TY - CHAP
T1 - How (Not) to Connect Ethics and Economics
T2 - Epistemological and Metaethical Problems for the Perfectly Competitive Market
AU - Safarlou, Caspar
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This paper addresses Joseph Heath’s attempt to derive moral obligations from the conditions that are specified by the model of the perfectly competitive market. Through his market failures approach to business ethics he argues that firms should behave as if they are operating in a perfectly competitive market. However, I argue that this derivation of moral obligations runs counter to the metaethical principle that moral actions need to be voluntarily chosen from a set of alternatives. To the extent that Milton Friedman’s derivation follows the same lines, my objection is also applicable to his approach to business ethics. I bring out the fact that the conditions required by the model of the perfectly competitive market cannot be realized in the actual world and argue that this causes problems for any moral obligations that might follow. My objection is illustrated by an intuitive example of someone set to an impossible task. I also bring in a way that Heath could work around this objection, but I argue that this would imply the collapse of his approach into another kind of theory that he wishes to distinguish himself from. More deeply, I show that my metaethical objection has epistemological consequences that undermine the very basis of the model of the perfectly competitive market. I conclude by stating that we need a different conception of competition, pointing to the facts that such a perspective would need to take into account, and suggesting that the concept of rivalry is up to the job.
AB - This paper addresses Joseph Heath’s attempt to derive moral obligations from the conditions that are specified by the model of the perfectly competitive market. Through his market failures approach to business ethics he argues that firms should behave as if they are operating in a perfectly competitive market. However, I argue that this derivation of moral obligations runs counter to the metaethical principle that moral actions need to be voluntarily chosen from a set of alternatives. To the extent that Milton Friedman’s derivation follows the same lines, my objection is also applicable to his approach to business ethics. I bring out the fact that the conditions required by the model of the perfectly competitive market cannot be realized in the actual world and argue that this causes problems for any moral obligations that might follow. My objection is illustrated by an intuitive example of someone set to an impossible task. I also bring in a way that Heath could work around this objection, but I argue that this would imply the collapse of his approach into another kind of theory that he wishes to distinguish himself from. More deeply, I show that my metaethical objection has epistemological consequences that undermine the very basis of the model of the perfectly competitive market. I conclude by stating that we need a different conception of competition, pointing to the facts that such a perspective would need to take into account, and suggesting that the concept of rivalry is up to the job.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85119105380&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-52673-3_6
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-52673-3_6
M3 - Chapter
SN - 978-3-030-52672-6
VL - 6
T3 - Virtues and Economics
SP - 91
EP - 101
BT - Words, Objects and Events in Economics
A2 - Róna, Peter
A2 - Zsolnai, László
A2 - Wincewicz-Price, Agnieszka
PB - Springer
CY - Cham
ER -