Entanglement throughout Economic Science: The End of a Separate Welfare Economics

Hilary Putnam and Vivian Walsh

Review of Political Economy, 2009, vol. 21, issue 2, 291-297

Abstract: In the 1980s, Amartya Sen (1987, p. 51) complained of 'the impoverishment of welfare economics'. By 1993, Sir Partha Dasgupta (1993, p. 71), citing Hilary Putnam, had embraced the entanglement of theory, facts and values, and presented a theoretically rigorous, factually based, and deeply ethical social welfare function, which has rich non-utilitarian ethical elements sharply distinguishing it from the old 'welfarist' construction, and which he called a social evaluation function. Those things that the 'new' welfare economics had notoriously shied away from, above all interpersonal comparisons, are in full flower in Dasgupta's concept, and he is so confident of the moral support of his colleagues in the field that he seldom discusses ethical issues. Could one ask for anything more? We believe one can, and that framing this work as a separate branch of economics called 'welfare theory' limits its reach and influence, and offers its enemies an excuse for evading its message. What is more we argue that the logical entailments of entanglement render the concept of a separate 'welfare' economics meaningless.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09538250902834087 (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:revpoe:v:21:y:2009:i:2:p:291-297

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CRPE20

DOI: 10.1080/09538250902834087

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Political Economy is currently edited by Steve Pressman and Louis-Philippe Rochon

More articles in Review of Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().