Book Series: Economics as a Moral Science

Economics as a Moral Science, 2017

• Covers ethical issues of economics from individual and organizational to societal and global level
• Deals with both theoretical issues as well as practical ones related to business and globalization
• Brings together a group of top scholars from Cambridge, Oxford, Leuven and elsewhere on the much debated issue of the ethical content of economics

Papers included in the volume

• Why Economics Is a Moral Science, Peter Rona
• Issues and Themes in Moral Economics, Laszlo Zsolnai
• Economics as if Ethics Mattered, Stefano Zamagni
• Teleological Reasoning in Economics, Luk Bouckaert
• Economic Rationality Versus Human Reason, Laszlo Zsolnai
• Rediscovering a Personalist Economy, Hendrik Opdebeeck
• Happiness and Human Flourishing, Knut J. Ims
• Understanding Financial Crises: The Contribution of the Philosophy of Money, Antoon Vandevelde
• Economics and Vulnerability: Relationships, Incentives, Meritocracy, Luigino Bruni
• Ethics, Economics and the Corporation, Peter Rona
• Are Business Ethics Relevant?, David W. Miller, Michael J. Thate
• Economy of Mutuality, Kevin T. Jackson
• Economic Wisdom for Managerial Decision-Making, Mike Thompson
• Catholic Social Thought and Amartya Sen on Justice, Johan Verstraeten
• The Theological Virtue of Charity in the Economy: Reflections on “Caritas in veritate”, Helen Alford
• Ethics of Development in the Age of Globalization, Zsolt Boda
• Transdisciplinarity Governance and the Common Good, François Lépineux, Jean-Jacques Rosé
• Agenda for Future Research and Action, Peter Rona, Laszlo Zsolnai

Art, Spirituality and Economics, 2018

• Celebrates Laszlo Zsolnai’s significant contributions to the connection between ethics, spirituality, aesthetics and economic theory
• Includes essays concerned with the ethical, spiritual and aesthetic context
• Presents the economic activities of human beings as a part of the human desire for the Aristotelian good life

Papers included in the volume:

• Laszlo Zsolnai, Friend and Moral Scientist, Luk Bouckaert, Knut J. Ims, Peter Rona
• The Essential, the Beautiful and the Economic: The Brotzeit by Eduard Grützner and Zsolnai’s Philosophy, Carlos Hoevel
• The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci and the Links to Food, Conviviality, Sharing, and Spirituality, Antonio Tencati
• A Dog. Just a Dog, Josep M. Lozano
• The Light of the World, Katalin Illes
• Friedensreich Hundertwasser – The Five Skins of the Ecological Man, Ove Jakobsen, Vivi M. L. Storsletten
• Antarctica – Nature’s Awesome Artwork, Eleanor O’Higgins
• Az Öreg Halász (The Old Fisherman): An Essay for Zsolnai László, Mike Thompson
• From Ethics to Spirituality: Laszlo Zsolnai on Human Motivations, Zsolt Boda
• Angels from the Future. The Voice of Coming Generations, Luk Bouckaert, Rita Ghesquiere
• The Aesthetics of Energy Resilience, Paul Shrivastava
• On the Experience of Beauty in Nature, in Mathematics and Science, and in Spirituality, Peter Pruzan
• Management and Liberal Arts: A Transformational Odyssey with Rabindranath Tagore, Sanjoy Mukherjee
• The Capitalistic Religion: Old Questions, New Insights, Luigino Bruni
• Nature, Economics, and Scream, Knut J. Ims
• The Idea of Corporate Social Responsibility and the Responses of Economic Theory, Stefano Zamagni
• What Can Sense Making Economies Learn from the GNH of Bhutan?, Hendrik Opdebeeck
• Innovation in the Intervention into Nature by Legal Means, Dániel Deák

Economic Objects and the Objects of Economics, 2018

• Demonstrates that the ontology of mainstream economics is rather simplistic and hence misleading
• Argues for a richer, more realistic ontology for economics which may lead to better economic practices and policies serving human flourishing in sustainable ways
• Brings together leading economists and other social scientists to analyse and critically evaluate the ontological issues in economics

Papers included in the volume:

• Ontology and Economics, Peter Róna
• Objects of Nature and Objects of Thought, Peter Róna
• Positioning and the Nature of Social Objects, Stephen Pratten
• Central Fallacies of Modern Economics, Tony Lawson
• Social Scientific Naturalism Revisited, Daniel M. Hausman
• Is Economics a Moral Science?, David Colander
• New Theoretical City or Dispersed Tribes? An Exploration Journey through Contemporary Heterodox Economics and Methodology, Carlos Hoevel
• Rational Choice Theory and Backward-Looking Motives, Roger Teichmann
• Time-Value in Economics, Kevin T. Jackson
• The Crucial Role of Reactivity in Economic Science, Bruno S. Frey
• Economic Actors and the Ultimate Goal of the Economy, László Zsolnai
• How Does the Methodology of Neoclassical Economics Eliminate the Question of Fairness?, Zoltán Pogátsa
• Economics Is a Moral Science: A Value Based Approach, Arjo Klamer
• Postscript on Ontology and Economics, Peter Róna

