Syllabi and Books on Ethics and Economics

by Ingrid Robeyns on July 21, 2009

Rather than being about dead ideas in economics, this post is about the future of economics: its relation to ethics. More specifically, about teaching ethics and economics.

The Faculty of Philosophy at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, where I teach, has a Research Master in Philosophy and Economics. In the Netherlands, and I suppose all over the EU, Research Masters are postgraduate programmes similar to the British MPhil system – a 2 years master programme resulting in a shorter PhD track for those who continue. My contribution to the programme is to teach the economic issues within normative political philosophy. This year I thought a course on Justice and Egalitarianism, yet I’ve decided that I want to rotate that course with a course that’s (even) more focused on economic questions, hence something like ‘Ethics and Economics’.

Despite having Masterdegrees in both economics and philosophy, I have never had a course in Ethics and Economics myself. And despite having studied at four universities in three European countries, I cannot recall ever having been at a university where a course on Ethics and Economics was offered, certainly not an entire graduate course. And in contrast to ‘Justice and Egalitarianism’, where google provides within one hour at least a dozen different course outlines which may be used as sources of inspiration or as reminders of papers one had long forgotten about but should indeed be on the reading list, this is not the case for ‘Ethics and Economics’. I have a number of ideas, but it does feel like starting more or less from scratch (which, I must admit, is in a certain way also a pleasantly adventurous feeling).

So this brings me to two questions. First, if anyone has, at a graduate level, taught a course on Ethics and Economics, and would like to share information or experiences, than that would be brilliant and much appreciated. A more modest question is about books. I want to fill in the gaps in our University library, so that students taking this course will have all the books they need to write a term paper on a topic of their choice. In general I’m not ordering books that belong to history of economic thought since that’s been taken care of by our professor in the history of economic thought. I have already ordered many books, mainly based on literature that I already knew and references taken from relevant entries at the Stanford Encyclopedia, but more book references are also very welcome. Self-promotion is encouraged, if on-topic. I will merge all that I already have together with new suggestions, and post them as a separate post next week, which should hopefully be useful for any philosopher (or philosophically-inclined economist) setting up a new course or starting research in Ethics and Economics.

{ 60 comments }

1

Noah Kazis 07.21.09 at 2:22 pm

You should talk to John Roemer at Yale. I took a class with him last semester and he will be able to give you exactly what you need.

2

Noah Kazis 07.21.09 at 2:23 pm

You should talk to John Roemer at Yale. He does exactly this kind of work.

3

Matt 07.21.09 at 2:38 pm

As for books (these might be so obvious that you’ve already thought of them- sorry if so) I’d think clear places to start would be Elizabeth Anderson’s _Value in Ethics and Economics_ and perhaps Daiel Hausman and Michael McPherson’s _Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy_. Sen’s _On Ethics and Economics_ is probably the even more obvious choice, though I’ve not read it myself so can’t say if it’s the sort of thing you’re looking for. John Broome’s _Ethics out of Economics_ might also be useful, though in the papers from it I’ve read it’s more meta-ethics than on the relationship between ethics and economics. I’d be interested in seeing your syllabus when it’s done!

4

Daniel S. Goldberg 07.21.09 at 2:39 pm

Sen.

5

Witt 07.21.09 at 4:07 pm

My bias would be to include some non-academic readings, so I recommend Jews, Money and Social Responsbility, which I know of only because a long-ago professor included it in his class.

6

The Raven 07.21.09 at 4:35 pm

[dilletante thinking in passing]

Surely ethics are secretly at the base of any normative economics? Adam Smith and Karl Marx both seem relevant. I suppose you could also list the green economic theorists for more modern thinking. But, not my field, this may be obvious stuff, or entirely off base.

7

KJM 07.21.09 at 4:38 pm

Dave Schmidtz at Arizona seems to have something relevant: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~schmidtz/teaching.html. It’s hidden behind a password, though.

8

chrismealy 07.21.09 at 4:43 pm

These might not be exactly what you’re looking for (the ethics of economics? the economics of ethics?) , but these are pretty good:

“Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life” Gintis, Bowles, Boyd, and Fehr

“What Price the Moral High Ground? Ethical Dilemmas in Competitive Environments” Frank

“Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the Economy” Zak

9

Yarrow 07.21.09 at 4:54 pm

David Graeber’s Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams is worth a look.

10

matt m 07.21.09 at 4:59 pm

The only economists that come to mind are those that generally work on a specific problem, like globalization or development issues (e.g. William Easterly, Joseph Stiglitz, Esther Duflo), but none that approach ethics the way a philosopher would. But maybe something by Robert Frank would work, like The Winner-Take-All Society.

For philosophers, you might use Allen Buchanan’s Ethics, Efficiency and the Market. I also second the Hausman and McPherson.

