Economic Analysis and Moral Philosophy (Cambridge Surveys of Economic Literature)

Rating:
Summary: Dragging economics and ethics within handshaking distance
Review: Why should economists bother studying moral philosophy? So that they will be better economists.

At least, that's what Daniel Hausman and Michael McPherson argue in this fine book. They also want to get moral philosophers interested in economic theory, but that's a secondary aim; this book is primarily directed at economists.

Why is it that people who pride themselves on doing Wertfrei (value-free) positive economics are so often the first people to think they are in a position, even the best position, to settle large normative policy questions? Hausman and McPherson say it's because positive economics isn't really "value-free" at all.

Why not? Well, according to our authors (and by the way, they're right), economists tend to identify human well-being with preference satisfaction, apparently in blissful unawareness that they are thereby committing themselves to a highly controversial ethical theory. Moreoever, those same economists tend to invoke a minimal, "thin" notion of _rationality_ that really means nothing more than efficient adjustment of means to ends in the satisfaction of preferences. The question whether some preferences may themselves be irrational tends not to be raised (by economists, that is; Hausman and McPherson are happy to name several moral philosophers -- e.g. Nagel and Parfit -- who have not only raised the question but answered it affirmatively).

In consequence positive economics is not even close to "value-free." By way of their implicit acceptance of well-being-as-preference-satisfaction together with their reliance on rationality-as-means/end-adjustment, economists have quite definitely and unambiguously imported a foundational ethical theory into their analysis. No wonder, then, that they feel uniquely qualified to pronounce on normative policy matters.

And no wonder they're not _really_ thus qualified. For the facts are that the moral theory on which they are relying is highly questionable, and that in any case genuine experts don't espouse moral theories by accident. (I should add at once that there are plenty of positive economists who are aware of this problem even if they're not sure what to do about it; see e.g. Steven Landsburg's _The Armchair Economist_, which I have also reviewed.)

Hausman and McPherson want to remedy this problem by getting economists interested in moral philosophy. So their book presents a short but thorough tour of the field, especially as it relates to economics. The reader is briefly and by turns introduced to utilitarianism and consequentialism; libertarianism; egalitarianism; and contractualism.

Readers should be aware that this is _only_ a tour; Hausman and McPherson are highly critical of the moral theory underlying "welfare economics," but they do not give their critical faculties much of a workout when discussing alternative theories. However, as an introduction to what the alternative theories actually say, their exposition is excellent and insightful. And they have a healthy sense that well-being is not simply a matter of "preference-satisfaction," even if they are a little shy about saying what _else_ it is. (And as a libertarian myself, I am happy to say that their chapter on libertarian theory is one of the better accounts written by nonlibertarians.)

A final portion of the book, in a nod to the ethical philosophers at whom the book is aimed secondarily, presents a little bit of economic theory for those who may not be familiar with it. This stuff comes a little late in the exposition, and for some reason the authors limit themselves to social choice theory and game theory. But these are good enough choices although far from exhaustive, and the authors do a nice job with them.

Then an appendix deals with a fairly meaty issue: why should ethics matter to economics? This portion could probably have come earlier in the book too, dealing as it does with the main point of the volume. But wherever it belongs, it raises and effectively answers a series of typical objections to the claim that economists should know something about moral philosophy.

I should add in closing that their bibliographic information is just splendid, not only in economic theory but also in ethics. A reader unfamiliar with either field can use these references as an introduction. These guys know the literature.

All in all, then, a fine book that succeeds in what it sets out to accomplish. Recommended to anyone interested in economic theory and especially in its relation to moral philosophy.