A few thoughts on Sen

1. In his article, Sen addresses the lacuna of literature regarding ethics and economics. Yet, it is not clear to me what he believes, or what I should believe, this ethical economics should look like. People take a liking to the “engineering” economic model because of its simplistic nature and explanatory power: the market calls for transactions which raise one person’s well-being without lowering another person’s well-being. My questions to Sen (which he may answer at a later time, to give him the benefit of the doubt) include: How do you decide whose well-being to maximize in a given situation? How do you decide if it is okay to lower another person’s well-being? What happens if one person’s well-being is lowered while more than one person’s well-being is raised, and vice versa? What does an ethical transaction look like in a world of ethics and economics? How does justice fit into a model of ethical economics? While I do not believe Sen’s aim is to have the answers to these questions all figured out, I do think that these are the questions we have to consider to in order to fulfill his call for a reinvigoration of ethics and economics.

2. Furthermore, I agree with Sen that “self-interest” is too narrowly defined in current engineering economics. In addition to Sen’s remarks questioning, “whether self-interest alone drives human beings” (19), I also see another issue with self-interest.  Self-interest has been taken to mean to the benefit of oneself, specifically with regards to material wealth. If we expand the definition of self-interest to include interests relating to one’s own moral views, emotions, and relationships, we might get a more accurate definition of self-interest and its role as a motivating factor in a free market.

3. To return to point 1, while I really want to believe Sen’s argument, he does not make a direct appeal as to why one should realign economics with ethics. He only claims “economics, as it has emerged, can be made more productive by paying greater and more explicit attention to the ethical considerations that shape human behavior and judgment” (9). In other words, economics is losing out because it narrows actions in a free market that only relate to maximizing one’s self-interest. He further critiques the starting points which modern economics accepts as true, such as a model of rationality, rationality as consistency and rationality and self-interest. Yet, it is unclear to me what exact loss Sen is referring to. He claims that economics should come back to its ethics-related origins and attempt to answer “how should one live?” (2). If there is no answer to this question, though, I do not see how we can effectively analyze transactions in the economy as just or good. However, I believe this is a relevant question worth asking; the current view of economics is insufficient as it perpetuates many seemingly “unethical” outcomes, such as vast inequalities and injustices.