Edgeworth on the foundations of ethics and probability
Alberto Baccini
The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2007, vol. 14, issue 1, 79-96
Abstract:
The paper analyses the foundation of utilitarian ethics and theory of probability in the works of Francis Y. Edgeworth. It is argued that he pursued a unitary philosophical project: the search for a common epistemological foundation for the social sciences. Their common root is the idea of 'hereditary experience' derived from Herbert Spencer's work. This idea justified Edgeworth's adoption of the notion of the man as a 'pleasure machine', which was necessary to solve the maximization problems in ethics and economics; and the enlargement of the frequentist definition of probability, necessary for the development of his statistical theory.
Keywords: Francis Y. Edgeworth; probability; utilitarianism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09672560601168447 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
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:taf:eujhet:v:14:y:2007:i:1:p:79-96
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/REJH20
DOI: 10.1080/09672560601168447
Access Statistics for this article
The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought is currently edited by José Luís Cardoso
More articles in The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().