WEA conference “Economics in Society: The Ethical Dimension” has begun (list of papers)
from Edward Fullbrook
The World Economics Association’s first online conference “Economics in Society: The Ethical Dimension” begins today. The first batch of papers has been posted, and discussion on them is now open. The conference will run for one month, with its 24 papers being released in groups over the first week.
If you go to the conference site and register by leaving your email address, you will be notified each time a new group of papers is posted and opened for discussion. Similarly, you may sign up to be notified each time a new comment appears on a particular paper or group of papers. And of course you are encouraged to participate in what is an important and long overdue public discussion.
The conference organizers Peter Radford, Alan Freeman and Grazia Iletto-Gillies have assembled the papers from contributors from around the globe. The conference is designed to encourage economists to reconnect with the ever-present ethical dimensions of economics ignored and forgotten until today by the economics establishment. Among other issues, the conference will address the ethical questions concerning the causal role played by the economics profession in the Financial Crisis and ethical dimensions regarding North-South economic relations.
The group of papers posted today is as follows:
What constitutes ethical conduct for economists?
Riccardo Baldissone
And the Real Butchers, Brewers and Bakers?
Towards the Integration of Ethics and EconomicsStuart Birks
No ethical issues in economics?George De Martino
Professional Economic Ethics:Why Heterodox Economists Should CareSheila Dow
Codes of Ethics for Economists: A Pluralist ViewPeter Earl
Real-World Economics and the Ethics of TeachingAlan Freeman
Towards an assertive pluralist code of conduct for economistsTom Walker
Crisis, Credit and Credulity: the incredible circulation of a counterfeit idea
A reply to Stuart-Birks’ comments on Fusari paper
On the objectivity of some value I just say that such an objectivity is a consequence of their necessity for the working and fulfilment of an objective character of human nature, i.e. the wide differences in human skills. Of course, an incurable relativist would object that man, or society, may prefer an absolute equalization to the respect of diversities, as well as stationary state to development.
I do not deny the importance of group cohesion and social (as well as individual) responsibility; also these values may be considered not as a matter of free (relativist) choice but as a necessity of social organization. At any rate, all shows that man prefers, and is forced by his nature to prefer, a dynamic society to secular stagnation and escape the destiny of good savage, if the way of dinamization appears to the horizon. Primitive societies can survive only in a perfect insulation, whatever incurable relativists think.
I just say that an income distribution not enslaved by production may cause what Birks means, and hence that new products will not depend on the preference of very reach men, i.e. do not need high income inequalities.
High financial rewords are not indispensable for high capabilities but, if those rewards exist, people will prefer them in the supply of those capabilities.