This paper introduces considerations about constraints in the construction of measures of an agent's freedom. It starts with motivating the exercise from both the philosophical and the informational point of view. Then it presents two rankings of opportunity sets based on information about the extent of options and the constraints that a decision maker faces. The first ranking measures freedom as variety of choice; the second as non-restrictedness in choice.

Welfarism, a position which for a long time enjoyed a hegemonic status in the field of normative economics, holds that the sole ethically relevant information for assessing social states of affairs pertains to individual utilities. Serge-Christophe Kolm presents the Equal-Labour Income Equalization model very explicitly and repeatedly as breaking with the still dominant tradition of welfarism. This paper explores the meaning of this distancing from welfarism found in the ELIE model. After having provided conceptual clarifications concerning both ELIE (...) and welfarism, we discuss various opposing aspects of this model of income redistribution to welfarism. We show that the refusal of welfarism by the ELIE model does not depend mainly on its axiomatic features, but on its deontological perspective. (shrink)

This is the latest draft of chapter 1 of _A New Theory of Reasons for Belief: Pragmatic Foundations and Pluralistic Reasons_ (Under Contract with OUP). It outlines the view that is the focus of the book: Welfarist Pluralism. Welfarist pluralism is the view that all normative reasons for belief are grounded in wellbeing and that being in a positive epistemic state is one of the components of wellbeing. This chapter explains how one can develop a principled version of (...) non-derivative pluralism about normative reasons for belief while still accepting that theoretical reason has a single, unified pragmatic foundation. Updated 25 January 2023. (shrink)

This paper offers a sketch of welfarist pluralism, a view that is intended to resolve a difficulty for non-derivative pluralists about normative reasons for belief. Welfarist pluralism is the view that all reasons for belief are rooted in wellbeing, and that wellbeing has as one of its components being in a positive epistemic state. The paper explores how this view can explain various pluralist intuitions and why it offers a plausible basis for combinatorial pluralists who believe that alethic and (...) pragmatic reasons for belief combine to determine what one ought to believe. The paper also considers the relationship between theoretical rationality and wellbeing, and provides a partial argument for the derivative normativity of at least some requirements of theoretical rationality. (shrink)

This paper outlines a new pluralistic theory of normative reasons for belief, welfarist pluralism, which aims to explain how there can be basic alethic/epistemic reasons for belief and basic pragmatic/non-alethic reasons for belief that can combine to determine what one ought to believe. The paper shows how this non-derivative first-order pluralism arises from a purely welfarist account of the foundations of theoretical normativity, thereby combining foundational pragmatism with non-derivative pluralism about normative reasons for belief. In addition, this (...) paper outlines how welfarist pluralism provides a new and potentialy attractive account of the value of truth (or its indicators), namely that the value of truth (or its indicators) is its direct contribution to individuals' personal good or wellbeing. (shrink)

The Foundations of Positive and Normative Economics: A Handbook is the first book in a new series by Andrew Caplin and Andrew Schotter. There is currently no guide available on the rapidly changing methodological frontiers of the field of economics. Economists have been introducing new theories and new sources of data at a remarkable rate in recent years, and there are widely divergent views both on how productive these expansions have been in the past, and how (...) best to make progress in the future. The speed of these changes has left economists ill at ease, and has created a backlash against new methods. The series will debate these critical issues, allowing proponents of a particular research method to present proposals in a safe yet critical context, with alternatives being clarified. This first volume, written by some of the most prominent researchers in the discipline, reflects the challenges that are opened by new research opportunities. The goal of the current volume and the series it presages, is to formally open a dialog on methodology. The editors' conviction is that such a debate will rebound to the benefit of social science in general, and economics in particular. The issues under discussion strike to the very heart of the social scientific enterprise. This work is of tremendous importance to all who are interested in the contributions that academic research can make not only to our scientific understanding, but also to matters of policy. (shrink)

The most important analytical tool in non-cooperative game theory is the concept of a Nash equilibrium, which is a collection of possibly mixed strategies, one for each player, with the property that each player's strategy is a best reply to the strategies of the other players. If we do not go into normative game theory, which concerns itself with the recommendation of strategies, and focus instead entirely on the positive theory of prediction, two alternative interpretations of the Nash equilibrium (...) concept are predominantly available.In the more traditional one, a Nash equilibrium is a prediction of actual play. A game may not have a Nash equilibrium in pure strategies, and a mixed strategy equilibrium may be difficult to incorporate into this interpretation if it involves the idea of actual randomization over equally good pure strategies. In another interpretation originating from Harsanyi, see also Rubinstein, and Aumann and Brandenburger, a Nash equilibrium is a ‘consistent’ collection of probabilistic expectations, conjectures, on the players. It is consistent in the sense that for each player each pure strategy, which has positive probability according to the conjecture about that player, is indeed a best reply to the conjectures about others. (shrink)

RESUMEN La ciencia económica preponderante descuidó el estudio de la cooperación humana. Esto se debe a que hay una contradicción entre ser seres racionales con propensión a maximizar el bienestar, por un lado, y la posibilidad de concretar objetivos de beneficio común e implementar procesos relacionales no coercitivos, por el otro lado. Sin embargo, la economía experimental se ha preocupado por hallar explicación a la actitud de reciprocidad que muestran los agentes en distintos juegos de estrategia, ya que posibilita concretar (...) acciones colectivas en las que subyace una intencionalidad compartida que permite cumplir objetivos mutuamente dispuestos. Se busca mostrar cuándo y por qué los seres humanos empiezan a relacionarse con sus semejantes y cuál es el fundamento normativo que logra orientar estos comportamientos. ABSTRACT The prevailing economic science has neglected the study of human cooperation. This is due to the existing contradiction between rational beings who seek to maximize wellbeing, on the one hand, and the possibility of materializing objectives for the common good and implementing relational, non-coercive processes, on the other-hand. However, experimental economics has endeavored to find an explanation for the attitude of reciprocity displayed by agents in different strategy games, given that it facilitates collective actions marked by an underlying shared intentionality that makes it possible to achieve mutually established goals. The article seeks to show when and why human beings start relating to their peers and to identify the normative basis that guides these behaviors. (shrink)

Normative welfare economics commonly assumes that individuals’ preferences can be reliably inferred from their choices and relies on preference satisfaction as the normative standard for welfare. In recent years, several authors have criticized welfare economists’ reliance on preference satisfaction as the normative standard for welfare and have advocated grounding normative welfare economics on opportunities rather than preferences. In this paper, I argue that although preference-based approaches to normative welfare economics face significant conceptual (...) and practical challenges, opportunity-based approaches fail to provide a more reliable and informative foundation for normative welfare economics than preference-based approaches. I then identify and rebut various influential calls to ground normative welfare economics on opportunities rather than preferences to support my qualified defence of preference-based approaches. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell in “New Hopes for a Changing World” writes the following passage: “The science of economics has been wrapped around by the theorists in a series of many veils, which have caused the plain man to suppose that there must be something indecent about its naked form. I think that the only thing to do in view of this situation is to begin at the beginning with matters of such simplicity that the reader may be indignant at finding (...) them mentioned …”. (shrink)

