Abstract
Economists who study Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics may not appreciate fully significance of his pious asides and prim moralisings (Shove, 1942, p. 316). Whitaker explained Some Neglected Aspects of Alfred Marshall's Economic and Social Thought, including Marshall's systematic views on human character and motivation as related to economic, social, and political life (Whitaker, 1977, p. 161). Yet, economists will not comprehend fully revolutionizing impact of Marshall's book if they confine their attention to views of economists, both his contemporaries and ours. Marshall's Principles not only changed technical and theoretical aspects of economics, but also its standing in eyes of Britain's ethicists. Marshall's intellectual development, his passage from ethics into economics, reveals source of his pious asides and prim moralisings. read Kant in 1868 and confessed that Kant was the only man I ever worshipped (Keynes, 1925, pp. 10-11). Hegel's Philosophy of History greatly influenced too during 1870's (Keynes, 1925, p. 11). While British idealism also drew on Kantian-Hegelian philosophical tradition, Marshall never departed explicitly from Utilitarian ideas which dominated generation of economists which preceded (Keynes, 1925, p. 9). Marshall's interest in ethics led him to join Cambridge Ethical Society at its founding in 1888, and he remained a member until its demise in 1897. Since he is listed as a member of Society's first and last
Published Version
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