"经济人"与制度安排

"经济人"利己性并非理论假定,而是一个简单的事实;"经济人"利益最大化不是追求物质、金钱的最大化,是包括名誉、地位、良心以及长远利益的最大化;"经济人"涵盖十分广泛,不局限于经济领域,还涉及政府官员在内的所有劳动者;"经济人"出现利他行为时也不能排除其出于利已的动机;"经济人"的利己属性是人的基本权利,无善恶之分.对"经济人"必须设计和构建严格的制度,使正当的个人利益得到激励和保护,损害他人利益的行为得到抑制和禁止.制度安排必须遵循权利与义务对等原则,平等性、自主性、互利性原则,强化对权力约束原则,实现个人利益、他人利益、社会利益趋于一致.     

从佛教缘起的角度看"经济人"假说之不足

西方文明在"经济人"思想的引导下产生了工业革命,进而实现了现代化.但是,"经济人"思想的自利性,忽视了人与人、人与自然、人与社会的依存关系,使西方社会在实现物质文明的同时,产生了种种危机.而这些危机的解决有赖于一种新的伦理思想,以重新审视经济发展和人类存在的关系.佛教缘起观是一种从社会、个人和环境相互共生的视角,来看待社会发展的伦理思想,它对克服现代社会发展的各种片面性有积极的借鉴作用.     

试论经济人的道德

西方古典经济学认为 ,经济人的利己行为通过市场可以转化为道德行为。然而二百多年的经济实践并未证实这一理论 ,其根本的问题在于经济人的利他并不是道德意义上的利他。加强经济人的道德建设 ,是完善社会主义市场经济的迫切要求     

道德的市场与企业道德行为的合理性

古典政治经济学的经济人命题和社会达尔文主义的生物学竞争理论为道德和市场的二元分裂提供了理论支持,从而在经济领域形成了一个企业活动非道德性的神话。经济实践活动面临的各种伦理道德问题,彰显企业非道德神话的谬误。鲍曼认为当代市场经济社会是一个"道德的市场",企业作为道德人士比作为自利的"经济人"更能理想地实现自己的效用;从博弈论的观点来看,企业的道德性行为也是合乎理性的。当代市场活动对伦理道德的需求,宣告了企业非道德性神话的破灭。     

关于“经济人”假说的伦理思考

“经济人”假说是构建西方经济学大厦的重要基石 ,“经济人”是从现实生活中抽象出来 ,并不断发展变化的。经济人大体经历了古典经济人、新古典经济人、泛经济人三个发展阶段 ,不同阶段的经济人具有不同的伦理特性和科学价值。全面、辩证、动态地分析、评价经济人的伦理特性 ,对我国市场经济条件下道德建设具有重要的启迪意义。     

当前我国医患关系矛盾的原因与对策分析——对"经济人"假设的反思

从时代语境出发,对制约医患关系的"经济人"假设加以反思.指出"经济人"假设对人"自利"性的强调以悬置伦理道德属性为代价,决定了该假设不适宜作为具有"利他"性质的医患关系的指导价值观.当前医患矛盾的根源在于"经济人"假设不恰当地泛化应用.最后提出构建和谐医患关系的几点策略.     

父母的经济人信念对自身信任及儿童信任的影响

经济人信念认为人是自私的与理性的,研究者发现,经济人信念会破坏人际信任。然而,以上研究均是以大学生为被试的启动研究,限制了结论的可推广性。本研究编制了经济人信念量表,测量了351名成年被试的经济人信念及他们在投资博弈中的信任水平,以及其子女的信任水平,以考察父母的经济人信念对自身信任和其子女信任的影响。结果发现:(1)研究所编制的经济人信念量表信效度良好;(2)父母和儿童在投资博弈中均表现出了一定水平的信任;(3)父母的经济人信念能够预测其在投资博弈中的信任水平;(4)父母的经济人信念能够预测男孩在投资博弈中的投资额,主要表现为父亲的经济人信念能够负向预测男孩的投资额。     

