In this elegant critique, Amartya Sen argues that welfare economics can be enriched by paying more explicit attention to ethics, and that modern ethical studies can also benefit from a closer contact with economies. He argues further that even predictive and descriptive economics can be helped by making more room for welfare-economic considerations in the explanation of behaviour.

This textbook applies economic ethics to evaluate the free market system and enables students to examine the impact of free markets using the three main ethical approaches: utilitarianism, principle-based ethics and virtue ethics. Ethics and Economics systematically links empirical research to these ethical questions, with a focus on the core topics of happiness, inequality and virtues. Each chapter offers a recommended further reading list. The final chapter provides a practical method for applying the different ethical approaches to morally evaluate an economic policy proposal and an example of the methodology being applied to a real-life policy. This book will give students a clear theoretical and methodological toolkit for analyzing the ethics of market policies, making it a valuable resource for courses on economic ethics and economic philosophy.

Economics and ethics are succumbing to the pull of disciplinary specialisation at their own peril. This volume represents a necessary and most welcome reminder of some ways in which the two are intertwined. How do economic preferences relate to ethical values? What are the motivational underpinnings on which we should base a theory of choice? What explains compliance with rules, and with tax legislation in particular? Any economist or political philosopher interested in these questions must read this book. Peter Dietsch, Université de Montréal, Canada Do market prices reflect values? What is the relation between social norms and economic incentives? Do economic agents respond to ethical arguments? By probing the boundaries between positive and normative theorizing and by bridging ethics, economics, and political science, this book is able to address a fascinating set of questions. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in normative issues in public policy to academics and practitioners alike. Fabienne Peter, University of Warwick, UK This book makes a rational and eloquent case for the closer integration of ethics and economics. It expands upon themes concerned with esteem, self-esteem, emotional bonding between agents, expressive concerns, and moral requirements. Economists have long assumed that value and price are synonymous and interchangeable. The authors show how disregarding this false assumption and adopting an interdisciplinary approach could improve the economics profession by distinguishing economic values from ethical values. Replete with discussions that will challenge conventional economics, this book offers a corrective argument against the rigid separation of agents motivation and the purely normative aspects of economic analysis. The various contributions explore the different dimensions at the frontier between the rational and the moral in political economy, ethics and philosophy. Containing a variety of cross-border analyses, this innovative book will be a must-read for economists, political scientists and philosophers. It will also be an invaluable resource for students in the fields of economics and philosophy.

One of the greatest and most joyful challenges of adult life is to develop skills that make the people around us better off with us than without us. Integrity is a key part of that challenge. We are social animals, aiming not simply to trade but to make a place for ourselves in a community. You don’t want to have to pretend that you feel proud of fooling your customers into believing you could be trusted. The ethical question is: how do people have to live in order to make the world a better place with them than without them? The economic question is: what kind of society makes people willing and able to use their talents in a way that is good for them and for the people around them? The entrepreneurial question is: what does it take to show up in the marketplace with something that can take your community to a different level? In this book, the authors discuss the connections between the ethical, economic, and entrepreneurial dimensions of a life well-lived.

Offering a compelling critique of orthodox economic analysis in the public realm, Mike Berry exposes the lack of development in economic thinking in public policy since the economic crisis of 2008. Focusing on both the ethically unacceptable outcomes of recent public policy and the threat of populism and rising nationalism, this book offers noteworthy suggestions for an alternative social democratic future. Both students and practitioners of heterodox economics and public policy will find this a compelling insight into the ethical concerns and social impacts raised by the political ascendency of neoliberal policies in recent decades.