This paper argues that a Kantian model of decision-making, one that incorporates moral duties alongside standard preferences and constraints, can account for the complexities of actual ethical choice within a model with a single (constrained) preference ranking. Multiple utilities are required...

In this note, I respond to a recent article by Irene van Staveren (2007) in this journal, where she presents a case for virtue ethics, rather than deontology or consequentialism, as the most appropriate philosophical foundation for economics. Rather than taking issue with her positive arguments...

The authors explore Ireland’s growing involvement in the world economy. For many years, Ireland’s foreign-direct-investment-led (FDI-led) development policy was associated heavily with low-skill, dependent branch plants. However, over the past fifteen years the shift towards internationally...

This paper argues that the Pareto standard, by which policy changes are approved if they benefit at least one person and harms no one, is ethically questionable despite its nearly universal acceptance among economists and philosophers alike. As usually implemented, the Pareto standard bypasses...

This paper outlines a critique of neoclassical law and economics based on the ethics of Immanuel Kant, focusing on four central topics: efficiency as the sole evaluative criterion for policy-making, hypothetical compensation in Kaldor-Hicks efficiency, the instrumental nature of rights and the...

Common Law, as practiced around the world, permits what it doesn't prohibit. Compared to Roman Law practice, which prohibits what it doesn't permit, the Common Law makes economic innovation easy. Easy economic innovation, in turn, promotes rapid economic adaptation -- broad technological...