11

Ingrid Robeyns 07.21.09 at 5:59 pm

Thanks for all the suggestions so far – most I had on my list but a few I’ve added.

I’ve listed the Hausman and McPherson as compulsory textbook for the course, but I should admit not wholeheartedly, since it is in some asepcts too introductory, and in other aspects too much about economic theory/science rather than economic life/the economy/economic systems (to my taste, at least). In fact, the same holds for much of Sen’s work that is often on reading lists. I think the existing literature is biased towards an ethical analysis on economic theory/science, rather than ethical reflection on economic life and economic systems.

12

dsquared 07.21.09 at 6:01 pm

Surely The Affluent Society or at least some Galbraith?

13

Matt 07.21.09 at 6:11 pm

For “ethical reflection on economic life” some of Joseph Heath’s books might be good- his book specifically on economics that’s just come out, his _Nation of Rebels: Why Counter Culture Became Consumer Culture_, and his _The Efficient Society_ might all be worth looking at. I haven’t read them, but they sound like the sort of thing you might be interested in, and I think Heath is, in general, quite a good philosopher- everything by him I have read has been very good.

14

Jotham Parsons 07.21.09 at 6:12 pm

I don’t know if it’s too “history of political thought,” but Scott Meikle, Aristotle’s Economic Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), is excellent from both the historical and philosophical points of view (Aristotle’s economic concerns were, naturally, largely ethical). And there’s a modest but interesting literature on Georg Simmel’s Philosophie des Geldes; the bibliography in the English translation must be out of date now, but it’s a good starting place. Simmel himself has some interesting ideas about the relationship between ethics and the money economy.

15

Billikin 07.21.09 at 6:45 pm

Isn’t homo economicus amoral? (Not a rhetorical question.)

16

qb 07.21.09 at 7:08 pm

Allen Buchanan’s Ethics, Efficiency, and the Market is a very nice, very well-written little book.

17

D 07.21.09 at 8:07 pm

UCL economics department runs a third year undergrad course on ethics in applied economics; might be interesting given its taught in a pretty, err… how to say this delicately, economicsy department.

18

René 07.21.09 at 8:18 pm

How about:

Hilary Putnam “The Collapse of the Fact-Value dichotomy”

Peter Ulrich “Integrative Economic Ethics”

19

Patrick S. O'Donnell 07.21.09 at 8:41 pm

Several of the books mentioned above came to mind to me as well but I think “ethical reflection on economic life and economic systems” in toto is fairly uncommon if not rare: Perhaps it’s best to look back to the likes of Tawney, Ruskin and Gandhi (or more recently, an E.F. Schumacher) for material of that sort although only the first comes close to writing anything “systematic.” (In addition to Simmel, Werner Sombart has written insightful stuff on the sociology of capitalism with an ethical or moral bite to it.)

It’s hard, I suspect, for professional economists and philosophers more or less enchanted by neo-classical economics to attain the critical distance or broad perspective that is required for the type of ethical reflection you appear to be seeking here (i.e., given what you’ve said about Hausman and McPherson as well as Sen). And of course many Marxist or socialist critiques are dispositionally adverse to this type of reflection, at least inasmuch as it is avowedly ethical: Michael Luntley, R.G. Peffer and, to some extent, David Schweickart, might be considered exceptions to the rule (as is, most recently, Bill Martin’s Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation, 2008). Folks like Philip Mirowski, S.M. Amadae, and Nicholas Xenos often contain critiques motivated by ethical insight or that are chock full of ethical implications. And I would think some of the more sophisticated environmentalist literature would also be germane here.

It may be that it takes a worldview to critique a worldview in the sense that only a worldview not beholden to some of the presuppositions of contemporary economic life and systems provides us with the critical distance to have anything ethically original, provocative or persuasive to say on the subject: thus, for instance, we might look to Catholic social teachings (on the dignity of labor, etc., and filtered through, for example, something on the order of Liberation Theology or Catholic Worker philosophy), Buddhist ethics, even Hellenistic ethics, for uncommon or unique ethical reflections of this sort. Some of these may amount to something like “civilizational critiques.”

Finally, it should be the case that anything of this sort consider the role of industry and technology as part and parcel of modern economic systems and life for it often seems the case (largely owing to the professional division of academic labor) that literature under the rubric of “philosophy of technology” is comparatively neglected in such discussions.

20

Patrick S. O'Donnell 07.21.09 at 8:43 pm

My comment is awaiting moderation, perhaps because I used the “s” word.

21

Patrick S. O'Donnell 07.21.09 at 8:46 pm

Putnam is in most respects, as he acknowledges, beholden to Sen, although I think what he has to say about fact/value entanglement (which he’s been writing about at least since Reason, Truth and History (1981) in general should be standard fare for those tackling “economics and ethics” questions.

