Why Pufendorf Matters

Dirk Ehnts and Erik Jochem ()
Additional contact information
Erik Jochem: Pufendorf-Gesellschaft e. V.

A chapter in Samuel Pufendorf and the Emergence of Economics as a Social Science, 2021, pp 201-212 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Modern economics evolves from (neo)classical political economy, which stresses the role of the individual and rationality. Using Kantian foundations, it is argued that economic is what concerns the individual urge to pursue personal wealth. Nature and the social sphere are both ignored. An alternative view can be based on the ideas of human nature that Samuel Pufendorf formed. According to him, man is sociable. His self-interest is often applied toward this end and not an end in itself. Also, nature plays a role as man can decide what to do with it. Last but not least, Pufendorf recognizes that individuals grow up in society, where they are formed through the use of language and the internalization of conventions. Man, without society, is not perfect and cannot hope to strive for happiness. He needs support from society to protect himself from his fellow man and to increase the chances of realizing this drive toward sociability. Economics could be rebuilt on stronger foundations as neuroscience seems to confirm Pufendorf’s view of human nature in general.

Keywords: Homo oeconomicus; Homo sociooeconomicus; Philosophy; Self-interest; Sociability; A1; B1; B4; P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:euhchp:978-3-030-49791-0_10

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030497910

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-49791-0_10

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in The European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().