Ethics as social science: the moral philosophy of social cooperation

Abstract

With this book, economist Leland B. Yeager grounds moral and political philosophy in the requirements of a well-functioning society, one whose members reap the gains from peaceful co-operation while pursuing their own diverse goals. The book explores the reasons an individual may have for helping to uphold such a society rather than seeking a free ride on the moral behaviour of others. A work in the tradition of Hume, Smith, Mill, von Mises, Hayek and Hazlitt, it expounds a rules or indirect version of utilitarianism. It reviews criticisms of utilitarianism in detail, as well as alternative grounds of ethics including contractarianism, rights-based doctrines, and appeals to specific intuitions. Yeager brings the insights of economics to bear on a field usually dominated by philosophers and theologians. Ethics comes across as a subject amply open to the findings of economics and the other social and natural sciences.