Economic Philosophy, Social Justice, and Normative Economics: Some Remarks about Rawls’ Role
Gharbi, Jean-Sébastien
Economic Philosophy, Social Justice, and Normative Economics: Some Remarks about Rawls’ Role - 2013.
71
It is tempting to place the publication of Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971) at the origin of the revival of normative economics, or else at the birth of the non-welfarist approach in economics. However, the question of who initiated these two movements is not that easy to resolve. Moreover, it is interesting from a perspective of economic philosophy, raising the possibility that the economist’s work could be driven from the outside. Further, it assumes a subtle understanding of the problem of social choice as Arrow puts it (1950; 1951), and of the entire command of the tools of contemporary economics. In this paper, the idea is defended that it would be wrong to present Rawls as the initiator of the revival of normative economics and of the non-welfarist approach. The paper concludes, in a clearly tentative and exploratory way, by trying to highlight some relationships between philosophy and economics, including their implications with respect to the expression “economics philosophy.”
Economic Philosophy, Social Justice, and Normative Economics: Some Remarks about Rawls’ Role - 2013.
71
It is tempting to place the publication of Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971) at the origin of the revival of normative economics, or else at the birth of the non-welfarist approach in economics. However, the question of who initiated these two movements is not that easy to resolve. Moreover, it is interesting from a perspective of economic philosophy, raising the possibility that the economist’s work could be driven from the outside. Further, it assumes a subtle understanding of the problem of social choice as Arrow puts it (1950; 1951), and of the entire command of the tools of contemporary economics. In this paper, the idea is defended that it would be wrong to present Rawls as the initiator of the revival of normative economics and of the non-welfarist approach. The paper concludes, in a clearly tentative and exploratory way, by trying to highlight some relationships between philosophy and economics, including their implications with respect to the expression “economics philosophy.”
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