Ethics as social science

The author explores overlaps between economics and ethics. A society's moral climate conditions its degree of economic development and prosperity. Policy recommendations necessarily rest on normative as well as positive judgments. Social science contributes to posing and answering questions about the nature and grounding of ethical precepts. Pursuing these questions leads to an "indirect utilitarianism" incorporating insights of David Hume, Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt, and F. A. Hayek. Criticisms of this approach are answered, including charges that it is collectivistically aggregative, is vacuous, makes a fetish of rules, and encourages immoralities illustrated by "lifeboat cases". Alternatives to it are also appraised, including the natural-rights and "contractarian" approaches that have found favor with prominent economists. Presidential Address at the Fortieth International Atlantic Economic Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia, October 8–11, 1995.