In a recent Herald column (“Economists need ethics,” April 3), Andrew Powers ’15 argued the Department of Economics should require students to take an ethics class as part of the required course load, comparing the study of economics to biological weapon research in its necessity for an ethics requirement. Unfortunately, his reasoning is flawed, as it ignores major tenets of economic theory and disappointingly promotes an untrue stigma and stereotype that accompanies one of Brown’s most popular concentrations.
Powers makes a logical and well articulated argument on the merits of ethics classes, saying they make us consider the “moral ends” from which we derive value the in choices we make. But Powers does not show that economics in particular demands an ethics requirement, nor does he in any way prove that economics does not already consider ethical challenges.
Unlike biological weapon research, in which the physical science is far removed from the ethical and moral underpinnings, economics as a study demands from its inception ethical considerations. From the first few lessons, economics students begin asking tough questions: How do we measure happiness and satisfaction? What is the optimal distribution of goods or resources in society? These questions are already a part of the fabric of the field, and their consideration is the meat and potatoes of economic theory.
As students begin taking more upper-level classes, these sort of ethical questions become more apparent: How do societies deal with economic inequality? What role can governments play in distributing resources? How can societies improve the material well-being of their citizenry? How can we efficiently reform our health care or education systems to benefit the most people? In a science class, a student can study the mechanics behind a biological weapon without considering the moral consequences of this machinery. In economics, though, the material examination and the ethical considerations go hand-in-hand. In that way, economics is similar to its social science brethren like political science or sociology in its habit of constantly questioning ethical assumptions.
This is more than just a technicality. It is an important redeeming quality of the field. Among many of my colleagues, economics has a bad reputation. In the public eye, it is often considered emotionless or unethical, preoccupied with numbers and graphs, removed from reality and inconsiderate of any notion of fairness or equality. By arguing for a separate ethics class, Powers has furthered this incorrect judgment.
This is not to say ethics is unimportant. On the contrary, it would be detrimental to separate ethics from economics and create a separate class. A macroeconomics class or microeconomics seminar should challenge its students to consider the ethics of its various models, rather than relying on a separate class to treat this topic. Students cannot and should not simply perform the motions of economic analysis without simultaneously considering the ethical questions Powers is so fixated on.
Unfortunately, many introductory classes that provide a thousand-mile-high view may flatten some of these considerations. Often, especially in introductory classes, students are expected to ignore ethical considerations — which is the root of the misconception of economics as unethical. Even in introductory classes, though, economics students begin to consider the consequences of models, even if those models themselves are neutral towards ethics or morals.
Of course, economics classes — even upper-level ones — often try to avoid taking a “normative” stance, and instead debate mathematical models around a single “positivist” stance. Even in this case, though, it is important to realize that every economic model has underlying normative assumptions which are constantly being challenged. It is like studying Congress without a political bias in a political science class, or studying globalization in a sociology class without taking a particular normative stance. These studies do not preclude ethical analysis.
Perhaps, instead of creating a separate class, we should encourage economics professors to consider ethical consequences more often or encourage economics students to challenge assumptions. Either way, it is important to realize ethics are already inherent in economic models, and separating ethics and economics classes would only produce a wedge between the two fields.
In this sense, Powers hits the nail on the head — studying ethics is extremely important to economics. But a separate class is unnatural, unnecessary and counterproductive. In fact, economists already have ethics. They are taught these ethics from the moment they walk into their introductory courses.
Alex Drechsler ’15 reminds his liberal friends that Paul Krugman is an economist. He — Alex, not Paul — can be reached at alex_drechsler@brown.edu.
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