22

Giacomo 07.21.09 at 9:48 pm

For the game theoretic approach, I’d recommend Sugden (The Economics of Rights Co-operation and Welfare), Binmore (Natural Justice), Skyrms (Evolution of the Social Contract) and Peyton Young (Individual Strategy and Social Structure)

23

John Quiggin 07.21.09 at 10:33 pm

Myrdal wrote a lot on the fact-value distinction back in the 60s and 70s, though that may not be exactly what you are looking for.

There’s also a fair bit around the place on the related questions of whether Christians can consistently hold free-market economic views and whether conservatives can be comfortably with the socially corrosive effects of unconstrained markets. In both cases, most of the literature tries hard, and unsuccessfully, to avoid the obvious negative answers.

24

Canadian 07.21.09 at 10:40 pm

See Kevin Lang, “Poverty and Discrimination”, for a survey how economists tackle nitty gritty rather than abstract distributional issues. He is probably closer to what most economists talk about (including those in the White House).

25

Jock Bowden 07.22.09 at 1:42 am

Ingrid

Having taken two econ courses where these sorts of issues were integrated within – rather than taught stand alone – the regular Micro curriculum, two pieces of advice:

1. Don’t put the word “egalitarianism” in the course title. Surely, this is just bias? Egalitarianism is one very small part of ethics. While Yale’s Roemer is interesting, you must remember he is/was an Analytical Marxist, which is just Das Kapital with calculus.

2. Name your course Distributive Justice. You can treat it either historically or thematically. The main course I took, which dealt with this, included Marx, Hayek, Berlin, Rawls, and Nozick. It was wonderful.

26

Joe S. 07.22.09 at 2:01 am

Billikin at 15:

Homo economicus–at least the homo economicus taught by right-wing economists everywhere–is a highly moral creature, although the morality is a weird one. Homo economicus has no other-centered preferences: envy, altruism, love, solidarity, or the like. (Lust and greed, as self-centered preferences, are permissible.) The invisible hand models would collapse without this odd morality.

The other answer is that homo economicus does not exist, either in reality or in any sophisticated behavioral economics. People have to deal with people.

27

Jock Bowden 07.22.09 at 2:35 am

If you really want your students to get passionate over economics and ethics, you could include readings from Ayn Rand, particularly Atlas Shrugged. Perhaps you could call the course, Who Is John Galt?

Depending on how far you want to go back in history. The Roman Catholic Scholastic “theory of just price” was much discussed in universities and elsewhere in the 12/14th century. The theory of “Just Price” integrates aspects of Aristotle and Augustine on property rights, as well as the traditional Abrahamic strictures on usury. Though maybe such a course might be a bit beyond the education level of your typical Economics Masters student.

28

just passing through 07.22.09 at 2:36 am

Probably already on the list, but…
Social Limits to Growth (Hirsch, Fred)
Equality (Tawney, RH)
Small is Beautiful (Schumacher, EF)

29

quanticle 07.22.09 at 2:51 am

If you’re going to teach Rawls, then it might also be useful to look at some of the critiques against him. G.A. Cohen’s Rescuing Justice and Equality springs to mind on that regard.

30

Ben 07.22.09 at 4:45 am

31

geo 07.22.09 at 4:46 am

In inverse chronological order and ascending order of literary merit: Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice, Thorstein Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class (there may well be some more useful Veblen), and John Ruskin, Unto This Last.

32

Erik 07.22.09 at 7:30 am

One additional suggestion that may be useful (and fun) for what you have in mind is to assign some of Schelling’s writing on ethics. For example his tanner lecture http://www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/documents/schelling83.pdf)

33

Michael Harris 07.22.09 at 11:33 am

It might be worth knowing about Geoff Brennan @ the ANU.

http://philosophy.unc.edu/brennan.htm / http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/people-defaults/brennan/index.php3

I can’t speak for McCloskey’s book (Bourgeios Virtues) but it may be worth a look: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=176332

As an application, environmental ethics and environmental economics are a possibility — http://www.colorado.edu/economics/morey/4999Ethics/4999syl.pdf is one random thing I found with a quick search, as is this: http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-063122968X.html

It’s also worth noting that some of the “behavioural economics” results that are coming out of experimental economics have a moral/ethical component. (Ultimatum games, cooperation games and so on, in which people exhibit more complex behaviours than simple “free riding” or whatever.)

34

Billikin 07.22.09 at 1:51 pm

Joe S: “Homo economicus has no other-centered preferences: envy, altruism, love, solidarity, or the like. (Lust and greed, as self-centered preferences, are permissible.) The invisible hand models would collapse without this odd morality.”

Thank you. :) That is pretty much what i thought.

“The other answer is that homo economicus does not exist, either in reality or in any sophisticated behavioral economics. People have to deal with people.”

Actually, there are people with few or no other-centered preferences: sociopaths. However, to use that term in a discussion of ethics and economics might be incendiary.

