Kantian political economy

The welfare economic focus on Pareto improvements indicates that economists hesi­tate to endorse the Hobbesian ruthlessness of a true homo oeconomicus who is treat­ing the whole environment including other human persons as means to ends.

To require of each individual that he takes no action which impairs the freedom of any other individual is to accept the moral principle that no individual should treat another simply as means to an end. Each individual chooses the rules and principles for the guidance of his conduct, but he does so under the general principle that no rule of action will be adopted which could not be universally adopted by all individuals. In deciding whether an action is compatible with the assumption of freedom for all, he will apply a test to the rule which would call for this action under the contemplated conditions, asking, not how the rule will work from the point of view of his own personal interests, but how the rule will work if all individuals adopted it as a principle of action. (Vining 1956: 19)

The norms of Kantian interpersonal respect expressed in this citation are incompatible with the “Hobbesianism” of neo-classical economics. While Lionel Robbins’s Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1935) seems to suggest that the Hobbesian view on the limits of rational normative argument is endorsed by modern economics, Vining’s statement seems to indicate just the opposite.

Of course, you could dismiss the preceding quote and the views expressed in it as the personal opinion of Vining.

Most economists understand that the substantial respect-norm expressed by Vining is not a logical conclusion of value scepticism. After all, if all inter-subjectively accessible value judgements are hypothetical imperatives concerning prudent choices of means to given ends, showing Kantian respect is justified for the addressee of the justification only if this furthers aims, ends or values he or she as a matter of fact endorses (if you intend to achieve x you should do y since we know that - empirically speaking - y will enhance the probability of x). Using somebody as a means to one’s own ends will be commend­able if this, as a matter of fact, is the course of action most suitable to reaching the ends of the actor.

Vice versa, economists who reflect on the matter also understand that the claim to objective knowledge of value judgements does not “logically” entail the desire to impose what is held to be “objectively” right on others. For, on the one hand, claims to knowl­edge of values will be as prone to error as claims to knowledge of facts - which suggests allowing for competing views in search of truth, and, on the other hand, even a “value sceptical” economist can understand that a Kantian can believe to know that tolerance is morally right. Indeed, the norm to respect other individuals as ends in themselves is regarded by Kantians as part and parcel of the objective a priori normative knowledge supported by the categorical imperative.

In short, neither tolerance nor intolerance have any “logical” relation to knowledge claims concerning value judgements. Yet, if norms of interpersonal respect cannot be justified without going beyond the officially accepted limits to legitimate normative eco­nomic argument as formulated in their canonical form by Robbins, this leaves the focus on Pareto dangling in the air. This lack of a “logical foundation” does, of course, not rule out psychological relations between meta-ethical or meta-normative and substantive normative claims.

Within the meta-ethical position that is regarded as constitutive for economics, at least since Robbins’s (1935) essay on “the nature and significance of economic science”, it is not the task of the economist to tell people what they should desire. An advice-giving economist has to respect whatever his or her advisees desire. He or she can rationally tell advisees how, but not that, they should reach certain aims, ends or values.