Author: Amartya Sen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: 131
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780195627619
Description
In this elegant critique, Amartya Sen argues that welfare economics can be substantively enriched by paying more explicit attention to ethics, and that modern ethical studies can also benefit from a closer contact with economics.
In this elegant critique, Amartya Sen argues that welfare economics can be substantively enriched by paying more explicit attention to ethics, and that modern ethical studies can also benefit from a closer contact with economics. He further elaborates that even predictive and descriptive economics can be helped by making room for welfare economic considerations in the explanation of behavior, especially in production relations, which inevitably involve problems of co-operation as well as conflict. In this context, he explores the concept of rationality of behavior thoroughly and pays particular attention to social interdependence and internal tensions within consequentialist reasoning.
Professor Sen's contributions to economics and ethics have greatly strengthened the theoretical bases of both disciplines; this appraisal of the connections between the two subjects and their possible development will be welcomed not least for the clarity and depth which it contributes to the debate.
Contents
Foreword by John M. Letiche
Preface
CHAPTER 1
ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR AND MORAL SENTIMENTS
Two Origins
Achievements and Weakness
Economic Behavior and Rationality
Rationality as Consistency
Self-interest and Rational Behavior
Adam Smith and Self-interest
CHAPTER 2
ECONOMIC JUDGEMENTS AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY
Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility
Pareto Optimality and Economic Efficiency
Utility, Pareto Optimality and Welfarism
Well-being and Agency
Valuing and Value
Agency and Well-being: Distinction and Interdependence
Utility and Well-being
Achievements, Freedom and Rights
Self-interest and Welfare Economics
Rights and Freedom
CHAPTER 3
FREEDOM AND CONSEQUENCES
Well-being, Agency and Freedom
Plurality and Evaluation
Incompleteness and Overcompleteness
Conflicts and Impasse
Rights and Consequence
Consequential Assessment and Deontology
Ethics and Economics
Welfare, Goals and Choices
Conduct, Ethics and Economics
References
Author index
Subject index