Abstract
In order to be able to make full use of the simple key to the analysis of economic policy questions that I have promised to supply in Chapter 1, it is necessary to clarify a few basic concepts. Boring, perhaps, but essential, like some boring facts that one invariably has to learn in order to practise any applied science.
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Notes
- 1.
Hume, 1739, 1998 edn., ed. Beauchamp: Appendix 1, para. 19.
- 2.
Hume, 1739, www.davidhume.org:3.1.11.10. Hume’s defence of his theory of morality in general and of justice in particular was also presented, more briefly, just over ten years later, in An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals.
- 3.
Mill, 1861:I,5.
- 4.
Ethics, 1097b2–21. Aristotle did not, however, regard these as what he called ‘final values’, of which, in his opinion, there was only one, namely ‘happiness’ (interpreted in a rather special manner). The reason he gives for this is that although we might pursue them for their own sake, one might also pursue them for the sake of our happiness, whereas the converse does not apply.
- 5.
Scanlon, 1998:87.
- 6.
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972.
- 7.
- 8.
This definition originated in the important and influential book by Lionel Robbins, 1932. It abstracted from the question of how far an economy’s ‘scarce means’ are fully employed, since it was focused on the problem of allocation under conditions of scarcity.
- 9.
See an interesting discussion of this point in Jonathan B. Wight, op.cit. 59 et seq.
- 10.
Sen, 1987:4.
- 11.
Scitovsky, 1941:77.
- 12.
See Hands, 2009:13.
Bibliography
Hands, D.W., 2009 ‘The Positive – Normative Dichotomy in Economics’, in Thagard, P., and Woods, J. (eds.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Amsterdam.
Hume, D., 1739, A Treatise of Human Nature, all references here are to the on-line version prepared by Peter Millican, at, www.davidhume.org.
Mill, J.S., 1861/2003, ‘Utilitarianism’, in Mary Warnock, (ed.), Utilitarianism and On Liberty, Blackwell, Oxford, 2003.
Scitovsky, T., 1941, ‘A Note on Welfare Propositions in Economics’, The Review of Economic Studies, 77.
Sen, A., 1987, On Ethics and Economics, Blackwell, Oxford.
Scanlon, T., 1998, What We Owe to Each Other, Cambridge, MA, Bellnap Press of Harvard University Press.
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Beckerman, W. (2017). The Main Concepts. In: Economics as Applied Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50319-6_3
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