On Pluralistic Ethics and the Economics of Compassion
Bulletin of the Association of Christian Economists, 1999
Posted: 21 May 2011
Date Written: 1999
Abstract
Economists characterize peoples’ choices as deliberate rather than capricious. This raises two fundamental questions: are people really rational? And, if rational, what reason(s) do individuals use to criticize or justify actions? This paper is based on the belief that economists have responded satisfactorily to the first question, but not to the second. While we all make whimsical decisions, it is by no means clear that assuming any particular type of irrationality would improve economists’ capacity to describe human behavior (Sen 1987). As a first-order approximation, the standard economic assumption of rationality is likely less biased than any alternative formulation we might devise.
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