Top

Society

Published in:

01-08-2014 | Symposium: The Achievement of Amitai Etzioni

What Sort of Science is ‘Economics’?

Author: Michael Boylan

Published in: Society | Issue 4/2014

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

This essay is a general defense of Etzioni’s argument in The Moral Dimension. I explore three areas that others have questioned and show them (from my neo-Etzioni position) to be false. The result is a resounding vote of confidence for socioeconomics over neo-classical economics.

previous article Race and Mortality Revisited

next article Communitarian Bioethics: Three Case Studies

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Obviously, the rules can be good or bad. But the rules are there regardless and they have an effect on how individuals behave. For a discussion of this issue in greater depth see Michael Boylan, Morality and Global Justice: Justifications and Applications (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2011): chapter two on the personal worldview imperative and the various community worldview imperatives.

Amitai Etzioni, The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics (New York: The Free Press, 1988).

The topic of moral education in the ancient world is largely centered around Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. For an overview of some of the key issues see: Randall R. Curren, “Justice, Instruction, and The Good: The Case for Public Education in Aristotle” Studies in Philosophy and Education 12.2-4 (1993): 103–126 and Aristotle on the Necessity of Public Education (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000). See also Fred Miller, Aristotle: Ethics and Politics (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 2003).

I use the term ‘Neo-Etzioni’ because essentially it is consistent with Etzioni, but may vary in some details in this apology.

Here I am following Aristotle in APo. 71b17, 73a21, 74a32 in which the range of episteme is set out as the exact knowledge acquired from a deductive syllogism that cannot be otherwise and is universal in its scope.

For an excellent overview of the significance of Newton’s work see: Colin Pask, Magnificent Principia: Exploring Isaac Newton’s Masterpiece (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2013).

Of course, there are boundary conditions—such as absolute space and place—that were found to be objectionable to Einstein and therefore replaceable. But given the posits of the system, the mathematically generated results are episteme.

This is set out by Aristotle in PA 639a 5.

This is set out by Aristotle in Top 149a 18, cf. EN 1095b 3.

See Aristotle APo 100b 7.

An example of this sort of attack can be found in George Ritzer, “A Metatheoretical Analysis of Socioeconomics” Mid-American Review of Sociology 14.1 (1990): 27–43.

Thomas S. Kuhn The Copernican Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957) and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).

Two prominent proponents of this position are: Stephen Toulmin, “Does the Distinction between Normal and Revolutionary Science Hold Water?” in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970): 39–47; and Hilary Putnam, “The ‘Corroboration ‘of Theories,” from Paul A. Schilipp, ed. The Library of Living Philosophers, vol. 14 (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1974): 221–240. For an examination of the Copernican acceptance and the notion of incremental change in science see: Christopher M. Graney in Journal for the History of Astronomy 44.2 (2013): 136–143.

Isreal Scheffler, Science and Subjectivity (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merril, 1967).

See Hilary Putnam, “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7 (1975): 131–193 and Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980).

Douglas Lee Eckberg and Lester Hill, “The Paradigm Concept and Sociology: A Critical Review.” American Sociological Review 44 (1979): 925–937; and Richard Swedberg, “Socio-Economics and the New ‘Battle of the Methods’: Towards a Paradigm Shift?” Journal of Behavioral Economics 19(1990):141–54.

Boylan (2004), op. cit.

Etzioni, 126–132.

Ibid. 42–50.

This sort of objection is inherent in the “unity of science” approach of logical empiricism. This approach sets out that physics is the real science with chemistry as applied physics, and biology as applied chemistry, and anthropology, sociology, and psychology as applied biology. For an introduction to some of these arguments see: Paul Oppenheim and Hilary Putnam, “Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis” from Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Volume II, ed. H. Feigl, M. Scriven, and G. Maxwell (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1958): 3–36.

GUTS is the Grand Unification Theory of Science. This is often presented in very technical papers. For a less technical approach that is historically based upon the twentieth century see Nobel Prize winner Abdus Salam, Unification of Fundamental Forces: The First 1988 Dirac Memorial Lecture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

For an introduction to experimental philosophy see: Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols Experimental Philosophy volume 1 (2008) volume 2 (2013): (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, 2013).

