Morality and political economy from the vantage point of economics.

Abstract

Political disagreement is increasingly moral, rather than economic, in nature, raising the question how the fields of political economy and moral psychology relate to each other. While these disciplines were initially deeply intertwined, cross-disciplinary exchange became rare throughout the 20th century. More recently, the tide has shifted again-social scientists of different backgrounds recognized that morality and politico-economic outcomes influence each other in rich bidirectional ways. Because psychologists and economists possess distinct and complementary skill sets, part of this movement consists of productive "economic imperialism"-economists leveraging their empirical toolkit to test and substantiate theories from moral psychology at scale or in the wild. To illustrate this, I present two case studies of recent economics research on prominent ideas in moral psychology. First is the theory that morality is ultimately functional-that it evolved as a form of "psychological and biological police" to enforce cooperation, such as in economic production and exchange. Second is that the structure of morality shapes political views and polarization, including on economic issues such as taxation and redistribution. I conclude from these case studies that economists have much to gain from integrating more ideas from moral psychology, and that moral psychologists will be able to make an even more compelling case if they engage with research in economics.