Handbook of Economics and Ethics
Edited by Jan Peil and Irene van Staveren
- Handbook of Economics and Ethics
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Altruism
- Chapter 2: Thomas Aquinas
- Chapter 3: Aristotle
- Chapter 4: Jeremy Bentham
- Chapter 5: Buddhist Economics
- Chapter 6: Capability Approach
- Chapter 7: Catholic Social Thought
- Chapter 8: Code of Ethics for Economists
- Chapter 9: Consumerism
- Chapter 10: Corporate Social Responsibility
- Chapter 11: Deontology
- Chapter 12: Dignity
- Chapter 13: Discrimination
- Chapter 14: Economic Anthropology
- Chapter 15: Efficiency
- Chapter 16: Egoism
- Chapter 17: Epistemology
- Chapter 18: Equity
- Chapter 19: Ethics of Care
- Chapter 20: Fact/Value Dichotomy
- Chapter 21: Fairness
- Chapter 22: Feminism
- Chapter 23: Freedom
- Chapter 24: Game Theory
- Chapter 25: Globalization
- Chapter 26: Global Financial Markets
- Chapter 27: Happiness
- Chapter 28: Hedonism
- Chapter 29: Hinduism
- Chapter 30: Homo Economicus
- Chapter 31: Human Development
- Chapter 32: Humanism
- Chapter 33: Identity
- Chapter 34: Income Distribution
- Chapter 35: Individualism
- Chapter 36: Inequality
- Chapter 37: Institutions
- Chapter 38: Islam
- Chapter 39: Justice
- Chapter 40: Immanuel Kant
- Chapter 41: Labour Standards
- Chapter 42: Market
- Chapter 43: Karl Marx
- Chapter 44: Minimum Wages
- Chapter 45: Needs and Agency
- Chapter 46: Needs and Well-being
- Chapter 47: Pluralism
- Chapter 48: Positive-Normative Distinction in British History of Economic Thought
- Chapter 49: Positive versus Normative Economics
- Chapter 50: Postmodernism
- Chapter 51: Poverty
- Chapter 52: Prices
- Chapter 53: Protestant Ethics
- Chapter 54: Rationality
- Chapter 55: John Rawls
- Chapter 56: Realism
- Chapter 57: Religion
- Chapter 58: Rhetoric
- Chapter 59: Rights
- Chapter 60: Joan Robinson
- Chapter 61: Scarcity
- Chapter 62: Self-interest
- Chapter 63: Amartya Sen
- Chapter 64: Sin
- Chapter 65: Adam Smith
- Chapter 66: Social Capital
- Chapter 67: Social Economics
- Chapter 68: Solidarity
- Chapter 69: Sustainability
- Chapter 70: Teaching Economics
- Chapter 71: Trust
- Chapter 72: Utilitarianism
- Chapter 73: Thorstein Veblen
- Chapter 74: Virtue Ethics
- Chapter 75: Max Weber and the Protestant Work Ethic
- Index
Chapter 35: Individualism
John B. Davis
Handbook Chapter
- Published in print:
- 30 Jun 2009
- Category:
- Handbook Chapter
- Pages:
- (6 total)
Extract
John B. Davis The term ‘individualism’ has functioned as one of the main organizing principles of economics for over a century. Yet despite this, considerable ambiguity still surrounds the discipline’s use of the term. In particular, there is a lack of clarity on (i) its methodological interpretation and ultimate value as an organizing principle, (ii) the conception of the individual that is appropriate to reasoning in economics and (iii) the normative implications of the standard view of individuals in economics. These three issues are addressed in this chapter. Competing views of individualism Individualism in economics – often termed ‘methodological individualism’ – is the view that individuals should figure centrally in all economics-related explanations. In contrast, holism – or ‘methodological holism’ – is the view that social groups and other social aggregates should figure centrally in such explanations. Schumpeter coined the former term a century ago (Schumpeter 1908; and compare 1909), later defining it as an explanation that focused on the ‘behavior of individuals without going into the factors that formed this behavior’ (Schumpeter 1954, p. 889). He distinguished this from ‘sociological individualism’, the – in his view ‘untenable’ – idea that ‘all social phenomena resolve themselves into decisions and actions of individuals that need not or cannot be further analyzed in terms of supraindividual factors’ (ibid., p. 888). This last is what many economists and other social scientists today regard as the meaning of methodological individualism. For example, Elster defines methodological individualism as ‘the doctrine that all social phenomena (their structure and their change) are in...
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Further information
or login to access all content.- Handbook of Economics and Ethics
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Altruism
- Chapter 2: Thomas Aquinas
- Chapter 3: Aristotle
- Chapter 4: Jeremy Bentham
- Chapter 5: Buddhist Economics
- Chapter 6: Capability Approach
- Chapter 7: Catholic Social Thought
- Chapter 8: Code of Ethics for Economists
- Chapter 9: Consumerism
- Chapter 10: Corporate Social Responsibility
- Chapter 11: Deontology
- Chapter 12: Dignity
- Chapter 13: Discrimination
- Chapter 14: Economic Anthropology
- Chapter 15: Efficiency
- Chapter 16: Egoism
- Chapter 17: Epistemology
- Chapter 18: Equity
- Chapter 19: Ethics of Care
- Chapter 20: Fact/Value Dichotomy
- Chapter 21: Fairness
- Chapter 22: Feminism
- Chapter 23: Freedom
- Chapter 24: Game Theory
- Chapter 25: Globalization
- Chapter 26: Global Financial Markets
- Chapter 27: Happiness
- Chapter 28: Hedonism
- Chapter 29: Hinduism
- Chapter 30: Homo Economicus
- Chapter 31: Human Development
- Chapter 32: Humanism
- Chapter 33: Identity
- Chapter 34: Income Distribution
- Chapter 35: Individualism
- Chapter 36: Inequality
- Chapter 37: Institutions
- Chapter 38: Islam
- Chapter 39: Justice
- Chapter 40: Immanuel Kant
- Chapter 41: Labour Standards
- Chapter 42: Market
- Chapter 43: Karl Marx
- Chapter 44: Minimum Wages
- Chapter 45: Needs and Agency
- Chapter 46: Needs and Well-being
- Chapter 47: Pluralism
- Chapter 48: Positive-Normative Distinction in British History of Economic Thought
- Chapter 49: Positive versus Normative Economics
- Chapter 50: Postmodernism
- Chapter 51: Poverty
- Chapter 52: Prices
- Chapter 53: Protestant Ethics
- Chapter 54: Rationality
- Chapter 55: John Rawls
- Chapter 56: Realism
- Chapter 57: Religion
- Chapter 58: Rhetoric
- Chapter 59: Rights
- Chapter 60: Joan Robinson
- Chapter 61: Scarcity
- Chapter 62: Self-interest
- Chapter 63: Amartya Sen
- Chapter 64: Sin
- Chapter 65: Adam Smith
- Chapter 66: Social Capital
- Chapter 67: Social Economics
- Chapter 68: Solidarity
- Chapter 69: Sustainability
- Chapter 70: Teaching Economics
- Chapter 71: Trust
- Chapter 72: Utilitarianism
- Chapter 73: Thorstein Veblen
- Chapter 74: Virtue Ethics
- Chapter 75: Max Weber and the Protestant Work Ethic
- Index