Utilitarianism and Malthus' Virtue Ethics

Utilitarianism and Malthus' Virtue Ethics PDF Author: Sergio Cremaschi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317819268
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The die-hard image of Malthus the ogre has not completely disappeared yet. And yet, Malthus showed no less concern than Adam Smith for the labouring poor. In order to make full sense of such expression of concern and to appraise their relevance in Malthus’s work, we need to know what moral philosophy, what view of natural science, and what view of the "moral and political science" Malthus endorsed. This book reconstructs Malthus’s meta-ethics, his normative ethics and his applied ethics on such topics as population, poverty, sexuality and war and slavery. They show how Malthus’s understanding of his own population theory and political economy was that of sub-disciplines of moral and political philosophy. Empirical enquiries required in order to be able to pronounce justified value judgments on such matters as the Poor Laws. But Malthus’s population theory and political economy were no value-free science and his non-utilitarian policy advice resulted from his overall system of ideas and was explicitly based on a set of familiar moral assumptions. It is mistaken to claim that Malthus’s explanation of disharmony by reference to Divine Wisdom is extraneous to analysis and without influence on the theory of policy; it is true instead that theological consequentialist considerations were appealed to in order to provide a justification for received moral rules, but these were meant to justify a rather traditional normative ethics, quite far from Benthamite ‘new morality’.

Utilitarianism and Malthus' Virtue Ethics

Utilitarianism and Malthus' Virtue Ethics PDF Author: Sergio Cremaschi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317819268
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book Here

Book Description
The die-hard image of Malthus the ogre has not completely disappeared yet. And yet, Malthus showed no less concern than Adam Smith for the labouring poor. In order to make full sense of such expression of concern and to appraise their relevance in Malthus’s work, we need to know what moral philosophy, what view of natural science, and what view of the "moral and political science" Malthus endorsed. This book reconstructs Malthus’s meta-ethics, his normative ethics and his applied ethics on such topics as population, poverty, sexuality and war and slavery. They show how Malthus’s understanding of his own population theory and political economy was that of sub-disciplines of moral and political philosophy. Empirical enquiries required in order to be able to pronounce justified value judgments on such matters as the Poor Laws. But Malthus’s population theory and political economy were no value-free science and his non-utilitarian policy advice resulted from his overall system of ideas and was explicitly based on a set of familiar moral assumptions. It is mistaken to claim that Malthus’s explanation of disharmony by reference to Divine Wisdom is extraneous to analysis and without influence on the theory of policy; it is true instead that theological consequentialist considerations were appealed to in order to provide a justification for received moral rules, but these were meant to justify a rather traditional normative ethics, quite far from Benthamite ‘new morality’.

Utilitarianism and Malthus' Virtue Ethics

Utilitarianism and Malthus' Virtue Ethics PDF Author: Sergio Cremaschi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131781925X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The die-hard image of Malthus the ogre has not completely disappeared yet. And yet, Malthus showed no less concern than Adam Smith for the labouring poor. In order to make full sense of such expression of concern and to appraise their relevance in Malthus’s work, we need to know what moral philosophy, what view of natural science, and what view of the "moral and political science" Malthus endorsed. This book reconstructs Malthus’s meta-ethics, his normative ethics and his applied ethics on such topics as population, poverty, sexuality and war and slavery. They show how Malthus’s understanding of his own population theory and political economy was that of sub-disciplines of moral and political philosophy. Empirical enquiries required in order to be able to pronounce justified value judgments on such matters as the Poor Laws. But Malthus’s population theory and political economy were no value-free science and his non-utilitarian policy advice resulted from his overall system of ideas and was explicitly based on a set of familiar moral assumptions. It is mistaken to claim that Malthus’s explanation of disharmony by reference to Divine Wisdom is extraneous to analysis and without influence on the theory of policy; it is true instead that theological consequentialist considerations were appealed to in order to provide a justification for received moral rules, but these were meant to justify a rather traditional normative ethics, quite far from Benthamite ‘new morality’.

A History of Utilitarian Ethics

A History of Utilitarian Ethics PDF Author: Samuel Hollander
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000023494
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
In this landmark volume, Samuel Hollander presents a fresh and compelling history of moral philosophy from Locke to John Stuart Mill, showing that a ‘moral sense’ can actually be considered compatible with utilitarianism. The book also explores the link between utilitarianism and distributive justice. Hollander engages in close textual exegesis of the works relating to individual authors, while never losing sight of the intellectual relationships between them. Tying together the greatest of the British moral philosophers, this volume reveals an unexpected unity of eighteenth and nineteenth century ethical doctrine at both the individual and social level. Essential reading for advanced students and researchers of the history of economic thought, political economy, history of ethics, history of political thought and intellectual history.

A History of Utilitarian Ethics

A History of Utilitarian Ethics PDF Author: Samuel Hollander
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000024032
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
In this landmark volume, Samuel Hollander presents a fresh and compelling history of moral philosophy from Locke to John Stuart Mill, showing that a ‘moral sense’ can actually be considered compatible with utilitarianism. The book also explores the link between utilitarianism and distributive justice. Hollander engages in close textual exegesis of the works relating to individual authors, while never losing sight of the intellectual relationships between them. Tying together the greatest of the British moral philosophers, this volume reveals an unexpected unity of eighteenth and nineteenth century ethical doctrine at both the individual and social level. Essential reading for advanced students and researchers of the history of economic thought, political economy, history of ethics, history of political thought and intellectual history.

