Introduction

pp. 1-16

in: Peter Koslowski, Principles of ethical economy, Berlin, Springer, 2001

Abstract

The ordering of the economy and society must make use of both the strongest and the best of human motives. Economics, since its beginnings as an independent science, has assumed as its starting point the strongest of human motives: self-interest. Philosophical ethics has traditionally aimed at what is considered the best of human motives: striving for the good, performance of duty, the attainment of virtue. If economic theory analyzes and designs social institutions and rules of action on the basis of self-interest, and if ethical theory provides arguments for institutions and norms that are to provide opportunities for the best of human motives to develop and to be fully realized, then both disciplines are concerned with the same subject matter: the acting human person and the coordination of rational actions.