Elizabeth Anderson

["Alan G. Isaac" <AISAAC@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Elizabeth Anderson's book _Value in Ethics
and Economics has been mentioned several
times on this list. So I finally got
around to reading it. I'm not sure it has
any interesting implications for economists.

Typical of her concerns is the following:
p.80 "The meaning of an action is constituted
by the attitudes it expresses and by its
place in the narratives of the lives of the
agent and those with whom she interacts. The
act could express love or contempt. It could
represent triumph or adversity or the last
straw. These are relational feature of the act,
not intrinsic properties of it. What confers
expressive significance on an action is its
relations to the other alternatives open to and
conceived by the agent, to the ends for the
sake of which she acts, and to her past and
future, as these are mediated by expressive
norms.  ... An act expresses an appropriate
meaning to the extent that the agent takes
account of its consequences the right way,
according to expressive norms for adequately
valuing the people, animals, and things for
the sake of which she acts."

This seems right. Roughly, we need a normative
(and social) framework before we know how to value
consequences. But how does this affect prediction
or policy over a horizon of a few years? As far
as I can see, only by calling on us to refine our
notion of acts and to be careful in characterizing
objects of preference.

p. 81 "A meaningful
life canot be one that views the world from
a consequentialist perspective... For example, to
count respect for persons as just another
value of an act that may be traded off against
others, such as maximizing welfare, is to fail
to respect persons at all."

As Kant told us, moral actions treat persons as
ends not simply as means. Whatever this actually
means, it contains a kernel of truth, IMHO.
But again, how does it affect prediction or policy?
(SR economic policy, I mean; clealy it suggests that
procedural justice ought to characterize legal
institutions.)

A last quote, to offer a concrete application:
p. 85 "We also don't determine how many times
I should thank someone for a gift according to
some etiquette-independent notioon of the
declining marginal intrnisic values of
successive acts of gratitude. Rather, the norms
of etiquette tell us how to express our
gratitude."

Again, she is right that there are many acts, even
acts of consumption, that cannot be understood
independently of specific pre-existing social and
normative contexts. But can anyone provide an
example where this should affect the predictions
or policy recommendations (over a horizon of a
few years) of economists (who are already embedded
in the society)?

--Alan G. Isaac