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 55: John Rawls
Hilde Bojer
Handbook Chapter
- Published in print:
- 30 Jun 2009
- Category:
- Handbook Chapter
- Pages:
- (7 total)
Extract
Hilde Bojer Introduction John Rawls (1921–2002) is the most influential moral and political philosopher of the last 100 years. His major book, A Theory of Justice, first appeared in 1971 and has since been translated into 27 languages. A bibliography of articles on Rawls published in 1981 listed more than 2500 entries (Freeman 2003, p. 1). Rawls is the founding father of contemporary debates on social justice. He is also one of the very few moral philosophers taken notice of by economists. Economic literature speaks of him mainly as the inspiration for the maximin social welfare function, which is also – and somewhat mistakenly – called the Rawlsian social welfare function. The name is a misnomer, because Rawls argues most decisively against utility, or individual welfare, as the distribuendum of distributive justice. In fact, one reason for his great impact is his pioneering opposition to utilitarianism and to welfarism in general. Rawls wrote widely and in depth about all aspects of the just society. Among the many subjects he discussed, his analysis of distributive justice has the most relevance to economic thought. That will be discussed here. As a method for studying questions of social justice, Rawls proposed what he called ‘reflective equilibrium’. Reflective equilibrium is achieved when our abstract principles and our concrete intuitions are in harmony. For example, the abstract principle may be that people should be rewarded according to their contribution to production. But this principle leaves those unable to work, like children and the disabled, with no...
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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