The article suggests that in a modern context, where value pluralism is a prevailing and possibly, even ethically desirable interaction condition, institutional economics provides a more viable business ethics than behavioural business ethics, such as Kantianism or religious ethics. The article explains how the institutional economic approach to business ethics analyses morality with regard to an interaction process, and favours non-behavioural, situational intervention with incentive structures and with capital exchange. The article argues that this approach may have to be (...) prioritised over behavioural business ethics, which tends to analyse morality at the level of the individual and favours behavioural intervention with the individual’s value, norm and belief system, e.g. through ethical pedagogy, communicative techniques, etc. Quaker ethics is taken as an example of behavioural ethics. The article concludes that through the conceptual grounding of behavioural ethics in the economic approach, theoretical and practical limitations of behavioural ethics, as encountered in a modern context, can be relaxed. Probably only then can behavioural ethics still contribute to raising moral standards in interactions amongst the members (stakeholders) of a single firm, and equally, amongst (the stakeholders of) different firms. (shrink)

In this chapter, one considers finance at its very foundations, namely, at the place where assumptions are being made about the ways to measure the two key ingredients of finance: risk and return. It is well known that returns for a large class of assets display a number of stylized facts that cannot be squared with the traditional views of 1960s financial economics (normality and continuity assumptions, i.e. Brownian representation of market dynamics). Despite the empirical counterevidence, normality and (...) continuity assumptions were part and parcel of financial theory and practice, embedded in all financial practices and beliefs. Our aim is to build on this puzzle for extracting some clues revealing the use of one research strategy in academic community, model tinkering defined as a particular research habit. We choose to focus on one specific moment of the scientific controversies in academic finance: the ‘leptokurtic crisis’ opened by Mandelbrot in 1962. The profoundness of the crisis came from the angle of the Mandelbrot’s attack: not only he emphasized an empirical inadequacy of the Brownian representation, but also he argued for an inadequate grounding of this representation. We give some insights in this crisis and display the model tinkering strategies of the financial academic community in the 1970s and the 1980s. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between economic rationality and the possibility of a moral science of business ethics. The purpose of this inquiry is to consider whether a universal and non-controversial moral science of business ethics can be defined satisfactorily, and linked to economic rationality of managers and other stakeholders of firms operating in market economies. Economic rationality connotes economic efficiency, meaning a strictly instrumental maximization of actor utility from limited resources. This rationality is a universal and value free (or (...) value neutral) axiom: actors should and generally will be rationally efficient. Utilitarianism accepting aggregation across values is the moral framework associated with market exchange. Business ethics is about normative valuation of motives, actions, and consequences. This article argues that the common foundation across relevant ethical frameworks – moral common sense, Kantianism, virtue theory, religion as a belief system, and utilitarianism – is a first or axiomatic principle of no harm without acceptable justification. A moral science of business ethics proceeds from this no harm axiom. (shrink)

The United Nations Scientific, Education and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (UDBHR) expresses in its title and substance a controversial linkage of two normative systems: international human rights law and bioethics. The UDBHR has the status of what is known as a ‘non-binding’ declaration under public international law. The UDBHR’s normative foundation within bioethics (and association, for example, with virtue-based or principlist bioethical theories) is more problematic. Nonetheless, the UDBHR contains socially important principles (...) of technology transfer and transnational benefit (articles 14, 15 and 21). This paper is one of the first to explore how the disciplines of bioethics and international human rights law may interact in the UDBHR to advance the policy relevance and health impact of technology transfer and transnational benefit principles. It investigates their normative ancestry in the UDBHR, as well as relevant conceptual differences between bioethics and public international law in this respect and how these may be relevant to their conceptual evolution and application. (shrink)

Are foundations of models of ambiguity-sensitive preferences too flawed to be usefully applied to economic models? Al-Najjar and Weinstein (2009) say such is indeed the case. In this paper, first, we point out that many of the key arguments by Al-Najjar and Weinstein do not apply to quite a few of the ambiguity preference models of more recent vintage, and therefore to that extent do not undermine the foundational aspects or applicability of ambiguity models in general. Second, we argue (...) the focus in that paper on Ellsberg examples is an overly narrow concern; the Ellsberg examples have their uses but they are not the best context to understand why reasonable real-world agents may find acting in an ambiguity-sensitive manner normatively or prescriptively appealing. Finally, normative considerations aside, we submit that Al-Najjar and Weinstein are unduly dismissive of the power of such preferences to provide illuminating positive analyses of economic phenomena. (shrink)

Given the endowment effect, the role of attention in decision-making, and the framing effect, most behavioral economists agree that it would be a mistake to accept the satisfaction of revealed preferences as the normative criterion of choice. Some have suggested that what makes agents better off is not the satisfaction of revealed preferences, but ‘true’ preferences, which may not always be observed through choice. While such preferences may appear to be an improvement over revealed preferences, some philosophers of (...) class='Hi'>economics have argued that they face insurmountable epistemological, normative, and methodological challenges. This article introduces a new kind of true preference – values-based preferences – that blunts these challenges. Agents express values-based preferences when they choose in a manner that is compatible with a consumption plan grounded in a value commitment that is normative, affective, and stable for the agent who has one. Agents who choose according to their plans are resolute choosers. My claim is that while values-based preferences do not apply to every choice situation, this kind of preference provides a rigorous way for thinking about classic choice situations that have long interested behavioral economists and philosophers of economics, such as ‘Joe-in-the-cafeteria.’. (shrink)

Recent developments in public economics have largely been in the direction of reaffirming the limits of the market and of establishing new ones. The possible existence of fundamental non-convexities, imperfect and asymmetric information, incentive compatibility, imperfect competition, strategic complementarity, and scale economies led to the conclusion that a large set of market failures exist; such situations also imply government failure. Acocella, considers this complicated picture and provides a discussion of the different approaches to establishing social 'rankings' of the possible (...) situations and the underlying principles. The arguments for and against different institutions are then analysed at a micro and macroeconomic level. The market and the government are recognised as imperfect, and thus complementary, institutions. Specific policy targets and instruments are considered in the areas of micro and macro-economic policy. Special attention is devoted to questions of policy management in an open economy. Finally, problems of domestic and international policy co-ordination are considered. (shrink)

