Ethics as a Topic of Economic Inquiry: The Social-Theoretic Context

Abstract

With respect to ordering different fields of scholarly inquiry, ethics is commonly thought to be independent of economics, and, moreover, with ethical principles standing in judgment of economizing actions. In contrast, we explore a line of thought where ethics, politics, and commerce all emerge simultaneously within the same social order. Principles of economizing action are ubiquitous; however, those principles can manifest in different substantive contexts. Ethics is commonly pursued from a normative point of view where theorists advance principles which constitute their visions of goodness. In contrast, we pursue ethics as a social science, the substance of which emerges through the efforts of people to fashion arrangements for living together in close geographical proximity. Within this alternative analytical framework, principles of ethics and of political economy are both emergent features of human interaction within social systems where standards of desirability are likewise emergent outputs of those systems.

Keywords: stipulated ethics; emergent ethics; systems theory; ethics as social science; private vs. public ordering; Georg Simmel; Vilfredo Pareto

JEL Classification: B41, B55, D46, D63, D72