Economics vs. moral philosophy

• Book ID: 104631980
• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1979
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 519 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0040-5833
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00126337

✦ Synopsis

This paper uses the Pareto Principle as a case study to exhibit the substantial divergence in perspective and approach that separates economists (decision theorists, social-choice theoreficians, etc.) from traditionally oriented moral philosophers. Specifically, it attempts to do three things:

(1) to maintain that the Pareto Principle is by no means a self-evidently valid truth from the standpoint of traditional social and moral philosophy;

(2) to argue that there is much to be said for the position of the moral philosophers that they are not just being obtuse or obscurantist;

(3) to show how this disagreement is symptomatic of a deeper difference of approach, a difference based on issues which the economist or decision theorist can only neglect at the price of the acceptability of his findings and the ultimate adequacy of his labors.