The search for symmetry is part of the fundamental scientific paradigm in mathematics and physics. Can this be valid also for economics? This book represents an attempt to explore this possibility. The behavior of price-taking producers, monopolists, monopsonists, sectoral market equilibria, behavior under risk and uncertainty, and two-person zero- and non-zero-sum games are analyzed and discussed under the unifying structure called the linear complementarity problem. Furthermore, the equilibrium problem allows for the relaxation of often-stated but unnecessary assumptions. This unifying (...) approach offers the advantage of a better understanding of the structure of economic models. It also introduces the simplest and most elegant algorithm for solving a wide class of problems. (shrink)

A successful account of the ‘normativity of law’ is meant to inter alia establish how legal requirements come to be morally binding. This question presupposes taking a stance on the metaethical debate about the nature of morality and moral bindingness between the cognitivist and non-cognitivist camps. An overwhelming majority of contemporary legal philosophers have an unspoken adherence to a cognitivist metaethic and the model of normativity of law emerging from it: the impinging model. Consequently, the problematic of the normativity of (...) law is so calibrated as to in limine rule out any putative account of the normativity of law that presupposes a non-cognitivist metaethic: the projectivist model. This paper calls for a recalibration of the problematic of the normativity of law to a metaethically aseptic viewpoint from which the projectivist model is seen as a plausible theoretical contender to the impinging model. It also sets out the philosophical underpinnings of the projectivist model and contrasts it... (shrink)

A number of the most influential presentations of normative stakeholder theory are based upon an economic model of the firm as a nexus of contracts. In this paper I argue that the use of such a model to address moral issues is both logically and practically problematic and effectively undermines the stakeholder position. I then sketch out the key characteristics of an alternative, social relationships model of the firm, and show how this might provide a basis for the development (...) of a more relevant and robust version of normative stakeholder theory than has hitherto been proposed. (shrink)

Recent developments in public economics have largely been in the direction of reaffirming the limits of the market and of establishing new ones. The possible existence of fundamental non-convexities, imperfect and asymmetric information, incentive compatibility, imperfect competition, strategic complementarity, and scale economies led to the conclusion that a large set of market failures exist; such situations also imply government failure. Acocella, considers this complicated picture and provides a discussion of the different approaches to establishing social 'rankings' of the possible (...) situations and the underlying principles. The arguments for and against different institutions are then analysed at a micro and macroeconomic level. The market and the government are recognised as imperfect, and thus complementary, institutions. Specific policy targets and instruments are considered in the areas of micro and macro-economic policy. Special attention is devoted to questions of policy management in an open economy. Finally, problems of domestic and international policy co-ordination are considered. (shrink)

Economics bases the choice theory on the mental experiment that introduces the choice correspondence, which associates to every set of possible actions the subset of preferred actions. If some conditions are satisfied, then the choice correspondence implies a binary preference ordering on actions and an ordinal utility function. This approach applies both to decisions under certainty and decisions under uncertainty. The preference ordering depends on the consequence of actions. Under certainty, there is only one consequence to every action, while, (...) under uncertainty, many consequences are possible, associated with the states of the world. These consequences are represented by the action itself, the states of the world, and the corresponding outcomes. Current theories consider only outcomes, but some theories include state dependent preference. Preference for the action itself is not considered, but it might be relevant. The rationality of the theory is a different question from the rationality of the decision-maker. Moreover, the rationality of the theory may imply the rationality of a preference ordering, but this does not require the rationality of the decision-maker. It is only assumed that he/she behaves according to the calculation made by the theorist. The rationality of the preference ordering requires the rationality of the preference on outcomes, of the expectations on the events, and of their connection with the preference ordering on actions. The normative relevance of rational preferences is removed by the introduction of many alternative rational theories, which justify contrasting behaviors in identical situations. (shrink)

This paper assesses normative arguments regarding four views about defamatory meaning. The moralised view holds that a statement about a person is defamatory if and only if we ought to think less of that person if the statement is true. The nonmoralised view holds that a statement is defamatory if and only if people in fact think less of the subject on hearing the statement. A third - the dual view - can be split into two versions. The first (...) version holds that a statement is defamatory if and only if it satisfies either the moralised or non-moralised views. The second version holds that statements satisfying either view can be defamatory, but they ought to be considered fundamentally different forms of personal defamation, with different remedies, defences and conditions of liability attached. Both the moralised and non-moralised views are rejected because they fail to acknowledge instrumental and intrinsic reputational value respectively. The first version of the dual view is rejected because it compromises the expressive value of defamation, implausibly suggests that truth should be a general defence and fails to recognise that different objections apply to the moralised and nonmoralised views. The upshot is that we ought to accept the second version of the dual view. (shrink)

Recent work by comparative philosophers, global ethicists, and cross-cultural value theorists indicates that, unlike most Western thinkers, those in many other parts of the globe, such as indigenous Africa, East Asia, and Latin America, tend to prize relationality. These relational values include enjoying a sense of togetherness, participating cooperatively, creating something new together, engaging in mutual aid, and being compassionate. Global economic practices and internationally influential theories pertaining to justice, development, and normative economics over the past 50 years (...) have been principally informed by characteristically Western and individualist values such as utility, autonomy, and capability. In this article I consider what economic appropriation, production, distribution, and consumption would look like if they were more influenced by relational values typical of non-Western worldviews, and especially the sub-Saharan ethic of ubuntu. (shrink)

A number of the most influential presentations of normative stakeholder theory are based upon an economic model of the firm as a nexus of contracts. In this paper I argue that the use of such a model to address moral issues is both logically and practically problematic and effectively undermines the stakeholder position. I then sketch out the key characteristics of an alternative, social relationships model of the firm, and show how this might provide a basis for the development (...) of a more relevant and robust version of normative stakeholder theory than has hitherto been proposed. (shrink)

In the early twenty-first century, liberal democracies have witnessed their foundational norms of critique and deliberation being disrupted by a combination of populist and technological forces. A distinctive style of dispute has appeared, in which a speaker denounces the unfairness of all liberal and institutional systems of equivalence, including the measures of law, economics and the various other ‘tests’ which convention scholars have deemed core to organisations. The article reviews how sociologists of critique have tended to treat critical capacities (...) as oriented towards consensus but then considers how technologies of real-time ‘control’ circumvent liberal critique altogether. In response, a different type of dispute emerges in the digital public sphere, which abandons equivalences in general, instead adopting a non-representational template of warfare. This style of post-liberal dispute is manifest in the rhetoric of populists but does not originate there. (shrink)

