Book contents
- Identity, Capabilities, and Changing Economics
- Identity, Capabilities, and Changing Economics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Boxes
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The Failed Pathway and Exit Strategies
- Part II Building a Socially Embedded Individual Conception
- Part III Value and Subjectivity
- 7 Economics as a Normative Discipline
- 8 Individual Realization?
- 9 Change in and Changing Economics
- References
- Index
7 - Economics as a Normative Discipline
Value Disentanglement in an “Objective” Economics
from Part III - Value and Subjectivity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 January 2024
- Identity, Capabilities, and Changing Economics
- Identity, Capabilities, and Changing Economics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Boxes
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The Failed Pathway and Exit Strategies
- Part II Building a Socially Embedded Individual Conception
- Part III Value and Subjectivity
- 7 Economics as a Normative Discipline
- 8 Individual Realization?
- 9 Change in and Changing Economics
- References
- Index
Summary
Drawing on Putnam’s famous fact–value entanglement argument, Chapter 7 shows how economics is inescapably value-entangled, and argues that while economics is an inherently value-laden discipline it may still be an objective one. It describes economics’ value structure as being anchored by its main normative ideal shared across different approaches, individual realization – what most people in the discipline believe is most valuable and good about human society and characteristic of human nature. It compares two competing interpretations of what that ideal involves – one in mainstream economics and one in capability economics – distinguishing them according to the different additional values regarding what well-being involves, they adopt to give content to the individual realization ideal. It then evaluates these two approaches according to whether their different value structures are consistent – an analysis I characterize as value disentanglement. After this, the chapter turns to a general framework for ethics and economics – or ethics in economics – distinguishes four different forms of disciplinary relationships between economics and ethics, and argues that while cross-disciplinarity best describes the current status of economics and ethics, transdisciplinarity represents an aspirational conception of what an objective, value-laden economics ultimately requires.
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- Identity, Capabilities, and Changing EconomicsReflexive, Adaptive, Socially Embedded Individuals, pp. 165 - 191Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024