Topics in Philosophy: Ethics and Economics

Catalog description

To the question, ‘What is Economics?’ the answers usually depend on who you ask and which disciplinary perspective you are asking from. Ask Robert Solow, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics (1987) and he answers: “There is a single universal model of the world. It only needs to be applied. You can drop a modern economist from a time machine, at any time, in any place, along with his or her personal computer, and he or she could set up business without even bothering to ask what time and which place.” In other words, there are economic laws that are as real as any of the laws of physics; they are natural laws written into the organization of the universe and, as we shall see, arguably, discovered by Adam Smith. Now ask Robert Heilbroner, distinguished professor of political economy, ‘What is Economics?’ and his response is: “Economics is the name we give to a process found in all societies as a precondition for existence. The process consists of both activities of production and distribution, and of the means for orchestrating these activities in accordance with the aims of the social order…There is therefore no mystery involved in the assertion that economics is fundamentally an embodiment of the forces of morality and politics, interpreted broadly.” Not only are these two answers different, they are conflicting. Solow seeing economics more as a science with a demonstrable internal logic, while Heilbroner see economics as embedded in social processes and founded more on values then on scientific facts. We will return to this organizing question and the attendant fact/value distinction throughout this course by asking scholars such as Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Karl Polanyi and other more contemporary thinkers, where on the spectrum of knowledge should we locate economics?