This book presents the first full-length explanation in English of Heinsohn and Steiger's groundbreaking theory of money and interest, which emphasizes the role played by private property rights. Ownership economics gives an alternative explanation of money and interest, proposing that operations enabled by property lead to interest and money, rather than exchange of goods. Like any other approach, it has to answer economic theory's core question: what is the loss that has to be compensated by interest? Ownership economics (...) accepts neither a temporary loss of goods, as in neoclassical economics, nor Keynes's temporary loss of already existing, exogenous money as the cause of interest. Rather, money is created as a non-physical title to property in a credit contract secured by a debtor's collateral and the creditor's net worth. This book is an edited English translation of a highly successful German text, and offers the first book-length treatment of a theory which has received much interest since its first appearance in articles in the late 1970s. (shrink)

At the UN, important projects laying down transnational corporations' (TNCs) human rights responsibilities have been launched without ever clarifying the relevant theoretical foundations. One of the consequences is that the human rights principles in projects like the 2000 UN Global Compact and the 2003 Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights can be understood in different ways, which should not cause surprise given that their authors come from diverse backgrounds, including (...) economics and public policy. An examination of these projects and the views of their authors reveals that, although they are superficially linked to international human rights law, they go well beyond it and attempt to deal with corporate social responsibility issues in ways that elude neat classification as fitting neatly in either legal or non-legal categories. Too little attention has been paid to how in the course of developing these projects the legal and ethical dimensions have become entwined and how lines have gotten blurred. Meanwhile, there has been recognition that these UN projects have emerged simply as ad hoc responses to practical concerns about the sustainability of globalization. The lack of any foundational theory or normative framework should be addressed; it is time to bring together specialists from different fields concerned with the human rights responsibilities of corporations to see if it is possible to define a coherent overarching theory for these UN projects. (shrink)

The paper discusses the sense in which the changes undergone by normative economics in the twentieth century can be said to be progressive. A simple criterion is proposed to decide whether a sequence of normative theories is progressive. This criterion is put to use on the historical transition from the new welfare economics to social choice theory. The paper reconstructs this classic case, and eventually concludes that the latter theory was progressive compared with the former. It (...) also briefly comments on the recent developments in normative economics and their connection with the previous two stages. (Published Online April 18 2006) Footnotes1 This paper suspersedes an earlier one entitled “Is There Progress in Normative Economics?” (Mongin 2002). I thank the organizers of the Fourth ESHET Conference (Graz 2000) for the opportunity they gave me to lecture on this topic. Thanks are also due to J. Alexander, K. Arrow, A. Bird, R. Bradley, M. Dascal, W. Gaertner, N. Gravel, D. Hausman, B. Hill, C. Howson, N. McClennen, A. Trannoy, J. Weymark, J. Worrall, two annonymous referees of this journal, and especially the editor M. Fleurbaey, for helpful comments. The editor's suggestions contributed to determine the final orientation of the paper. The author is grateful to the LSE and the Lachmann Foundation for their support at the time when he was writing the initial version. (shrink)

Global Economy, Global Justice explores a vital question that is suppressed in most economics texts: "what makes for a good economic outcome?" Neoclassical theory embraces the normative perspective of "welfarism" to assess economic outcomes. This volume demonstrates the fatal flaws of this perspective--flaws that stem from objectionable assumptions about human nature, society and science. Exposing these failures, the book obliterates the ethical foundations of global neoliberalism. George DeMartino probes heterodox economic traditions and philosophy in search of an (...) ethically viable alternative to welfarism. Drawing on the work of Amartya Sen, DeMartino proposes the egalitarian principle of the "global harmonization of capabilities" to guide economics. This principle provides a basis for resisting oppression the world over while nevertheless demanding respect for cultural diversity. DeMartino puts this principle to work adjudicating contemporary debates over global policy regimes, and completes thebook with a set of deeply egalitarian global policies for the year 2025. Global Economy, Global Justice 's engaging prose will appeal to those seeking to understand the intersection between economics and political philosophy. Its focus on the normative foundations of contemporary policy disputes makes it unique in the literature on globalization. (shrink)

Hysteresis means literally “that which comes later,” being derived from the Greek verb ύστερέω. Thus, hysteresis effects, generally defined, are those that persist after the initial causes giving rise to the effects are removed. During the course of the 1980s, it became increasingly fashionable to invoke hysteresis effects to explain economic phenomena. Two of the main areas of application were to unemployment and international trade. In the case of unemployment, distinctive features of labor markets, such as social norms that rule (...) out wage-cutting in the face of rising unemployment, imply that “increases in unemployment have a direct impact on the ‘natural’ rate of unemployment”. The implication for macroeconomic systems is that “temporary shocks can have a permanent effect on the level of employment”. In the case of international trade, hysteresis effects arise from the industrial economics of sunk costs: “the argument is that firms must incur sunk costs to enter new markets, and cannot recoup these costs if they exit.… thus foreign firms that entered the U.S. market when the dollar was high do not abandon their sunk cost investments when the dollar falls.” The implication for trade flows is “an effect which persists after the cause that brought it about has been removed”. (shrink)

In economics, the concept of time discounting introduces weights on future goods to make these less valuable. Yet, both the conceptual motivation for time discounting and its specic functional form remain contested. To address these problems, this paper provides a measurement-theoretic framework of representation for time discounting. The representation theorem characterises time discounting factors by representations of time dierences. This general result can be interpreted with existing theories of time discounting to clarify their formal and conceptual assumptions. It also (...) provides a conceptually neutral framework for comparing the descriptive and normative merits of those theories. (shrink)

Why do agent-relative reasons have authority over us, reflective creatures? Reductive accounts base the normativity of agent-relative reasons on agent-neutral considerations like ‘having parents caring especially for their own children serves best the interests of all children’. Such accounts, however, beg the question about the source of normativity of agent-relative ways of reason-giving. In this paper, I argue for a non-reductive account of the reflective necessity of agent-relative concerns. Such an account will reveal an important structural complexity of practical reasoning (...) in general. Christine Korsgaard relates the rational binding force of practical reasons to the various identities or self-conceptions under which we value ourselves. The problem is that it is not clear why such self-conceptions would necessitate us rationally, given the fact that most of our identities are simply given. Perhaps, Harry Frankfurt is right in arguing that we are not only necessitated by reason, but also, and predominantly by what we love. I argue, however, that “the necessities of love” (in Frankfurt’s phrase) are not to be separated from, but should be seen as belonging to the necessities of reason. Our loves, concerns and related identities provide for a specific and important structure to practical reflection. They function on the background of reasoning, having a specific default role: they would lose their character as concerns, if there was a need for them to be cited on the foreground of deliberation or if there was a need to justify them. This does not mean that our deep concerns cannot be scrutinised. They can only be scrutinised in an indirect way, however, which explains their role in grounding the normativity of agent-relative reasons. It appears that this account can provide for a viable interpretation of Korsgaard’s argument about the foundational role of practical identities. (shrink)

