Philosophy & Ethics

In recent decades, market values have crowded out non- market norms in almost every aspect of life—medicine, education, government, law, art, sports, even family life and personal relations. Without quite realizing it, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. Is this where we want to be?

What happens when a market-based economy becomes a market-based society?

“You are now leaving the world as you know it.”

The current economic and financial crisis has given rise to a vigorous debate about the state of economics, and the training which graduate and undergraduates economics students are receiving. Importantly, among those arguing most strongly for a change in the way that young economists are trained are the ultimate employers of these students, in both the private and the public sector. Employers are increasingly complaining that young economists don’t understand how the financial system actually works, and are ill-prepared to think about appropriate policies at a time of crisis.

Friedrich von Hayek described the economist’s task as demonstrating how little we really know about what we imagine we can design

What happens when professionals lose touch with the people they’re supposed to serve?

what is economically correct must always be balanced with what is morally right.

Changing the incentives for how economists determine both the content of the subject and their approach to scientific research could increase the range of thinking in the profession

Economic theories are powerful things, to be used and misused. Those who write economic theory and do economic policy need to be aware of the consequences of what they are doing.

“Four men sat at a table. Raised sixty floors above the city, they did not speak loudly as one speaks from a height in the freedom of air and space; they kept their voices low, as befitted a cellar.”

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, many of our policy makers and top economists are still stumbling in the dark.

What is the purpose of economics?

What happens when there’s no leader in the global economy?

This research project shows what economists can learn from political philosophers in thinking about economic inequality while also investigating the philosophical significance of recent empirical work on inequality, within economics and elsewhere.