Economic Philosophy, Social Justice, and Normative Economics: Notes on Rawls’s Role

Philosophie économique, justice sociale et économie normative: remarques sur le rôle de Rawls

Jean-Sébastien Gharbi

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Abstract: It could seem tempting to present the publication of Rawls' A theory of Justice (1971) as being at the origin, on the one had, of the revival of normative economics and, on the other hand, of the birth of non welfarist approach in economics. However, the question of the initiator of these two movements is not so easy to resolve and it is interesting in an economic philosophy perspective. It is interesting because it questions the possibility that the economist's works could be oriented from the outside. It is not easy to resolve because it assumes a subtle understanding of the social choice problem as Arrow puts it (1950, 1951) and the entire command of contemporary economics' tools. In this paper, we defend the idea that it would be wrong to present Rawls as the initiator of the revival of normative economics and of the non welfarist approach in economics. We conclude, in a clearly prospective and exploratory way, in trying to highlight some relations between philosophy and economics and their implications on the meaning of the expression "economics philosophy".

Keywords: Normative Economics; Social Justice; Economic Philosophy; Rawls; économie normative; justice sociale; philosophie économique (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-11
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Published in Cahiers d'Economie Politique = Papers in political economy, 2013, 65, pp.37-67. ⟨10.3917/cep.065.0037⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01498272

DOI: 10.3917/cep.065.0037

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