Ethical issues in economics : from altruism to cooperation to equity
- New York : St. Martin's, 1997
- 193 p.
Introduction 1. Altruism, rationality and morality Introduction 1.1 - Morality as altruism cum rationality 1.2 - Altruism and rationality 1.3 - Morality and rationality 1.4 - Moral behaviour and the 'invisible hand', and individual freedom 1.5 - Summary 2. Economic, socio-economic and moral-economic approaches to altruism Introduction 2.1 - Standard economic approaches to altruism 2.2 - Alternative socio-economic and moral-economic approaches to altruism 2.3 - Summary 3 - (non-altruistic) treatment of altruism in some recent economic works Introduction 3.1 - Recent articles selected 3.2 - The articles' modeling of altruism 3.3 - Allocative inefficiencies, exploitability and 'moral hazard'of altruism 3.4 - Altruism as a quid pro quo 3.5 - Altruism as a genetically or culturally inherited trait Supplement: on altruism, fitness, intelligence and poverty 4. Ethical and political non-neutrality of neoclassical economics Introduction 4.1 - Some thoughts on the 'prisoners' dilemma' and 'free-rider' problem 4.2 - On the ethical non-neutrality of the 'selfishness' assumption 4.3 - Some implications 5. Ethics, politics and economics Introduction 5.1 - Economic research 5.2 - Economic teaching 5.3 - Economic vc weather forecasting 5.4 - Some semantic issues in economics Supplement: is the 'dismal science'a corrputing one as well ? 6. Ethics, game theory and laboratory experiments Introduction 6.1 - From game playing to game theory 6.2 - Concern for others in games versus real-life 6.3 - Laboratory experiments and mixed results 6.4 - Teleogical versus deontological ethics 7 - Competitive vc cooperative individuals and moral principles of cooperation Introduction 7.1 - Game theory, rationality and cooperation 7.2 - Competitive individuals: prisoner's dilemma and other social dilemmas 7.3 - Cooperative individuals: natural or command cooperators 7.4 - Summary 8. Efficiency and equity: a short-run, short-sighted trade-off Introduction 8.1 - Efficiency, equity and the 'paradox of greed'(or inequality) 8.2 - Digressions on charities 8.3 - Formal relationship between efficiency and income distribution 8.4 - Causality between efficiency and distribution 8.5 - Economy's trajectory 8.6 - Income distribution in the four regions: a simple model 8.7 - Conclusions Concluding notes