Integrative Economic Ethics — Towards a Conception of Socio-Economic Rationality

Economic ethics may be seen as the other economics: an economic science which takes its point of departure from the practical questions of overall economic life, whereas neo-classical economics only deals with the functional logic of the economic (market) system. The latter represents today’s mainstream economics; it claims to develop a “pure” , i.e. valuefree theory explicating nothing else than the logic of interactions between individuals modelled upon the homo oeconomicus assumption. The result is the generalised logic of equally advantageous exchange between mutually unconcerned individuals in all spheres of society, in politics as well as in the market.1 The strictly self-interested and mutually unconcerned individuals as modelled in “pure” economic system’s theory do not need to know anything about the ethical dimension of human interactions, of course, since that theory pursues the strange ideal of a society that “works” as nothing but a system of well-ordered egoism; this is the “ideal” of a society that does not demand any moral virtues from its citizens so that the only virtue needed is that of maximising private advantage, profit or success.2