Widening the perimeter: economics, philosophy, ethics and the quest for vital questions

A. Tsioumanis

Widening the perimeter: economics, philosophy, ethics and the quest for vital questions

In: Global food security: ethical and legal challenges

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A. Tsioumanis

A. Tsioumanis Democritus University of Thrace, Department of Agricultural Development, Lahana 31, 54638, Thessaloniki, Greece; steriost@auth.gr

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 471–477

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.3920/9789086867103_079

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Scientific information always includes some degree of uncertainty and furthermore it is dynamic in the sense that via time, mainstream theories that were considered true for centuries were proved to be wrong. This inherent mortality of human knowledge means that emerging knowledge often presupposes the deconstruction of previous scientific ‘truths’. Moving away from physical sciences towards social ones, considerations on the essence of scientific knowledge by no means decrease. It is very hard to see any parallels between ‘economic laws’ and ‘laws of nature’ and the centrality of any laws in economics should be questioned as they usually constitute mere causal mechanisms. Economics is often proclaimed to be a value-free science, presented as a technical issue of selecting among limited means of production in order to achieve given goals. However, this division among goals and means to achieve them is a serious, existing – as opposed to just methodological – mistake and lies in the heart of all existing debates on the predominance of science on decision making as well as on the inherent logic of economics seen as simply a technique of selection. Goals and means of a given society, of a specific economic system are highly homogenous. A given society will use its means in order to achieve its goals but, at the same time in a frantic circle, its goals will be nothing more than the steady produce of its means. It can not be otherwise as the goals are embedded in the very material existence, nature and organisation of the means. While it seems absurd to assess an economic investment via philosophical arguments, it is equally misleading to ignore that all tools and suppositions of economics are based on normative assumptions about the good human life and the proper societal structure. These influence directly all relating policy recommendations. It is not difficult to discern for example that ‘efficiency’ has precedence over ‘equity’ only in a non-egalitarian context and one does not need to turn to Aristotle and his conception of the good human life in order to question the very basis of the rat race that is apparent in modern human societies. Always leaving open the issue of alternatives in every single answer we have gathered so far, it may be time to ask a different set of questions altogether.

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Global food security: ethical and legal challenges

E-Book ISBN:: 9789086867103

Publisher:: Wageningen Academic

Print Publication Date:: 30 Oct 2010

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- Life Sciences

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Widening the perimeter: economics, philosophy, ethics and the quest for vital questions

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Global food security: ethical and legal challenges

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