The essays in this volume, first published in 1986, examine the philosophical foundations of social choice theory. This field, a modern and sophisticated outgrowth of welfare economics, is best known for a series of impossibility theorems, of which the first and most crucial was proved by Kenneth Arrow in 1950. That has often been taken to show the impossibility of democracy as a procedure for making collective decisions. However, this interpretation is challenged by several of the contributors here. (...) Other central issues discussed in the volume include the possibility of making interpersonal comparisons of utility, the question of whether all preferences are equally to be valued, and the normative individualism underlying the theoretical tradition. Criticisms of social choice theory are advanced and suggestions for alternative approaches are developed. (shrink)

The essays in this volume, first published in 1986, examine the philosophical foundations of social choice theory. This field, a modern and sophisticated outgrowth of welfare economics, is best known for a series of impossibility theorems, of which the first and most crucial was proved by Kenneth Arrow in 1950. That has often been taken to show the impossibility of democracy as a procedure for making collective decisions. However, this interpretation is challenged by several of the contributors here. (...) Other central issues discussed in the volume include the possibility of making interpersonal comparisons of utility, the question of whether all preferences are equally to be valued, and the normative individualism underlying the theoretical tradition. Criticisms of social choice theory are advanced and suggestions for alternative approaches are developed. (shrink)

The central tradition of mainline economics deals with one way of making a living; producing goods and services. But there is another way of getting ahead through conflict or the 'dark side', by appropriating what others have produced. Parallel to military aggression and resistance, the dark side includes non-military activities such as litigation, strikes and lockouts, takeover contests, and bureaucratic back-biting struggles. This volume brings the analysis of conflict into the mainstream of economics. Part I explores the causes, (...) conduct, and consequences of conflict as an economic activity. Part II delves deeply into the evolutionary sources of our capacities, physical and mental, for both conflict and cooperation. The introductory chapter of the volume, which outlines the significance of the dark side, was the author's 1993 Presidential Address to the Western Economic Association. Other chapters investigate economic models, historical discussions, experimental tests, and applications to topics in political science and law. (shrink)

The theme of this issue of Ethical Perspectives is the French tradition in liberal thought, and the unique contribution that this tradition can make to debates in contemporary liberalism. It is inspired by a colloquium held at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in December of 2008 entitled “In Search of a Lost Liberalism: Constant, Tocqueville, and the singularity of French Liberalism.” This colloquium was held in conjunction with the retirement of Leuven professor and former Dean of the Institute of Philosophy, André (...) Van de Putte, who found much inspiration in this tradition. A revised version of his valedictory lecture from the conference serves as the final contribution to this issue. Much contemporary liberal political philosophy is currently done in conversation with a line of liberal thinkers starting with John Locke, running through Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill, and culminating in the work of John Rawls and his followers. The reasons for the enormous appeal of this philosophical tradition are, among other things, the combination of the central role of the intuitively appealing value of individual liberty with a strong rationalistic, universalistic, and normative character. The thread running through most of these liberal theories is a commitment to what the French liberal Benjamin Constant referred to as “the liberty of the moderns,” that is, liberty in a negative sense, as a lack of interference in one’s activity from others and from government. This focus has expanded over time to include a richer body of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights, for instance, in the work of liberal thinkers who have tried to integrate the insights of communitarian thought and discourse ethics in their work. However, the emphasis on individual liberty in the negative sense continues to be the normative and theoretical touchstone and default position for many contemporary liberal theories. The limitation of the canon of liberal thought to the aforementioned authors and themes deprives the contemporary debate of a rich source of ideas: the French liberal tradition. Montesquieu, considered to be the father of this tradition, provides a good example of how it can enrich current debates in liberal theory. Montesquieu’s work evinces a keen eye for the dynamics of power relations and the limitations of the power of the better rational argument. His insight that power can sometimes only be checked by an equal and opposing power, so that a system of separation and balance of powers is necessary in order to preserve liberty, is reflected in the foundations of most modern democracies. Montesquieu also argues that contingent environmental, historical, social and economic conditions play a dramatic role in determining what kind of government is appropriate for a particular society. On his view, ignoring these facts when framing a government can inadvertently end in despotism. Montesquieu’s observations challenge us to reexamine some of contemporary liberalism’s universalist and rationalist claims. Benjamin Constant is most famous for his distinction between two kinds of liberty: the liberty of the ancients and the liberty of the moderns. The ancient form of liberty manifested itself in the active political participation of citizens in the ancient republic. While this form of government and decision-making was suitable for small, homogeneous city-states, Constant argues that it is impracticable for large modern nation-states. Hence, the concept of modern liberty shifts to an emphasis on the rule of law and the non-interference of the state in private matters. This form of liberty is familiar to us from contemporary liberalism – and Constant cherishes this form of freedom as much as any liberal does today. However, his position is complex: he also argues that the liberty of the ancients should not be neglected. Active political participation is needed to ensure that the government is executing its duty of preserving the modern form of liberty by publicly pointing out violations. The contemporary relevance of Constant’s work is clear when we consider the alleged “democratic deficit” that plagues the EU and international institutions such as the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank. Not only does this democratic deficit threaten the modern form of liberty by placing decision-making processes out of sight of the people, it also threatens citizens’ sense of self-respect derived from self-governance. Constant’s argument for the necessity of combining the liberty of the ancients with that of the moderns provides a fruitful resource for confronting these contemporary issues. Tocqueville’s work on liberalism benefits from his opportunity to observe a society founded on liberal democratic principles – the United States of America – in action. In his Democracy in America, he examines the social consequences, both intended and unintended, of building a society on ‘the equality of conditions’, as he defines ‘democracy’. Tocqueville sees a tension between the democratic value of equality and the aristocratic value of the rule of the best. He observes that democratic societies do not necessarily choose the best leaders and instead promote mediocrity instead of virtue, talent, and excellence. Democracy also confronts citizens with the threat of ‘soft despotism’, where a government that preserves the outer signs of the liberty of the moderns nevertheless controls the behavior of its citizens in minute detail through a system of detailed rules ostensibly aimed at their welfare. This paternalism is an even more insidious threat to liberal values than the hard variety of despotism, since it is so difficult to detect and done in the name of liberal values themselves. Taking Tocqueville’s observations seriously would add complexity to attempts to theorize about the modern social-democratic welfare state. The contributions to this issue supplement and critique mainstream liberal thought and its relation to contemporary issues through a serious engagement with the French liberal tradition. Annelien De Dijn’s contribution discusses Bertrand de Jouvenel, a lesser-known 20th Century representative of the French political tradition she terms ‘aristocratic liberalism’. This tradition has its roots in the work of Montesquieu, and emphasizes the importance of intermediary bodies, most importantly the aristocracy, in providing a check to the top-down power of despotic state authorities and the bottom-up power of revolutionary leveling tendencies, both of which threaten liberty. De Dijn situates Jouvenel in this tradition, but then indicates an important difference between his thought and that of his predecessors: his most significant work, On Power, is not only on French history, but on European history. Pointing to the enthusiastic reception of this work in the Anglophone world, she suggests that the rise of totalitarianism in Europe gave the anti-totalitarian features of aristocratic liberalism a broader appeal. Valentino Lumowa’s paper concerns Constant’s classic text, The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns. Lumowa argues that in order to understand Constant’s piece, we must be aware that its two parts were written under different historical circumstances and decipher the argumentative thrust inherent in the text. Following Stephen Holmes, he argues that to understand the shift Constant made in the second part of the text, we should read it within the context of the increasing influence of the ultra-Royalists in the legislature during the Bourbon Restoration. However, in contrast to Holmes, he contends that the spirit of both civic and individual freedom, which enlivens representative system, is the backbone of the text in its unity. Demin Duan’s essay investigates an apparent ambivalence between liberal and imperialist tendencies in the work of Alexis de Tocqueville, which has already drawn some attention from Tocquevillian scholars. These interpretations of Tocqueville and his writings on empire generally agree that Tocqueville stands in a recognized tradition of liberalism, which is characterized by respect for human rights, individual freedom and a sense of universal humanism. On this standard view, Tocqueville’s support of imperialism represents nothing but an unfortunate breach of his own otherwise consistent liberal thinking. Duan’s article questions this standard position. By questioning the assumption of Tocqueville’s liberalism in the first place, he tries to gauge the influence of both the old republican tradition and the new liberal perspective on his thinking. In conclusion, he argues that Tocqueville’s overall thought, especially his notion of freedom, is very much informed by an old republican tradition. His support of French imperialism could be better understood from this perspective rather than be rendered simply as a deviation from liberal norms. Pawel Marczewski’s contribution is an attempt to show that Tocqueville’s conception of liberty transcends the divisions between negative and positive aspects of freedom. He begins by juxtaposing this conception with the opposition drawn by Constant between liberty of the ancients and liberty of the moderns. While Tocqueville and Constant shared a concern for the preservation of individual rights, Tocqueville was much more reluctant to accept the modern loss of the communal dimension of liberty. He did not accept the view that jouissances privées, private pleasures, are the main compensation that the modern world has to offer for the lost ancient treasure of political participation. The essay then looks into the relevance of Tocqueville’s standpoint for current debates between liberal defenders of negative freedom and republican advocates of freedom as non-domination. Participants on both sides of the debate seem to be so devoted to showing that their particular approach provides the best guarantees against actual and possible threats to liberty that they overlook the fact that their definitions of freedom remain significantly similar. By arguing that ‘to be free is to be guided by one’s own will’, contemporary republicans, as well as their liberal counterparts, move along the lines drawn by Constant towards private pleasures. By questioning the inevitability of this turn, Tocqueville provides us with a valuable contribution to these discussions in contemporary political philosophy. Finally, André Van de Putte’s contribution, an adaptation of his emeritus speech that closed the conference on French Liberalism, appeals to Tocqueville in order to draw attention to the importance of intermediary, dialogical bodies in mitigating the implicit despotic tendencies of the democratic drive to equality. In Tocqueville’s view, the transition from the feudal corporate inequality to democratic individual equality was not a clean break. Rather, this transition is a continual process of democratization that is driven by a desire for equality, or egalité des conditions. This dissolution of distinctions of estate, class and status has the unintended consequence of concentrating the diffuse power of these entities into a centralized state, which is responsible for ensuring the equality of all under the law. This process leaves increasingly isolated and atomized individuals to face the power of a monolithic state in defense of their freedom, and moves toward a soft, paternalistic despotism. Constant’s freedom of the moderns is not sufficient to protect individuals from this centralized power. Democracy also requires the political freedom of the ancients. Van de Putte argues for a system in which atomized individuals organize themselves into intermediary bodies that, in a Montesquieuian balance of powers, can enter into dialogue with each other and the state on more equitable terms. Van de Putte’s contribution closes with a plea for a conception of democracy as a regime of dialogue. (shrink)

