Pat Gunning wrote:  
>Thanks, Kevin, for your comment. Do I understand you  
>correctly? Are you saying that there is large  
>literature in _philosophy_ that denies that economic  
>reasoning is [for the most part] intended to deal with  
>utilitarian-type arguments?  
  
  
Pat,  the literature I'm referring to is critical of consequentialist (and   
fortiori utilitarian) reasoning about the good in general - whether it's   
economists or anyone else doing the reasoning.  The critique is both   
normative and descriptive - this isn't the way we ought to reason about the   
good, first, and it isn't the way we do so reason.  So it would matter - if   
it's right - both for the way we think about policy issues as economists   
and the way we model rational agents.  What bothered me about your post was   
your claim that the only alternative to utilitarianism was supernaturalism   
of some sort.  Cheers,  
  
Kevin Quinn