Malthus Across Nations

Malthus Across Nations PDF Author: Gilbert Faccarello
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1788977572
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
The writings of Thomas Robert Malthus continue to resonate today, particularly An Essay on the Principle of Population which was published more than two centuries ago. Malthus Across Nations creates a fascinating picture of the circulation of his economic and demographic ideas across different countries, highlighting the reception of his works in a variety of nations and cultures. This unique book offers not only a fascinating piece of comparative analysis in the history of economic thought but also places some of today’s most pressing debates into an accurate historical perspective, thereby improving our understanding of them.

Before Method and Models

Before Method and Models PDF Author: Ryan Walter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197603076
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
A boldly revisionist history of the first disputes in nineteenth-century Britain over the role of economists in society Economics now so dominates our understanding of how the world works that some of the field's most influential concepts seem akin to natural laws. Yet economists themselves are a relatively recent species of intellectual, first emerging in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. And like the economists of our own era, the pioneering work of the early economists was decidedly a product of its time. Before Method and Models looks back to the first disputes in nineteenth-century Britain over the role of economists in society to explain how the broader historical and intellectual context has always shaped the field. Ryan Walter's boldly revisionist history focuses on Thomas Robert Malthus and David Ricardo, both of whom were attacked for producing a type of knowledge that was perceived to be dangerous to society. Rather than simply assuming that "classical political economy" always existed, Walter recovers the historical circumstances that actually shaped the development of their methods and concepts. The book delves into the major political controversies of the time - the Bullion Controversy and the Corn Laws debate - and the arguments that Malthus and Ricardo advanced in order to shape the outcome. By examining the hostile responses of Malthus and Ricardo's contemporaries, the book shows how the major challenge facing the first economists was to legitimize the activity of theorizing and then reforming economic life. In a time when debate about commerce and politics was conducted without our modern methods and models, Malthus and Ricardo fought for the creation of the new field of political economy and a role for their work at the center of politics. Walter's reconstruction of the era reveals an exceedingly sophisticated debate regarding the costs and benefits of reforming both institutions and laws through the new science of political economy.

Utilitarianism in the Age of Enlightenment

Utilitarianism in the Age of Enlightenment PDF Author: Niall O'Flaherty
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108474470
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
Studies the influential tradition of 'theological utilitarianism' in the eighteenth century through the lens of William Paley's life and thought.

The Gardener's Dirty Hands

The Gardener's Dirty Hands PDF Author: Noah J. Toly
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190249420
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
"Noah Toly offers an interpretation of environmental politics that draws upon Christian theological insights into the tragic - the need to forego, give up, undermine, or destroy one or more goods in order to possess or secure one or more other goods. Toly engages Christian and classical Greek ideas of the tragic nature of the human, which arises from humanity's great powers of thought and technological mastery combined with a greater capacity to err than that of other species, in responding to intractable or 'wicked' problems of environmental politics. He suggests that Christians have unique symbolic resources - including the cruciform identity of Christ/the Church - to enable societies to exercise power over the environment responsibly while acknowledging the need for mutually agreed, and ultimately normative, legal, restraints"--

Political Economy and Religion

Political Economy and Religion PDF Author: Gilbert Faccarello
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429823126
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Ever since Antiquity, reflections about economic problems have always been intertwined with questions relating to politics, ethics and religion. From the 18th century onwards, economic thought seemed to have been gradually disentangled from any other field, and to have gained the status of an autonomous scientific discipline, especially with the later use of mathematics. In fact, the growth of economic knowledge never broke off any ties with these other fields, and, especially with religion and ethics, even though the links with them became less obvious, they only changed shape. This is what this book illustrates, each chapter dealing with different periods and authors from the Middle Ages to the present times. Focusing in turn on the thought of the Scholastics, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), John Calvin, the French liberal Jansenists, Dugald Stewart, David Ricardo, Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles de Coux and French Christian Political Economy, Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim, Henry Sidgwick, Arthur Cecil Pigou, and finally John Maynard Keynes, the studies collected here show how religious themes played an important role in the development of economic thought. This book was originally published as a Special Issue of The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought.

David Ricardo. An Intellectual Biography

David Ricardo. An Intellectual Biography PDF Author: Sergio Cremaschi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000475794
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
David Ricardo has been acclaimed – or vilified – for merits he would never have dreamt of, or sins for which he was entirely innocent. Entrenched mythology labels him as a utilitarian economist, an enemy of the working class, an impractical theorist, a scientist with ‘no philosophy at all’ and the author of a formalist methodological revolution. Exploring a middle ground between theory and biography, this book explores the formative intellectual encounters of a man who came to economic studies via other experiences, thus bridging the gap between the historical Ricardo and the economist’s Ricardo. The chapters undertake a thorough analysis of Ricardo’s writings in their context, asking who was speaking, what audience was being addressed, with what communicative intentions, using what kind of lexicon and communicative conventions, and starting with what shared knowledge. The work opens in presenting the different religious communities with which Ricardo was in touch. It goes on to describe his education in the leading science of the time – geology – before he turned to the study of political economy. Another chapter discusses five ‘philosophers’ – students of logic, ethics and politics – with whom he was in touch. From correspondence, manuscripts and publications, the closing chapters reconstruct, firstly, Ricardo's ideas on scientific method, the limits of the 'abstract science’ and its application, and, secondly, his ideas on ethics and politics and their impact on strategies for improving the condition of the working class. This book sheds new light on Ricardian economics, providing an invaluable service to readers of economic methodology, philosophy of economics, the history of economic thought, political thought and philosophy.