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