伦理的视阈:从金融危机看"经济人"的偏执及其危机

金融危机背后所隐藏的是"经济人"的偏执及其危机,它的突出表现是工具理性的无限扩张和对"自由"的扭曲与滥用、对信用的漠视和践踏.新自由主义的市场意识形态及其极端数理化的倾向,是金融危机的始作俑者.它极大地增强了这种危机的严重性,同时也启示人们:人的发展才是经济发展和经济学研究的最高价值,为此,必须建立和发展一种新的经济价值观,强化制度伦理的建设.     

道德经济:当代经济伦理学研究的应有主题

兴起于20世纪90年代的道德经济是在企业社会责任思潮和消费者对企业社会目标的期待的双重推动之下而兴起和发展的,社会企业的蓬勃发展是其兴起和发展的典型表征。以研究人们经济活动中的伦理道德问题为宗旨的经济伦理学应该把道德经济纳入其中并赋以主题地位,而道德经济也可以展现经济伦理学为经济发展创设价值目标的学科价值,丰富它的研究内容,为它合理指导经济决策提供新思路,从而构成经济伦理学现实化的实践平台。与社会学、人类学、历史学不同的是,经济伦理学研究道德经济建立在经济主体是"经济人"与"道德人"相统一的理论假设之上,以历史唯物主义方法和价值分析法研究道德经济。     

消费维权的效益分析

随着社会主义市场经济的不断发展,一些与社会主义市场精神不相吻合的现象开始暴露出来,其中之一就是消费者消极维权现象.本文试图以"经济人"假设作为理论前提,以维权效益作为理论切入点,分析寻找消费者消极维权现象的原因及其对策.     

经济伦理冲突与经济伦理学困境

市场经济的道德性神话比它的非道德性神话更偏离事实,如果我们从市场经济是道德经济这一假设前提来研究经济伦理学,经济伦理学就会陷入自相矛盾的困境。在现代市场经济中,经济与伦理的冲突是大量的、必然的、不以人的意志为转移的。经济伦理学的真正任务是揭示二者冲突的必然性根据和根源,在二者的冲突中权衡和选择,借助法律在二者冲突之间形成必要的张力,最终找到缓解直至消融二者冲突的出路。     

Economic Consciousness

Human Studies - In this article, I propose four considerations that might frame a history of economic consciousness from the pre-modern oikonomia to the modern economy. (1) Before the economy...     

Economic Envy

Envy of others' material possessions is a potent motivator of consumerism. This makes it a prudentially and morally hazardous emotional response. After outlining these hazards, I present an analysis of the emotion of envy. Envy, I argue, presents things in the following way: the envier lacks some good that her rival possesses; this difference between them is bad for the envier; this difference reflects poorly on the envier's worth; and this difference is undeserved. I then discuss the conditions under which these presentations can be satisfied by differences in material possessions. My conclusion is that no difference in material possessions can simultaneously be all the ways envy presents it as being. Consequently, economic envy is systematically irrational: it is never a warranted response to the distribution of material wealth. Recognising this bolsters the prudential and moral case for reducing the degree to which we feel it and for resisting the inclinations it gives rise to when we do.     

