A new approach to ethics in economics – virtue ethics

Introduction to Research by Professor Masao Ogaki, Faculty of Economics, Keio University
Professor Masao Ogaki, of the Faculty of Economics at Keio University, is researching how to introduce virtue ethics into economics.

“The current main theme for my research is how to introduce what we call virtue ethics into economics. Virtue ethics is one of the three major ethics theories, and in economics we’ve been using mainly utilitarianism and related welfarism, …and the welfare concept we use in economics is what is called utility, this means mainly life satisfaction based on consumption and leisure. …On the other hand, the one I am trying to introduce to economics is virtue ethics, …so in virtue ethics we think about how to develop our virtues and then after developing virtues and other abilities we try to contribute to our community, and there we might not get much consumption or leisure, people who have the virtue of diligence tend to work very hard, but they feel fulfillment from contributing to our communities and this fulfillment gives us a different kind of happiness, different from life satisfaction, and this is called eudemonia. Eudaimonia is a happiness concept, which is often translated as a good life, so when we develop virtues and when we serve the community, we feel fulfillment and we have a different kind of happiness, and that’s the happiness concept we use in virtue ethics. In economics we’ve been working mainly in a life satisfaction type concept of happiness, and that’s very important, but the idea is that this is not the only thing we should think about.”

With this ethical theory in place, Professor Ogaki is now working on suitable approaches for implementing it into economic theory.

“In economics, many people have been thinking about how to introduce different ethics theories into economics, and what we are using is called metapreferences, this idea was introduced to economics by Nobel prize winner, Armatya Sen in the 1970’s. His idea was to think about different preferences, and among preferences there are better preferences in terms of ethics …When Armataya Sen introduced this, he was not talking about virtue ethics, but we are combining the idea of virtue ethics with metapreferences.”

“Another literature is endogenous preferences, the idea is that inside the economic system, for example [if] parents change their economic behaviour, that can affect children’s preferences … for example, if parents give too many toys or sweets to a child in their childhood then she might become very impatient. So that’s an example of endogenous preferences. Heredity doesn’t determine preferences completely, but how we raise children, education, and how we consume can affect the preferences. So that [is] the endogenous preferences model, and what we are doing is to combine endogenous preferences and metapreferences and moral virtue into one project, and our new idea is to combine these three into one.”

In terms of future research Professor Ogaki will study eudaimonia and the economics of happiness.

“So for future research, one important element is happiness. The economics of happiness has been developing very rapidly these days, and studies about eudaimonia have just started. … So we need to study more about when we become happier in terms of eudaimonia, and in terms of government policies, how government policies might affect this eudaimonia. And eudaimonia is very much related to communities and how ties inside communities are developed. Many policies need to be reevaluated in terms of these ties in communities and eudaimonia from now on, and for these effects on policies, I think it’s important to really get into real examples and for that purpose, I want to use more interviews in different communities to continue research on this.”

Видео A new approach to ethics in economics – virtue ethics канала Keio University Mita Campus