Evolutionary Economics and Moral Relativism - Some Thoughts

Martin Binder

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Doubts about the decidability of moral questions have often been used as an excuse for economists to eschew any normative propositions. Evolutionary economics, still lacking a well-developed normative branch, gives rise to a form of descriptive moral relativism. This paper wants to explore the consequences of adopting a form of meta-ethical and normative moral relativism as well. It develops a normative position called ‘naturalistic relativism’, which is a naturalistically reconstructed neo-pragmatist form of relativism. The paper also gives an argument why this position seems to be the adequate normative correlate for evolutionary economics.

Keywords: evolutionary economics; moral relativism; sensory utilitarianism; continuity hypothesis; naturalistic relativism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 B52 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-08-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-hpe and nep-pke
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:1484

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