Ethics and Economics Education
Moral foundations, economic principles, & critical thinking
All wealth comes from production and exchange: making and trading goods and services. The two are closely related: the more you trade, the more you’re able to produce. How does that work? Through the magic of specialization. When you trade, you’re able to specialize in your comparative advantage, that is, what you can do relatively cheaply compared to everyone else. […]
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This week in Ethics & Economics Challenge, we read part of Frederic Bastiat’s satirical essay, “The Candlemakers’ Petition.” In it, the French “petitioners” seek a new law forcing everyone to block sunlight out of buildings. As a result of the law, people will have to buy lots of candles and candelabras, creating a “multiplier effect” that will result in more […]
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Paternalism can be defined simply as the use of coercion (force) against someone for that person’s own good. For instance, slapping a cigarette out of someone’s hand while yelling, “Smoking is bad for you!” would be an exercise of vigilante paternalism. John Stuart Mill argued in On Liberty that paternalism of this kind is wrong. A person’s own good is […]
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My last post on whether generous action is an enforceable moral duty leads naturally into the question of whether there can be “rights to do wrong.” To recap, Adam Smith says that being a generous, beneficent person is a good way of living that an impartial spectator approves of. If you never do good things for people, you haven’t committed […]
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