1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910808460803321

Autore

Foley Duncan K

Titolo

Adam's fallacy : a guide to economic theology / / Duncan K. Foley

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, Mass. ; ; London, : Harvard University Press, 2006

ISBN

0-674-26352-9

0-674-02707-8

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xv, 265 p. ) : ill

Classificazione

QC 100

Disciplina

330.153

Soggetti

Economics - Philosophy

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Adam's Vision -- 2. Gloomy Science -- 3 . The Severest Critic -- 4.On the Margins -- 6. Grand Illusions -- Reading Further -- Appendix -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

This book could be called "The Intelligent Person's Guide to Economics." The title expresses Duncan Foley's belief that economics at its most abstract and interesting level is a speculative philosophical discourse, not a deductive or inductive science. Adam's fallacy is the attempt to separate the economic sphere of life, in which the pursuit of self-interest is led by the invisible hand of the market to a socially beneficial outcome, from the rest of social life, in which the pursuit of self-interest is morally problematic and has to be weighed against other ends.