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Economic Sciences
Kaveh Behbahani in Conversation with Sedanet: “The Moral Underpinnings of the Critique of Capitalism: The Economy’s Need for Ethics”
The economy cannot dispense with ethics, and efficiency does not confer moral justification. Critiquing Marx's value-neutrality and relativism, Kaveh Behbahani stresses the need for a concept of telos and a return of economics to philosophy for human flourishing.
Kaveh Behbahani: In the conversation “The Moral Underpinnings of the Critique of Capitalism: The Economy’s Need for Ethics” with the cultural website Sedanet, I have sought to show that the science of economics is not without need for profound ethical reflection. I began with several principles accepted by economists (generally in liberal economies), with the intention of demonstrating that sometimes (and not always) the mere “efficiency” and “win-win” nature of transactions or economic decisions does not render that transaction or decision morally justified. Economics should not be limited merely to the non-evaluative study of “economic growth” and the increase of gross domestic product. On the other hand, with a brief look at the perspective of the epoch-making contemporary thinker Karl Marx, I have sought to show that some of Marx’s assumptions and conclusions are in fact evaluative, whereas Marx considers ethics and values to be constructs of a specific history and society, “dissolved or internally nurtured” within those particular conditions. Marx’s system of thought also requires a non-relativistic conception of ethics. In summary, the gist of this discussion can be seen as the need for the missing concept of “telos” (purpose) in the modern world. The claim is that a new understanding, which sees epistemic goods as intertwined with moral goods, must replace the value-free view of knowledge. In the discussion of economics, the question before economics should be how an economic system can lead to the flourishing and well-being of human beings. Also, this presupposition must be scrutinized, that there is an unbridgeable gap between the good in the sphere of ethics and the good in the sphere of economics. This means returning economics to the embrace of its ancient mother, philosophy.
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The Moral Underpinnings of the Critique of Capitalism: The Economy’s Need for Ethics
Held on Sedanet’s Instagram page | January 5, 2021
Watch the video on YouTube | Aparat
Listen to the audio on Anchor | Spotify
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Discussion1 comments
هر دو عزیز نکات خوبی را گفتند. آقای بهبهانی کاستی ها را گفتند و میزبان هم دشواری های راه ایشان را گفتند. میزبان کی بود؟