The Economy of Salvation: Ethical and Anthropological Foundations of Market Relations in the First Two Books of the Bible, 2019

• First book concerned with a detailed examination of faith-based economic and social relations in the first two Books of the Bible
• Examines the Biblical foundations for a conception of social relations and sets it against secular notions
• Offers a reading of some issues relevant for to-day economic and social life

Papers included in the volume:

• Saving Glances in Times of Exile
• Counterparts – From the Very Beginning
• The Way Home: Inhabiting the Realm of the Human
• We Are All Abel’s Heirs
• And Noah Rebuilt the Rainbow
• Heaven Is Not Above Babel
• Towards the Land of the Children
• Hagar and Her Many Sisters
• Faithfulness Throughout the Unexpected
• The Promise Has No Owners
• The Word that’s Irreplaceable
• The Gate of Heaven Is a Voice
• The Way: To State and Cultivate the Alliance
• Forgiving Is a Blessing Struggle
• Why the World Doesn’t End
• Full of Days but not Fulfilled Any More
• The Gift of the Dreamy Brother
• The Word that Upturns the World
• Without Price or Clamour
• At the End of the Night – and After
• Love Does Not Give in to Power
• Enriching Cries
• Thorn Bushes and Liberations
• Where Real Freedom Begins
• Loyalty Makes Even the Sky Open
• The Plagues of Our Invisible Empires
• The Greatest Liberation
• Gratuitousness Speaks
• Salvation Is Dance and Eyes
• The Law of Daily Bread
• The Different Words of Equals
• Words of Heaven and Earth
• The Only True Image
• The Dowry of the Earth Is Pure Gift
• The Treasure of the Seventh Day
• The Desire to Entrap God
• The Weight of Common Words
• The Back and the Face of God
• The Veil that Reveals the False Ones
• Work Is Already the Promised Land
• No Liberator Is Crowned King

Agency and Causal Explanation in Economics, 2020

Open Access publication

• Provides an exploration of the consequences of the ontological differences between natural and social objects
• Examines theories historically offered with respect to social causation and agency and proposes and defends some alternatives
• Stipulates the fundamental differences in causality in nature as compared to social life with particular regard to economics

Papers included in the volume:

• Free Will & Empirical Arguments for Epiphenomenalism, Nadine Elzein
• Causality, Agency and Change, Stephen Pratten
• How Economics Becomes Ideology: The Uses and Abuses of Rational Choice Theory, Jason Blakely
• Economics, Agency, and Causal Explanation, William Child
• Causation and Agency, Peter Róna
• Why Aquinas Would Agree That Human Economic Behaviour Is Largely Predictable, Richard Conrad, Peter Hunter
• Agency, Time and Morality: An Argument from Social and Economic Anthropology, Paul Clough
• The Switch from Agency to Causation in Marx, Scott Meikle
• The Morphogenetic Approach; Critical Realism’s Explanatory Framework Approach, Margaret Scotford Archer
• ‘God Created Man ???????????’: Grotius’s Theological Anthropology and Modern Contract Doctrine, Jonathan Price

Words, Objects and Events in Economics, 2021

• Examines the Problem of Descriptive Adequacy in Economic Theory Including the Limits of Simplification of Reality Required by Modeling
• Raises Questions of How Theories of the Economy be to Provide Space for Moral Considerations
• Asks the Important Questions about the Role of Economic Theory

Papers included in the volume:

• Made with Words, Peter Róna
• An Essay on Humble Economics, Lukasz Hardt
• What Is Economics for?, Brendan Hogan
• Should Economics Make a Pragmatic Turn? John Dewey, Karl Polanyi, and Critique of Economic Naturalism, Maciej Kassner
• Moral Economics – A Theoretical Basis for Building the Next Economic System, Zsófia Hajnal
• How (Not) to Connect Ethics and Economics: Epistemological and Metaethical Problems for the Perfectly Competitive Market, Caspar Willem Safarlou
• Research Ethics in Economics: What If Economists and Their Subjects Are Not Rational?, Altug Yalcintas, Eylül Seren Kösel
• Economic Choice Revisited: Lessons from Pre-modern Thinkers, Agnieszka Wincewicz-Price
• Between Individual and Collective Rationality, Anna Horodecka, Liudmyla Vozna
• Naturalisation of Normative Economics, Marcin Gorazda
• Beyond Mere Utility-Maximisation. Towards an Axiologically Enriched Account of Well-being, Tomasz Kwarci?ski, Wojciech Za?uski
• Identity Theories in Economics: A Phenomenological Approach, Ivana Anton Mlinar, Ricardo F. Crespo
• Temporal Structures of Justification in the Economic Analysis of Law: Legal Philosophy and Free Will, Kevin Jackson