This chapter appeared in: G. J. van Nes et al. (eds.), Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics. Dordrecht: Springer, 121-132. -/- Abstract: This chapter is a comment on the contribution of Rebecca Klein in this volume, preceded by a conceptual analysis of the argument that is developed in the Homo Amans position paper. The main question that is raised is twofold and concerns the relation between science and worldview on the one hand, and between science and economic life on the (...) other. With respect to the science – worldview relationship, it is doubted that science can play the role the authors of the Homo Amans project expect it can have. What they have in mind is that science helps in validating and legitimizing a biblically informed concept of love. This author disagrees, to a large extent. Science can indeed orient itself on ideas and intuitions that are based on one’s worldview. But it cannot prove the truth of these intuitions and ideas. To think so, is to commit a naturalistic fallacy. With respect to the relationship between science and economic life, the author is also not convinced that science and philosophy as academic disciplines will by themselves be able (and should be expected to be able) to transform deeply ingrained, institutionally anchored economic practices. New theories, concepts, and paradigms are a precondition for change, but they do not bring about change by themselves. What is needed is a change in the practices themselves, a change that is both personal and comprehensive. What is needed is a clear, succinct, and encompassing view on the intrinsic normativity of economic interactions between relevant stakeholders in what we call ‘the’ economy. This is a huge undertaking, that requires painstaking ‘phenomenological’ analyses of a wide variety of economic practices. The chapter agrees with most of Klein’s observations and concerns with respect to the position paper. These observations and concerns gain even more depth and relief given the conceptual distinctions that are made in the chapter. (shrink)

Obstacles to achieving a global climate treaty include disagreements about questions of justice raised by the UNFCCC's principle that countries should respond to climate change by taking cooperative action "in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions". Aiming to circumvent such disagreements, Climate Change Justice authors Eric Posner and David Weisbach argue against shaping treaty proposals according to requirements of either distributive or corrective justice. The USA's climate envoy, Todd Stern, takes (...) a similar position. In this article I explain the practical and theoretical drawbacks of Posner & Weisbach's welfarist perspective and propose an alternative. I show that their arguments fail to rule out John Rawls' non-utilitarian, political conception of international justice and human rights, the Law of Peoples. On this basis I develop a conception of climate justice that highlights implications of some of Rawls' principles and adds a principle for determining fair shares of climate -treaty-related benefits and burdens. I propose this conception as a moral framework for negotiating a treaty that would promote human welfare consistently with requirements of justice, and I argue that a treaty proposal satisfying these requirements could best satisfy Posner & Weisbach's own feasibility criteria. (shrink)