What is behind this judgment is that episteme is rather reserved for non-empirical sciences such as logic and mathematics.

Etzioni, 52–58.

For a short justification of this account see: Michael Boylan, Basic Ethics, 2nd edition (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2009): chapter 4.

Etzioni, 59, cf. 59–62.

A sampling of some of the most common arguments can be found in: Jean Hampton, “Free-Rider Problems in the Production of Collective Goods” Economics and Philosophy 3 (1987): 245–273; Philip Pettit, “Free Riding and Foul Dealing” Journal of Philosophy 83 (1986): 361–379; Mariëtte Van den Hoven, “Why One Should Do One’s Bit: Thinking about Free Riding in the Context of Public Health Ethics” Public Health Ethics 5.2 (2012): 154–160; and Benjamin Vilhauer, “Taking Free Will Skepticism Seriously” Philosophical Quarterly 62.249 (2012): 833–852.

This is not a pure example because some may choose not to get health insurance because they do not like president Obama (for racial or whatever reasons). But despite these heavy side-conditions (political and racial), it will be an interesting dynamic to observe over a reasonable roll-out period of time: ten years hence.

Etzioni: 243–244; Boylan (2009): chapter 5; and Michael Boylan, A Just Society (New York and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004): 1.

John Broome, “Deontology and Economics” Economics and Philosophy 8 (1992): 269–282.

This is my structure in Boylan (2009) and is widely accepted.

Moral realism means that the truths about “good” really exist (either in this natural world or in some supernatural world). The commands gain their authority from this real existence.

Boylan (2009): 21, 25, cf. Michael Boylan, Natural Human Rights: A Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014): chapter 6.

Amitai Etzioni, “’The Moral Dimension’ Revisited” Socio-Economic Review 6 (2008): 168–173, speculates whether socioeconomics and communitarianism diverge with different purposes. My neo-Etzioni position is to combine them with the latter being a theoretical component in establishing the former.

Boylan (2004): 38–43.

Etzioni (1988): 95–113.

Republic 435b ff.

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Edinburgh: A. Millar, A. Kincaid, and J. Bell, 1759 ).

For a good introduction to feminist ethics see: Joram G. Haber, Norms and Values: Essays on the Work of Virginia Held (Lanham, MD and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998) and Rosmarie Tong, Femist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction. 4th edition (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2013).

The pioneering book on this is: Joe McGinniss, The Selling of the President: The Classical Account of the Packaging of a Candidate (New York: Penguin, 1988).

Boylan (2004): 115–117.

One sort of argument along these lines was made by Colin S. Gray, “Sandcastle of Theory: A Critique of Amitai Etzioni’s Communitarianism” The American Behavioral Scientist. 48.12 (2005): 1607–1625. These arguments are merely quarrels with Etzioni’s move from small studies to larger inductive generalizations. This is really only an attack on socioeconomics/communitarianism as not being episteme. But as this essay argues, the episteme ideal is really a utopian dream, itself.

Boylan (2004): 38–42.

For an introduction to some of the key elements concerning ‘care’ in the context of feminist ethics see: Virginia Held and Carol W. Oberbrunner, Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995) and Fiona Robinson, The Ethics of Care: A Feminist Approach to Human Security (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011).

I call macro communities those social groups of more than 500 people. This is what I posit as the maximum point for personal group interaction and political response through “the community as a whole,” Boylan (2004): 113–115.

Etzioni, A. 2004. From Empire to Community: A New Approach to International Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Boylan, M. 2014. Natural Human Rights: A Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Title: What Sort of Science is ‘Economics’?
Author: Michael Boylan
Publication date: 01-08-2014
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Society / Issue 4/2014
Print ISSN: 0147-2011
Electronic ISSN: 1936-4725
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-014-9791-0

Springer Professional

Abstract

Please log in to get access to your license.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Other articles of this Issue 4/2014

Joshua Mitchell, Tocqueville in Arabia: Dilemmas in a Democratic Age

Irving Louis Horowitz, Hannah Arendt: Radical Conservative

Was Pius XII “Hitler’s Pope”? The Concordat of 1933

July/August 2014

Communitarian Bioethics: Three Case Studies

Negative Liberty and the Common Good: Assessing William Lund’s Criticisms of Amitai Etzioni