Drawing on Adam Smith's "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" I suggest analysing and further developing my hypothesis that deception is inevitable in the social setting. Smith's agents, who constantly deceive themselves because they cannot look impartially at themselves and others, are compared to...

While Jevons is well known for his analysis on pure economics his contributions to a broader conception of welfare including a social aspect has attracted less attention. However, from a history of economic thought perspective, these contributions have a twofold benefit: on the one hand, they...

Leading researchers, such as Elster or Hirschman, have put forward the notion of deliberation. They argue of the major importance of deliberation in understanding democracy. However, economic theory doesn't have much to say on deliberation. We argue that this weakness is inherent with the way of...