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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:52 2006 |
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Pat Gunning said:
>Regarding Roy's response to Larry, it is easy to
>define "better" in the hard sciences because we can
>measure without attaching values. We can easily find
>out whether a Ferrari can travel faster than the
>Toyota or farther on a tank of petrol. In social
>science, we must choose values in order to define
>"better." Traditionally the values in economics have
>been broadly utilitarian. This is why the economists
>of the late 19th century developed a model of a market
>economy in which the value of a thing or action can be
>traced to the wants of individuals in the role of the
>consumer, via opportunity costs perceived by
>individuals in the role of the entrepreneur who know
>how to produce goods. This model dominates the
>textbooks today, which suggests that economists still
>adhere to broadly utilitarian values.
>
>Of course, it is possible to develop an economics
>based on different values. For example, people could
>propose that government policy X would be more likely
>to achieve eternal bliss according to the words in the
>Holy Book or in the writings of a revered ancestor.
>The logic and relevance of such an argument could be
>evaluated in the same way that economists evaluate the
>logic and relevance of arguments that policy X is in
>the interest of individuals in their role as
>consumers. But what is the point? Are there other
>standards for defining "better" that could compete
>with utilitarianism that are not merely modifications
>of it or supplements to it?
Of course. Just to scratch the surface, try Elizabeth Anderson, *Value in
Ethics and Economics*, Jean Hampton, *The Authority of Reason*, Robert
Brandom, *Making It Explicit* There is a huge body of philosophical
literature that denies that our reasoning about the good is
consequentialist (the genus of which classical utilitarianism is a
species). Closer to home, try Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments!
Kevin Quinn
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