SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

This essay discusses the origins, biases, and effects on contemporary discussions of economics and ethics of the unexamined use of the metaphor "an economy is a machine." The neoliberal view that the self-regulated workings of free markets should be kept free of impediments is based on this metaphor. Many of the critiques of capitalist systems are, as well. The belief that economists simply uncover universal "laws of motion" of economies, however, is shown to be based on a variety of rationalist thinking that-while widely held-is inadequate for explaining lived human experience. Feminist scholarship in philosophy of science and economics has brought to light some of the biases that have supported the mechanistic worldview. By structuring thought and...

Beyond Small-Is-Beautiful: A Buddhist and Feminist Analysis of Ethics and Business

Palavras-chave: Institutional and Behavioral Economics.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/15585

Buddhist philosophy teaches a thoroughly relational ontology, holding that what really is are relations and processes enfolding out of a common substrate though time. Often, however, attempts to apply Buddhist thinking to economic issues seem to forget this. Corporations and markets are described in the language of substantive structures and impersonal mechanisms, rather than in relational and process terms. This essay argues that a thorough-going Buddhist analysis, supplemented by contemporary insights from feminist theory, yields a relational understanding of business firms and markets that can help move debates about ethics and business beyond issues of scale.

Economists, Value Judgments, and Climate Change: A View From Feminist Economics

Palavras-chave: Institutional and Behavioral Economics.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/15578

A number of recent discussions about ethical issues in climate change, as engaged in by economists, have focused on the value of the parameter representing the rate of time preference within models of optimal growth. This essay examines many economists’ antipathy to serious discussion of ethical matters, and suggests that the avoidance of questions of intergenerational equity is related to another set of value judgments concerning the quality and objectivity of economic practice. Using insights from feminist philosophy of science and research on high reliability organizations, this essay argues that a more ethically transparent, real-world-oriented, and flexible economic practice would lead to more strongly objective, reliable, and useful knowledge.

Rationality and Humanity: A View from Feminist Economics

Palavras-chave: Environmental Economics and Policy; Industrial Organization; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Political Economy; Public Economics; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/37280

Does Rational Choice Theory (RCT) have something important to contribute to the humanities? Jon Elster and others answer affirmatively, arguing that RCT is a powerful tool that will lend clarity and rigor to work in the humanities just as it (presumably) has in economics. This essay examines the disciplinary values according to which the application of RCT in economics has been judged a "success," and suggests that this value system does not deserve general approbation. Richness and realism must be retained as important values alongside precision and elegance, if anti-scientific dogmatism and absurd conclusions are to be avoided.

Is Economics a Natural Science?

Palavras-chave: Institutional and Behavioral Economics.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/15596

Advocates of a more socially responsible discipline of economics often emphasize the purposive and unpredictable nature of human economic behavior, contrasting this to the presumably deterministic behavior of natural forces. This essay argues that such a distinction between "social" and "natural" sciences is in fact counterproductive, especially when issues of ecological sustainability are concerned. What is needed instead is a better notion of science-"science-with-wonder"-which grounds serious science in relational, non-Newtonian thinking.

Ethics and International Debt: A View from Feminist Economics

Palavras-chave: Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/15589

Feminist scholars examine not only the gendered impacts of development programs whose design has been influenced by disciplines such as economics, but also the gendered biases that permeate the models and methods of the disciplines themselves. This essay draws on aspects of feminist critiques of economics, philosophy, psychology, law, and finance to analyze the way in which international debt is discussed. Feminist critiques raise serious questions about the rational choice framework that often undergirds scholarly discussions of “agents,” “contract,” “ethics,” and “capital and debt.”

Teaching Ecological and Feminist Economics in the Principles Course

Palavras-chave: Food Security and Poverty; International Development; International Relations/Trade.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/37708

Goodwin, Neva R.; Nelson, Julie A..

It can be difficult to incorporate ecological and feminist concerns into introductory courses based on neoclassical analysis. We have faced these issues head-on as we have worked on writing introductory economics textbooks, Microeconomics in Context (Goodwin, Nelson, Ackerman and Weisskopf, 2005) and Macroeconomics in Context (in progress). In this essay, we will describe how we have modified the introductory curriculum to encompass these perspectives.