Showing papers by "Frank H. Knight published in 1929"
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that it is one thing to ask what is Good, and another to inquire as to what social policy is to be carried out, and by what agencies, in order to realize the Good as far as possible.
Abstract: S TUDENTS of ethics or social science hardly need to be reminded that one of the leading modem schools of ethical thought has been dominated by economists. The English-speaking world in particular has been utilitarian in its theory and its folk-mind from the age of the Enlightenment. Hence some reflections by an economist on utilitarianism and ethics generally may be worth consideration. For present purposes, it is the political rather than the properly ethical aspect of utilitarianism, and especially the separation of the two, which is of interest. It is one thing to ask what is Good, and another to inquire as to what social policy is to be carried out, and by what agencies, in order to realize the Good as far as possible. There might, indeed, be such a connection between the two questions that the answer to one would largely involve an answer to the other; but it is an essential feature of utilitarian theory that it makes the separation complete. The good, according to the utilitarians, is pleasure, which is a purely individual matter. We shall not stop to criticize this conception of the good. The issue regarding it is in fact largely verbal. Utilitarians expressly define the term \"pleasure\" in an all inclusive sense; it covers high pleasures and low pleasures, the pleasure of being good and that of being bad, the pleasure of peace and also that of strife, even the \"pleas-
21 citations