Bringing Ethics Back to Welfare Economics

Economists do not agree on the nature of welfare economics: is it normative or positive analysis? To overcome this disagreement and bridge the gap between the two views, the argument developed here takes two steps. The first identifies the metaethical positions of those for and those against the moral normativity of welfare economics. Metaethical positions differ on the ontology and ultimate legitimacy of morality. What appears in ethical terms as confusion can, in metaethical terms, be an attempt to arrive at an intellectually consistent position. A more constructive and less polarizing discussion on the aims and scope of welfare economics is expected once metaethical differences are accounted for. In the second step, ethical realism is introduced as a metaethical stance that views morality not in terms of subjective desires or preferences but as truth-apt claims. It is suggested that understanding the moral normativity of welfare economics in terms of ethical realism presents an opportunity to break the deadlock that halted its progress. © 2013 The Association for Social Economics

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