Amartya Sen: Utilitarianism, Ethics and Public Policy

Abstract

As the reader would agree, economics as a science, in teaching, research and policy, has a very poor record at ethics.

According to Ben Fine, Professor of Economics at the University of London, there are five inter-related reasons for this. First, the rigid distinction between positive-theoretical and normative-factual economics. Second, the very methodology of economics is unable to interrogate its own ethical foundations. Third, economics has neglected its own history as a discipline and in the process, its own changing ethical approaches and contents. Fourth, economics has isolated itself from other social sciences, so their contributions to ethical questions have been ignored, and fifth, mainstream economics has always been and is now intolerant with heterodox approaches.