This paper points to some limitations of law and economics as both an explanative and a normative theory. In explaining law as the result of efficiency promoting decisions, law and economics theorists often dismiss the reasons actors in the legal system give for their behavior. Recognizing that sometimes actors may be unaware of why institutions evolve as they do, I argue that the case for dismissing reasons for action is weaker when those reasons make reference to rules (...) of practices that constitute the meaning of actions within those practices, or when they have otherwise been given well-considered defenses. In criticizing law and economics as a normative theory, I acknowledge that economic considerations are often important in deciding how to act in the personal sphere and how government should allocate its scarce resources. I argue that while the use of institutions to promote our ideals forces us to take their costs into account, it is a mistake to infer from this that the question of determining social policy is a purely economic problem, and that we should acknowledge the non-utilitarian moral ideals our law and practices promote. This is the basis of both an internal criticism--law and economics theorists have not sufficiently evaluated and weighed the value of fairness and other ideals in their utility calculations--and an external criticism-- these ideals are important in ways that can not be measured in utiles. (shrink)

One of the principal challenges facing contemporary social philosophy is how to find foundations that are normatively robust yet congruent with its self-understanding. Social philosophy is a critical project within modernity, an interpretative horizon that stresses the influences of history and context on knowledge and experience. However, if it is to engage in intercultural dialogue and normatively robust social critique,social philosophy requires non-arbitrary,universal normative standards.The task of normative foundations can thus be formulated in terms of negotiating (...) the tension between 'contextualism' and 'objectivism'. Six contemporary responses to this challenge are examined.Their respective limitations call for renewed reflection on justificatory strategies, in particular for a conception of 'objectivity' based in a normative theory of social learning processes. (shrink)

"Although the task of formulating an appropriate policy response to the problem of anthropogenic climate change is one that raises a number of very difficult normative issues, environmental ethicists have not played an influential role in government deliberations. This is primarily due to their rejection of many of the assumptions that structure the debates over policy. This book offers a philosophical defense of these assumptions, in order to overcome the major conceptual barriers to the participation of philosophers in these (...) debates. There are five important barriers: First, the policy debate presupposes a stance of liberal neutrality, as a result of which it does not privilege any particular set of environmental values over other concerns. Second, it assumes ongoing economic growth, along with a commitment to what is sometimes called a weak sustainability framework when analyzing the value of the bequest being made to future generations. Third, it treats climate change as fundamentally a collective action problem, not an issue of distributive justice. Fourth, there is the acceptance of cost-benefit analysis, or more precisely, the view that a carbon pricing regime should be guided by our best estimate of the social cost of carbon. And finally, there is the view that when this calculation is undertaken, it is permissible to discount costs and benefits, depending on how far removed they are from the present. This book attempts to make explicit and defend these presuppositions, and in so doing offer philosophical foundations for the debate over climate change policy"--. (shrink)

The failure of the statist models of socialism poses a challenge to socialists in conceiving a feasible non-statist model. In taking up the challenge, guided by Marx’s ideas that socialism will be the outcome of the struggles of the working classes in response to their capitalist conditions of existence; and its two pillars are “social property” and “conscious social regulation,” which ensure its superiority over capitalism, the defining feature of the contemporary financial capitalism together with Marx’s two concepts underlying the (...) two pillars are taken into consideration, and a framework of socializing economic activities grounding a non-statist model of socialism is suggested, whose ontological foundation and operational logic, guided by socialist norms and regulated by the Marxian associations, are different from that of capitalism. (shrink)

Social entrepreneurship is not just an objective description of a phenomenon; it also carries a positive normative connotation. However, the academic discourse barely reflects social entrepreneurship’s inherent normativity and often grounds it implicitly on the mission of a social enterprise. In this paper, we argue critically that it is insufficient to ground social entrepreneurship’s inherent normativity on a social mission. Instead, we will show how such a mission-centric conception of social entrepreneurship, when put into practice, is prone to enhance (...) rather than diminish societal grievances. In order to give social entrepreneurship an explicit and sound ethical grounding, we draw on integrative economic ethics as a frame of reference. From this perspective, social entrepreneurship necessitates adherence to the discourse-ethically reasoned moral principle in order to live up to its inherent normative validity claim of good entrepreneurship. The consideration of social entrepreneurship practices is crucial to make this approach less vulnerable to ethical critique. The addition of a practice dimension overcomes the mission-centric view of social entrepreneurship and opens up a typology of enterprise forms, thereby enabling a more fine-grained distinction between social enterprises and other forms of organization. (shrink)

Mainstream economics was founded on many strong assumptions. Institutions and politics were treated as irrelevant, government as exogenous, social norms as epiphenomena. As an initial gambit this was fine. But as the horizons of economic inquiry have broadened, these assumptions have become hindrances rather than aids. If we want to understand why some economies succeed and some fail, why some governments are effective and others not, why some communities prosper while others stagnate, it is essential to view economics (...) as embedded in politics and society. Prelude to Political Economy is a study of this embeddedness; it argues for an 'inclusive' approach to institutions and the state.Modern economics recognizes that individuals' pursuit of their own selfish ends can result in socially suboptimal outcomes -- the Prisoner's Dilemma being the stark example. It has been suggested that what we need in such an eventuality is 'third-party' intervention, which can take the form of imposing punishment on players. Kaushik Basu objects to this method of wishing third parties out of thin air. He argues that if a third party that could impose its will on others were available, then it should have been modeled as a player to start with.The adoption of such an inclusive approach has implications for our conception of the state and the law. It means that the law cannot be construed as a factor that changes the game that citizens play. It is instead simply a set of beliefs of citizens; and, as such, it is similar to social norms. What the law does for an economy, so can social norms. The book discusses how the nature of policy advice and our conception of state power are affected by this altered view of the state and the law.As corollaries, the book addresses a variety of important social and philosophical questions, such as whether the state should guarantee freedom of speech, whether determinism is compatible with free will, and whether the free market can lead to coercion. (shrink)