I know that this thread is not intended for discussion, so I will leave it there. Thanks again. :)

35

Billikin 07.22.09 at 2:12 pm

Two movie suggestions: “The Corporation” ( http://www.thecorporation.com ) and “The Yes Men” ( http://www.theyesmen.org ).

One book suggestion: “Foundations for the Metaphysics of Morals” by Kant. Kant’s Categorical Imperative offers a competing idea of rationality. How would Kant play the Prisoner’s Dilemma? :)

36

Jeff 07.22.09 at 2:14 pm

Consider Rationality and the Ideology of Disconnection, Michael Taylor (Cambridge, 2006) on quite a bit, including cost-benefit analysis and environmental decision-making.

37

Billikin 07.22.09 at 2:23 pm

And how can you leave out John Stuart Mill? Isn’t a discussion of utilitarianism central to ethics and economics?

38

harry b 07.22.09 at 3:19 pm

Second to Social Limits to Growth, which is tremendously interesting. I’m surprised no-one has mentioned Capitalism and Freedom, which is about as interesting as SLtG, and great to discuss with students.

Can you focus part of the course on a specific aspect of social life — eg, the economics and ethics of health, or schooling, or higher education?

39

SamChevre 07.22.09 at 3:35 pm

I’ll second Harry and Dsquared.

Read “Capitalism and Freedom”, and “The Affluent Society”; it’s a good starting point for thinking about both economics and ethics.

40

baliuz 07.22.09 at 4:16 pm

Princeton economist Thomas C. Leonard teaches an undergraduate course on ethics and economics. His syllabus is here:
http://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/syllabi/385syl.pdf

41

David 07.22.09 at 5:32 pm

Lots of good stuff here. For non-academic stuff you could look at the Papal Encyclical Populorum Progressio.

42

SusanC 07.22.09 at 6:01 pm

Isn’t homo economicus amoral? (Not a rhetorical question.)

I have to admit, that was my first thought.

But I think there’s interesting things that can be said about the ethical theories that underly economic theories: what theory of ethics does a particular economic model assume (perhaps implicitly)? How does it compare to other theories of ethics?

I’d think I’d want to distinguish economic theories from actually existing economic systems. You can distance yourself from whether a theory is actually right – e.g. whether actual human beings behave in the way the theory predicts – and still ask what its theory of ethics is. (Marxism and free-market economics viewed as political religions). The question of whether some real-world economic arrangement is ethical is also interesting, but perhaps a different question.

Possible readings:

von Neumann and Morgenstern (If I recall correctly, there’s a piece where there discuss game theory as a foundation for ethics, but I don’t have the reference to hand)

Hayek, Friedrich. The Road to Serfdom.

Oh, and that Marx guy probably deserves a mention.

43

John 07.22.09 at 6:11 pm

You might want to look at Michael Sandel’s recent work, including his Reith Lectures, which focused on how allowing more and more of social distribution to occur within markets commoditizes parts of life that had operated under different value structures, and that this movement is not always but often corrosive of individual character and public good. These themes are also operating in Sandel’s book “The Case Against Perfection” which opposes some biotechnological possibilities in a way that goes very much against the utilitarian grain.

44

Ingrid Robeyns 07.22.09 at 6:23 pm

Harry, I can do with the course what I want (within the limits of reason, of course), and 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).
The ethics of the economics of education would be a good theme too – I’d love to hear what you recommend.

Lots of wonderful suggestions here, many that I did not know of, thanks! (the final list will be long, since I also have many that have not been mentioned here so far).

45

SusanC 07.22.09 at 6:40 pm

Also, there’s the BBC television documentary, The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom. I thought it was a bit lightweight, and disagreed with it in plenty of places, but it might be a good starting point for a discussion.

46

SusanC 07.22.09 at 7:42 pm

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)

47

Max 07.23.09 at 1:18 am

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”

48

Katherine 07.23.09 at 9:13 am

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.

49

MJ 07.23.09 at 11:27 am

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

50

Murray Gregorson 07.23.09 at 3:02 pm

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.

51

Pete Murphy 07.23.09 at 4:06 pm

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”

52

loren 07.23.09 at 7:48 pm

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.

53

Jennifer 07.23.09 at 8:59 pm

“The Bourgeois Virtues” by Deidre McCloskey

54

Christian 07.24.09 at 10:55 pm

Can’t neglect Kenneth Boulding.

55

Billikin 07.24.09 at 11:19 pm

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.

56

Keith Nightenhelser 07.25.09 at 10:36 pm

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

57

Keith Nightenhelser 07.25.09 at 11:04 pm

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/.

58

David 07.27.09 at 1:24 pm

“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.

59

geert 07.28.09 at 8:05 am

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

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Steven McMullen 07.30.09 at 9:58 pm

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.

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