The fate of moral philosophy in the age of economic scientism

In ‘The fate of moral philosophy in the age of economic scientism’, Peter Boettke notes that since at least 2010 economists have been engaged in serious self-reflection about the teaching and practice of economics. Various initiatives have been pursued to make economics as a discipline more diverse and inclusive in its representation of voices and positions. Professor Boettke joins that chorus and makes an argument that scientism kills science and that our best hope for the discipline is to move in the direction of the grand tradition of political economy as practised from Adam Smith to J.S. Mill. In making this move, economics would instead be a philosophical science with the goal of achieving social understanding and would eschew the pursuit of economics as an engineering science that seeks social control.

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