This book is an anthology with the following themes. Non-European Tradition: Bussanich interprets main themes of Hindu ethics, including its roots in ritual sacrifice, its relationship to religious duty, society, individual human well-being, and psychic liberation. To best assess the truth of Hindu ethics, he argues for dialogue with premodern Western thought. Pfister takes up the question of human nature as a case study in Chinese ethics. Is our nature inherently good (as Mengzi argued) or bad (Xunzi’s view)? Pfister ob- (...) serves their underlying agreement, that human beings are capable of becoming good, and makes precise the disagreement: whether we achieve goodness by cultivating autonomous feelings or by accepting external precepts. There are political consequences: whether government should aim to respect and em- power individual choices or to be a controlling authority. Early Greek Thinking: Collobert examines the bases of Homeric ethics in fame, prudence, and shame, and how these guide the deliberations of heroes. She observes how, by depending upon the poet’s words, the hero gains a quasi- immortality, although in truth there is no consolation for each person’s inevi- table death. Plato: Santas examines Socratic Method and ethics in Republic 1. There Socrates examines definitions of justice and tests them by comparison to the arts and sciences. Santas shows the similarities of Socrates’ method to John Rawls’ method of considered judgments in reflective equilibrium. McPherran interprets Plato’s religious dimension as like that of his teacher Socrates. McPherran shows how Plato appropriates, reshapes, and extends the religious conventions of his own time in the service of establishing the new enterprise of philosophy. Ac- cording to Taylor, Socrates believes that humans in general have the task of helping the gods by making their own souls as good as possible, and Socrates’ unique ability to cross-examine imposes on him the special task of helping others to become as good as possible. This conception of Socrates’ mission is Plato’s own, consisting in an extension of the traditional conception of piety as helping the gods. Brickhouse and Smith propose a new understanding of Socratic moral psychology—one that retains the standard view of Socrates as an intellectualist, but also recognizes roles in human agency for appetites and passions. They compare and contrast the Socratic view to the picture of moral psychology we get in other dialogues of Plato. Hardy also proposes a new, non-reductive understanding of Socratic eudaimonism—he argues that Socrates invokes a very rich and complex notion of the “Knowledge of the Good and Bad”, which is associated with the motivating forces of the virtues. Rudebusch defends Socrates’ argument that knowledge can never be impotent in the face of psychic passions. He considers the standard objections: that knowledge cannot weigh incom- mensurable human values, and that brute desire, all by itself, is capable of moving the soul to action. Aristotle: Anagnostopoulos interprets Aristotle on the nature and acquisition of virtue. Though virtue of character, aiming at human happiness, requires a complex awareness of multiple dimensions of one’s experience, it is not properly a cognitive capacity. Thus it requires habituation, not education, according to Aristotle, in order to align the unruly elements of the soul with reason’s knowledge of what promotes happiness. Shields explains Aristotle’s doctrine that goodness is meant in many ways as the doctrine that there are different analyses of goodness for different types of circumstance, just as for being. He finds Aristotle to argue for this conclusion, against Plato’s doctrine of the unity of the Good, by applying the tests for homonymy and as an immediate cons- equence of the doctrine of categories. Shields evaluates the issue as unresolved at present. Russell discusses Aristotle’s account of practical deliberation and its virtue, intelligence (phronesis). He relates the account to contemporary philo- sophical controversies surrounding Aristotle’s view that intelligence is neces- sary for moral virtue, including the objections that in some cases it is unnecessary or even impedes human goodness. Frede examines the advantages and disadvantages of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. She explains the general Greek con- ceptions of happiness and virtue, Aristotle’s conception of phronesis and compares the Aristotle’s ethics with modern accounts. Liske discusses the question of whether the Aristotelian account of virtue entails an ethical-psy- chological determinism. He argues that Aristotle’s understanding of hexis allows for free action and ethical responsibility : By making decisions for good actions we are able to stabilize our character (hexis). Hellenistic and Roman: Annas defends an account of stoic ethics, according to which the three parts of Stoicism—logic, physics, and ethics—are integrated as the parts of an egg, not as the parts of a building. Since by this analogy no one part is a foundation for the rest, pedagogical decisions may govern the choice of numerous, equally valid, presentations of Stoic ethics. Piering interprets the Cynic way of life as a distinctive philosophy. In their ethics, Cynics value neither pleasure nor tradition but personal liberty, which they achieve by self-suffi- ciency and display in speech that is frank to the point of insult. Plotinus and Neoplatonism: Gerson outlines the place of ordinary civic virtue as well as philosophically contemplative excellence in Neoplatonism. In doing so he attempts to show how one and the same good can be both action-guiding in human life and be the absolute simple One that grounds the explanation of everything in the universe. Delcomminette follows Plotinus’s path to the Good as the foundation of free will, first in the freedom of Intellect and then in the “more than freedom” of the One. Plotinus postulates these divinities as not outside but within each self, saving him from the contradiction of an external foundation for a truly free will. General Topics: Halbig discusses the thesis on the unity of virtues. He dis- tinguishes the thesis of the identity of virtues and the thesis of a reciprocity of virtues and argues that the various virtues form a unity (in terms of reciprocity) since virtues cannot bring about any bad action. Detel examines Plato’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of normativity : Plato and Aristotle (i) entertained hybrid theories of normativity by distinguishing functional, semantic and ethical normativity, (ii) located the ultimate source of normativity in standards of a good life, and thus (iii) took semantic normativity to be a derived form of normativity. Detel argues that hybrid theories of normativity are—from a mo- dern point of view—still promising. Ho ̈ffe defends the Ancient conception of an art of living against Modern objections. Whereas many Modern philosophers think that we have to replace Ancient eudaimonism by the idea of moral obligation (Pflicht), Ho ̈ffe argues that Eudaimonism and autonomy-based ethics can be reconciled and integrated into a comprehensive and promising theory of a good life, if we enrich the idea of autonomy by the central elements of Ancient eudaimonism. Some common themes: The topics in Chinese and Hindu ethics are perhaps more familiar to modern western sensibilities than Homeric and even Socratic. Anagnostopoulos, Brickhouse and Smith, Frede, Liske, Rudebusch, and Russell all consider in contrasting ways the role of moral character, apart from intellect, in ethics. Brickhouse / Smith, Hardy, and Rudebusch discuss the Socratic con- ception of moral knowledge. Brickhouse / Smith and Hardy retain the standard view of the so called Socratic Intellectualism. Shields and Gerson both consider the question whether there is a single genus of goodness, or if the term is a homonym. Bussanich, McPherran, Taylor, and Delcomminette all consider the relation between religion and ethics. Pfister, Piering, Delcomminette, and Liske all consider what sort of freedom is appropriate to human well-being. Halbig, Detel, and Ho ̈ffe propose interpretations of main themes of Ancient ethics. (shrink)

Rawls’ theory of justice builds on the social contract tradition to offer an alternative to utilitarianism. Rawls singles out justice – not maximum welfare or efficiency – as “the first virtue of social institutions”. Economists were quick to realize the relevance of Rawls’ theory of justice for economics. Early contributions in welfare economics and social choice theory typically attempted to incorporate Rawls’ ideas into a welfarist framework. Current research in normative economics comes closer to Rawls’ original (...) proposal of a non-consequentialist theory of justice. In my article, I shall first introduce Rawls’ theory of justice and then address some of the debates his theory has triggered in normative economics. (shrink)