"Lord Layard recently suggested in a series of lectures at the LSE that economists should be concerned with developing policies to maximise human happiness. His bold resurrection of the Benthamite school invites the most forceful criticism that can be levelled against naÔve utilitarianism."...

"Institutions, customs, laws are often, and sometimes implausibly, credited with efficiency. They serve a good purpose and if they had not arisen, we would have invented them. The claim is reassuring, though it may be no more than a pious lie. The creation of the state by social contract, and...

Liberal justice is rooted in a system of conventions. They arise spontaneously as behavioural equilibria that bring mutual advantage to those adopting them. They protect life, limb, property and the pursuit of peaceful purposes, and require the fulfilment of reciprocal promises. Collective...