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Character Issues PDF Print E-mail

MacfieMacfie

“Our general theme must then be that there is a characteristic Scottish attitude and method which is important in the history of economic thought. It may be called the philosophical approach, though many of us may prefer to call it, equally aptly, the social approach. This is not the dominant approach today in academic teaching—the scientific or analytical method holds that place everywhere—but in Scotland the traditional approach is still alive and influential.”

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Quote of the Day

...It is too clearly indefensible to treat “happiness” or the “good life” for the individual as a definable end to be achieved by a definite technique....

[ Full Quote ]

"My own view of the social-economic policy is not greatly concerned with the notion of treating the individual satisfaction-function as a welfare-function and proceeding to the notion of a social maximum in terms of some relation between individual maxima. It is too clearly indefensible to treat “happiness” or the “good life” for the individual as a definable end to be achieved by a definite technique; and even more indefensible to view the objective of social-economic policy in terms of the amount and distribution of measurable impersonal goods and services. Wealth and poverty are terribly important things, but that view of their significance seems to me an absurd over-simplication. Freedom itself, as a value per se, if far more important."

Frank H. Knight. The Role of Principles in Economics and Politics. Presidential Address delivered at the 62nd annual meeting of the American Economic Association, Chicago, 1950, published in American Economic Review 41(1), March 1951: 1-29; quote on p. 17-18.