Philosophy of Economics
Why would philosophers be interested in economics? There are at least two answers. First, lessons from economics bear directly on moral and political philosophy, as well as on theorizing about rationality. Second, economics provides a case study of some of the most challenging problems in the philosophy of science.
Economics as Moral Philosophy
What is the ethical basis of economics? If economics is grounded in a theory of the right, what kind of theory is it? Is it a theory of the right grounded in a utilitarian conception of the greatest good for the greatest number, or a Kantian conception of the sovereignty of individual economic agents? Or, if economics is grounded in a theory of value, is the value to be understood in utilitarian or contractarian terms (as an aggregate, or as a matter of mutual advantage)?
Plato
Alfred North Whitehead described philosophy as a series of footnotes to Plato. What about economics? Plato's Republic describes the emergence of a society not by social contract or by conquest but spontaneously, through the workings of the market. "The barest notion of a state must include four or five men" (Book II, 369D). People need food, shelter, and clothing, but "all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing" (Book II, 370B).
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