The Fate of Moral Philosophy in an Age of Economic Scientism

Abstract

Economics as a discipline has come under increasing scrutiny since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. Sociologist Marion Fourcade and co-authors (2015) have challenged the arrogance of economists and pointed out the dysfunctional structure of the discipline that concentrates power and prestige. Journalist Binyamin Appelbaum basically declares that “time is up” for the oversized importance of economists in our public policy discourse in The Economist’s Hour (2019). Economists like Knight and Mises, like Hayek and Buchanan, continued to develop economics as a philosophical subject throughout the 20th century while the rest of the profession succumbed to scientism, and developed an economics that ignored the life blood of commercial society.

Keywords: Economic Scientism; Moral Philosophy; Economic Pedagogy

JEL Classification: B2; B4; B53;