamentally ethical in character? With new analyses of the work of Hobbes and Smith, Dixon and Wilson offer a fresh approach to the debate surrounding economics and morality with a novel discussion of the self in economic theory. This book calls for a change in the way that the relation between economic behaviour and morality is understood – from an understanding of morality as a kind of preference that informs certain types of other-regarding behaviour (the way that modern economics understands the relationship), to an idea of morality as a competence that enables or, rather, conditions the possibility of all forms of human behaviour, other-regarding or not. Offering a new insight on homo economicus, this book will be of great interest to all those interested in the history of economics and of economic thought.

The connection between economics and ethics is as old as economics itself, and central to both disciplines. The essays included in the present volume provide an analysis of the connections between ethics and economics as viewed from several different - oft

Since the days of Adam Smith, ethics and economics have been closely intertwined, and were nominally separated only with the advent of neoclassical economics in the beginning of the last century. This book features eleven essays by leading scholars in economics and philosophy who argue for a renewal of the bond between the two disciplines. Several of the contributors argue that the ethical content of economics and moral status of the market have been misunderstood, for better and for worse. Some recommend changes in the way that individual economic choice is modelled, in order to incorporate ethical as well as self-interested motivations. Finally, others question the way that societies assess economic policies that affect the welfare and dignity of their constituents. A wide range of philosophical perspectives is offered, drawing from the classic writings of Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, and the ancient Stoics, to that of current scholars such as Amartya Sen, Elizabeth Anderson, and Christine Korsgaard. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the cutting edge of interdisciplinary research between ethics and economics, and is sure to be an important resource for scholars in both fields. This book was published as a combination of the special issues Review of Political Economy and Review of Social Economy.

Economics as Moral Science investigates the problem of the ethical neutrality of "mainstream" economic theory within the context of the methodology of economics as a science. Against the conventional wisdom, the author argues that there are serious moral presuppositions to the theory, but that economics could still count as a scientific or rational form of inquiry. The basic questions addressed - the ethical implications of economics, its status as a scientific mode of theory-construction, and the relation between these factors - are absolutely fundamental ones for an understanding of contemporary economics, the philosophy of the human sciences, and our current market culture. Moreover, the study provides a thorough philosophical analysis of the critical issues at stake from the inside, from the credible perspective of a particular, but foundational economic theory - the neoclassical theory of rational choice.