Introduction

Abstract

‘Moral economy’ is a form of inquiry that examines how ordinary economic practices and relationships embody or affect moral dispositions, evaluations, rules, values, customs and norms. Although ethical concerns, responsibilities and encounters pervade our daily life, often political economists reduce them to personal tastes, fixed preferences, vested interests, social conventions or political ideologies, as if everyday practices were an unreflexive process (Sayer, 2000). The following three papers on moral economy challenge orthodox economics and are critical of disciplinary boundaries. We discuss what moral questions arise from the expansion and the structure of the commercial economy, and what counts as human well-being and development. The three papers on development economics and moral economy were presented at a conference on Perspectives on Moral Economy organised by Andrew Sayer at Lancaster University in 2005. The conference explored moral economy from different disciplinary and transdisciplinary points of view. Normativity is implicit in social sciences but requires better understanding and theorising, and we attempt this by undertaking a broad analytical and empirical inquiry into social practices and relationships in developing countries.