Practical Reasoning in Economic Affairs

RICARDO CRESPO

Coimbra

Simposio; Second CES International Seminar on the Foundations of Economics, Facts, Values and Objectivity; 2010

CES

The French philosopher of science Gilles-Gaston Granger (1992) has explained that in the domain of Economics we must take into account the three aspects of economic rationality if we want to do a correct and complete analysis. According to him, these three aspects are the epistemic (or theoretical), the technical and the axiological (or practical). Epistemic rationality refers to the logic of the description or knowledge of facts; technical rationality to the adequacy of means in order to achieve the ends; and axiological rationality to the reasonability and coherence of the ends. In recent times, we observe a growing conscience of the relevance of the axiological rationality for economics, which had been almost completely left aside during the last Century. Anthony Atkinson in an article suggestively entitled “Economics as a Moral Science” (2009: 794) contends that, although absent of nowadays economics literature, economists have not cease of making welfare statements, not confining themselves to positive statements. One of the examples he put is the Human Development Index (HDI), constructed and published by the UN Development Program (UNDP) in its Annual Development Report (HDR). The HDI has epistemic, technical and axiological aspects. There is a logic way of knowing and building the Index, a best way of achieving the decided ends, and also a (sometimes “under-defined”, “under-argued” or hidden) rationale for defining these ends and their relative weights. This last rationale is the concern of this workshop. The HDI will be then be an occasion to discuss whether we, as economists, should try to intervene –and in which way– in the definition of ends and of their objectivity (or not) or if, à la Robbins, we should limit ourselves to indicate the best way of seeking the ends decided in other stages.