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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
In a recent article in Philosophy (April, 1936) Professor Knox makes a plea for a philosophic treatment of economic activity by way of contrast to either the specialized study of economic history or of economic science. The conclusion which was reached was embodied in the statement that “the historical and scientific methods of the study of economic activity leave incompletely satisfied the curiosity of students, and reach results which need special interpretation before they can be useful to politicians, let alone to business men” (p. 159). Each of these methods is said to involve unreal abstractions which detract from the usefulness of the study. A philosophic
page 69 note 1 Cf. Hawtrey: The Economic Problem, p. viii.
page 70 note 1 Cf. Pantaleoni, : Pure Economics, p. 9.Google Scholar In fairness to Pantaleoni, however, it should be mentioned that an attempt is made to justify the assumption of psychological hedonism on the ground that even if altruistic motives governed human conduct the same effects would be produced as those which occur on the assumption of egoism; and “it would probably be convenient to work out the problem relating to it in terms of egoism, just as it is sometimes convenient to invert the signs of an equation in order to solve it” (p. 10). The argument as to the validity of the assumption is in effect that universal altruism neutralizes itself. “Titus, e.g., from altruistic motives, asks much less than the current rate of interest for the capital he lends. In that case, Caius will, from similar motives, feel bound to offer much more than the current rate. Titus is willing to work gratis as a labourer, and Caius is constrained by altruism to pay him handsomely. Moreover, in order to realize the maximum altruistic effect, one would have to act in accordance with the most downright egoism.”
page 70 note 2 Cf. Marshall, : Principles of Economics, p. 781.Google Scholar
page 72 note 1 It would be interesting to know how a philosophic approach to economic study as suggested by Professor Knox would, to take his own example, “help even a politician to decide whether or no to place a tariff on indigo” (p. 158).
page 72 note 2 Cf. Marshall, : Principles of Economics, p. 770.Google Scholar
page 72 note 3 Cf. Schumpeter, : The Theory of Economic Development, p. 3.Google Scholar
page 72 note 4 Modern economic theory has tended more and more to examine the problem of value on the basis of preferences as data; preferences being less likely to raise difficulties connected with any particular assumptions as to the ethical or psychological character of desire, and thereby escaping from the earlier dominance of hedonism which persisted in economic terminology after its philosophical implications had been abandoned.
page 73 note 1 Incidentally, the description of economic activity as concerned with “buying and selling for profit” (p. 147) even if “interpreted in the widest sense” is surely unhappy and misleading to the untutored mind. Even buying and selling as ordinarily understood do not exhaust economic activity. Neither science nor philosophy stand to gain from so narrow a definition.
page 74 note 1 Cf. Professor Knox's comments on p. 161. It is not necessary here to produce an apology for instructional curricula for business careers, but some defence is at least possible. The supply of entrepreneurs with outstanding ability is exceedingly scarce and is insufficient to "go round." It may therefore not be inappropriate to train men for business careers even thoughthe ability thus produced is of a lesser order than that displayed by those who are endowed with rare natural qualities which make for outstanding success.
page 75 note 2 Cf. Marshall, : Principles of Economics, p. 93.Google Scholar
page 76 note 1 The possibility of increasing utility was mentioned casually by Marshall in a footnote. Later it was incorporated in an article by Professor Chapman in the Economic Journal. It was developed more fully philosophically and economically by Professor W. R. Scott in Is Increasing Utility Possible? Further reference may be made to the recent work of Mr. A. L. Macfie, An Essay on the Nature of Economy and Value.
page 76 note 2 Cf. Knight, : The Ethics of Competition, p. 23.Google Scholar
page 76 note 3 Cf. Hume, : Essays, vol. 1, p. 266.Google Scholar
page 77 note 1 Cf. Stout, : Mind and Matter, p. 143.Google Scholar It may be suggested that economists have a better record in this respect than other scientists. This in turn may not be unconnected with the interesting observation that in this country at least most of the leading economists have been trained in philosophy—outstanding examples being Adam Smith, the Mills, Jevons, Sidgwick, Marshall, Pigou, and Keynes; for a training in philosophy should enable the economist to recognize more clearly the limits to his own investigation. In this respect, Professor Knox’s plea for a philosophical approach to economics may be entirely endorsed.
page 77 note 2 Cf. Knight, : The Ethics of Competition, pp. 27–8.Google Scholar As Professor Knight adds: “It is of interest that the conduct which men denounce by calling it ‘bestial’ (in the field of sex and elsewhere) is typically of a sort in which the ‘beasts’ never indulge.”
page 78 note 1 Thus ProfessorRobbins, in his Nature and Significance of Economic Science, p. 132Google Scholar, speaks of economics and ethics as existing on different planes of discourse. This may make it possible to avoid any conflict between them, but only by a deliberate evasion of the issue.
page 78 note 2 It would perhaps not be unfair to remark that to the majority of moral philosophers, the modern development of the economic theory of value has remained a closed book. Dr.Inge, , indeed, remarks: “The use of the word value in economics will not be any help to us, though it has been discussed at perhaps unnecessary length by some recent writers on the idea of value” (cf. God and the Astronomers, p. 179).Google Scholar But there is nothing in the text which either supports this conclusion or even indicates what the modern theory of value in economics is. On the basis of this view, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that ethics and economics must remain ultimately apart—a conclusion which is clearly intellectually unsatisfactory. Professor Laird, in his Idea of Value, is an example of a philosopher who has endeavoured to take account of the contribution of marginal analysis in the theory of economics.
page 78 note 3 The elaboration of this idea has been strikingly worked out in Mr. Macfie's Essay an. the Nature of Economy and Value.
page 80 note 1 Cf. Macfie, : op. cit., p. 102.Google Scholar A certain superficial resemblance may appear between the view here outlined and the late Dr. Bosanquet's description of morality as a realm of “claims and conflicting counter-claims” which Professor Taylor has described as a “misrepresentation as grotesque as dangerous"(cf. The Faith of a Moralist, vol. 1, p. 414Google Scholar). Professor Taylor's criticism, however, is directed against the Bosanquettian doctrine of individual human personality as mere illusion, and he himself insists on what he calls the “relativity of all loyalties except the highest.” The co-ordination of loyalties or of values is a problem of practical ethics which constantly confronts the individual in directing his conduct, and the co-ordination which is required is something that cannot be incorporated in any contractual bond. The similarity between the view here advanced and that adopted by Bosanquet is, however, little more than superficial. It has much more in common with the Aristotelian mean.