Comments on: Syllabi and Books on Ethics and Economics

By: Steven McMullen

Steven McMullen — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:58:10 +0000

If you want to get a variety of views, and want multiple religious takes, then I would recommend Tiemstra et al. – Reforming Economics for a non-standard non-free market view.

Also, the work of Daniel Finn is pretty good for laying out some practical issues.

There is a very small literature on virtue ethics and economics, some of which is interesting, unfortunately I don’t have names off the top of my head.

By: geert

geert — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:05:39 +0000

Ingrid,

I am currently preparing a similar course. So this list of suggestions arrived just at the right moment. Thanks to all for the suggestions.
I just add some references that were on my provisonary list and were not mentioned yet.

Amartya Sen, “The Moral Standing of the Market”, Social Philosophy and Policy 2/2 (1985), 1-19.
David Gauthier, Morals by agreement, OUP, 1986.
see also Dan Hausman, “Are markets morally free zones?”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 18/4 (Autumn 1989), 317-333.
Friedrich August von Hayek, “The use of knowledge in society”, reprinted in Individualism and Economic Order, Chicago, UCP, 1948, 77-91.
John C. Harsanyi, “Morality and the theory of rational behaviour”, in Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams (eds.), Utilitarianism and Beyond, CUP, 1982.

Depending on the background of the students (economics rather than philosophy) it is sometimes interesting to let them read an economics paper which leads to interesting normative discussions, like

Akerlof, George A. (1970). “The Market for ‘Lemons’: Quality Uncertainty and the Market
Mechanism”. Quarterly Journal of Economics 84 (3): 488–500.

or T.S. Schelling’s paper on getto-formation.

Other suggestions:
Geoffrey Brennan, “Five Rational Actor Accounts of the Welfare State”, Kyklos 2/3 (2001), 213-234.

Arrow, KJ, 1963, Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care, American
Economic Review, 53, 941-73.

Jon Elster, “Social Norms and Economic Theory”, Journal of Economic Perspectives 3 (1989), 99-117.

Kahneman, D, Knetsch, JL, Thaler, RH (1986b) Fairness as a constraint in profitseeking:
Entitlements in the market. American Economic Review. 76(4): 728-741.

Geert

By: David

David — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:24:49 +0000

“The ethics of the economics of education would be a good theme too – I’d love to hear what you recommend.”

This is probably obvious, but I thought I’d mention it:

Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation?
Robert H. Frank; Thomas Gilovich; Dennis T. Regan
The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 7, No. 2. (Spring, 1993), pp. 159-171.

By: Keith Nightenhelser

Keith Nightenhelser — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:04:20 +0000

On the non-market economy and relations within families that have an economic aspect, Stein Ringen’s book “What Democracy is For” has a lot of data and some provocative analysis. The book’s webpage is http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8419.html, his webpage http://users.ox.ac.uk/~gree0074/.

By: Keith Nightenhelser

Keith Nightenhelser — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:36:58 +0000

George DeMartino (International Studies, Denver) teaches a course on “Normative Foundations of Global Economic Policy Making” and more unusually has a research interests in figuring out what ethical obligations economists might have as professionals (that’s his current book project, I think, and another course “Professional Ethics & International Affairs”).

His website is
http://www.du.edu/korbel/facultyresearch/faculty/DeMartino_George.html

By: Billikin

Billikin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:19:53 +0000

Pete Murphy: “a completely new economic theory that relates rising unemployment to overpopulation”

Well, when you are unemployed you have time on your hands. . . .

;)

Sorry, Pete, I couldn’t resist.

By: Christian

Christian — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:55:53 +0000

Can't neglect Kenneth Boulding.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:59:12 +0000

“The Bourgeois Virtues” by Deidre McCloskey

By: loren

loren — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:48:03 +0000

late to the party, and largely off-topic to boot, but vaguely a propos: a colleague just lent me Robert H. Nelson's Economics as Religion. Looks interesting.

By: Pete Murphy

Pete Murphy — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:06:58 +0000

How about a book about a completely new economic theory that relates rising unemployment to overpopulation? The biggest obstacle we face in changing attitudes toward overpopulation is economists. Since the field of economics was branded “the dismal science” after Malthus’ theory, economists have been adamant that they would never again consider the subject of overpopulation and continue to insist that man is ingenious enough to overcome any obstacle to further growth. This is why world leaders continue to ignore population growth in the face of mounting challenges like peak oil, global warming and a whole host of other environmental and resource issues. They believe we’ll always find technological solutions that allow more growth.

But because they are blind to population growth, there’s one obstacle they haven’t considered: the finiteness of space available on earth. The very act of using space more efficiently creates a problem for which there is no solution: it inevitably begins to drive down per capita consumption and, consequently, per capita employment, leading to rising unemployment and poverty.

If you‘re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, then I invite you to visit either of my web sites at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com or PeteMurphy.wordpress.com where you can read the preface, join in the blog discussion and, of course, buy the book if you like.

Please forgive the somewhat spammish nature of the previous paragraph, but I don’t know how else to inject this new theory into the debate about overpopulation without drawing attention to the book that explains the theory.

Pete Murphy
Author, “Five Short Blasts”

By: Murray Gregorson

Murray Gregorson — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:02:15 +0000

Alex Rosenberg’s Economics: Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns? might be useful as well. Rosenberg argues that (inter alia) economics might best be understood as a branch of social contract theory, i.e., as an essentially normative theory. There’s an also an ethical argument running through the book, i think: to the extent that economics is a predictive failure, it ought not to be a guide for public policy.

By: MJ

MJ — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:27:09 +0000

For a more recent work, you might try “The Morality of Money: An Exploration in Analytic Philosophy” by Adrian Walsh and Tony Lynch.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:13:05 +0000

one of the things that I want to do which is most likely very unusual is to talk about the entire nonmarket economy – half of our economy is outside the market (the goods and services produced within households and families and informal settings), and what ethical questions that raises (e.g. the case of the ethical issues raised by different types of childcare, commodified or not, regulated or not, with a contract or not, under conditions of (some form of) exploitation or not).

If that’s so, you might try Liberating Economics: Feminist Perspectives on Families Work and Globalization by Druscilla K Barker and Susan F Feiner.

By: Max

Max — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:18:32 +0000

I took a course called “Theories of Economic Justice” that was a Political Theory course taught to BA and MA students (I was BA at the time) to the best of my memory the reading list was: 2nd Treatise Locke, “Rights of Man”, and “Agrarian Justice” by Paine, Marx’s “On the Jewish Question”, “Democratic Justice” by Ian Shapiro, “Stakeholder Society” – Ackerman and Alstott, something by Philip van Parijs in favor of Basic Income, and a critique of van Parijs and Alstott and Ackerman by Carole Pateman, “Talented Tenth” and its memorial address by W.E.B. DuBois, Henry Louis Gates’ half of “The Future of The Race” as well as something about Katrina called “Stormy Weather”

By: SusanC

SusanC — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:42:09 +0000

For some slightly more off the wall sources:

– Andrew Odlyzko on price discrimination, and government attempts to regulate against it because it is seen as “unfair” – Irigaray, Luce. “Women on the Market” and “Commodities among Themselves” in “This Sex which is not One”. (Feminist/psychoanalytic/post-structuralist perspective) – The experiments in which non-human primates (chimpanzees, orang-utangs) are made to play various economic games. Is some of our economic “irrationality” a uniquely human adaptation? (compare E. O. Wilson’s famous remark that (ahem) Socializmus can be made to work, but Marx had the wrong species)