The Economic Sphere

Herman Dooyeweerd (1985) argued that among the modalities making up the fabric of reality a specifically economic one is to be found. The aim of the present paper is to discuss the texture of such a modality and how it both differentiates and intertwines with others. For an updated brief, albeit cogent and analytically lucid presentation of the Law Framework ontology, see Clouser (2009). Dooyeweerd’s view entails that the proper object of economics is irreducible to that of other disciplines, but a non-reductionist view of the object of economics presupposes that the nuclear meaning of that discipline has been clearly delimited: this is required in order to determine its nature and separate identity as a scientific discipline. By ‘the nuclear meaning of a discipline’ I understand a pre-theoretical delimitation of its field of research, such as that of the field of physics, characterized by the laws governing force and energy. Within one and the same field there may be many theories, theories competing to explain the same phenomena, or dealing with phenomena so different that it is nearly impossible to trace conceptual connections among them. This last situation calls for a unified-field theory. In the second section of this paper I will attempt to defend a rather commonly accepted definition of the field of economics that sees this discipline as a science of choice. In the third I will show how the analytical conception it involves can be naturally complemented with a classificatory one. According to a classificatory conception, the aggregated social-level phenomena, patterns and regularities economic theories usually deal with, are economic in that sense, even though they are not prima facie cases of individual behavior, or are unintended consequences of aggregated individual choices. In the fourth I will discuss the meaning of the most general, supra-arbitrary economic laws—the modal laws of economics. In the final section I will offer a non-reductionist view of economics that nevertheless takes into account its intertwining with other spheres.     

Rethinking Economic Inequality

Secular discourse about problem of economic inequality rests on two foundational premises that are problematic from a theological point of view. First, individuals enter into society with the aim of bettering their own condition. Second, bettering one's own condition entails accruing more wealth and power so that one can fulfill more of one's desires. In this paper I argue that insofar as these premises shape market behavior, they actively promote excessive economic inequality. Ethical responses to the problem of economic inequality that do not challenge these assumptions are unlikely to effectively promote justice. A theological response to the problem of economic inequality should work to promote cultural change by reminding us that genuine human flourishing depends on communal ties and the higher human goods that material wealth is properly meant to support.     

The Evolution of Social Ethics: Using Economic History to Understand Economic Ethics

In the development of Roman Catholic social thought from the teachings of the scholastics to the modern social encyclicals, changes in normative economics reflect the transformation of an economic terrain from its feudal roots to the modern industrial economy. The preeminence accorded by the modern market to the allocative over the distributive function of price broke the convenient convergence of commutative and distributive justice in scholastic just price theory. Furthermore, the loss of custom, law, and usage in defining the boundaries of economic behavior led to a depersonalization of economic relationships that had previously provided effective informal means of protecting individual well-being. Hence, recent economic ethics has had to look for nonprice, nonmarket mechanisms for distributive justice. This is reflected, for example, in the shift in attitude from the medieval antipathy toward unions to the contemporary defense of organized labor on moral grounds.     

布坎南经济正义论

布坎南经济正义理论主要包括四个方面的内容即,契约式双赢是经济正义的宗旨、程序上起点平等为分配正义的核心理念、宪政是经济正义的维护并在此基础上对经济正义进行了推扩。     

The Economic Model of Forgiveness

It is sometimes claimed that forgiveness involves the cancellation of a moral debt. This way of speaking about forgiveness exploits an analogy between moral forgiveness and economic debt‐cancellation. Call the view that moral forgiveness is like economic debt‐cancellation the Economic Model of Forgiveness. In this article I articulate and motivate the model, defend it against some recent objections, and pose a new puzzle for this way of thinking about forgiveness.     

Economic Antecedents of Foster Care

Individual and ecological research suggests that rising unemployment may affect the incidence of violence through two countervailing mechanisms suggested by frustration–aggression theory. The first, or provocation effect, assumes increased violence among persons who feel anger because they believe their job loss was arbitrary. The second, or inhibition effect, posits less violence among employed persons who attempt to reduce their chances of job loss by curtailing behavior objectionable to employers. The literature also reports that these mechanisms affect victimization measured as foster care sought by the state for abused children. The foster care finding, although consistent with theory and important for basic as well as applied reasons, arises from methods that cannot rule out several rival hypotheses. We revisit this research and apply improved methods to test the reported association in Los Angeles and San Francisco counties. We find that, as implied by the provocation and inhibition mechanisms, differences in monthly prevalence of foster care placements increase with modest increases in unemployment but decline when unemployment becomes much higher than usual levels.