I would like to (tentatively) suggest that it might be good to cover some basic ethics in the very first week, even before prospecting for gold.
When I did my MSc in Economics at University College London I completed an optional course called “Ethics in Welfare Economics” which started off by making the distinction between positive and normative economics and stressing that it is necessary to make value judgements about what has intrinsic value in order to make normative statements about what should be done. This sounds really simple but I still think it’s important to discuss, if only briefly, because I think a surprising number of economists don’t actually appreciate this.
For example, some people who study economics will think it important to maximise economic growth without ever asking the question, why? Why is it important to maximise economic growth? Is it because economic growth is intrinsically valuable? Is it because economic growth is simply instrumentally valuable insofar as it helps promote something else that has intrinsic value e.g. happiness? If the latter, the causal link between economic growth and happiness should be examined before we actually endorse maximising economic growth. EAs are quite philosophically-minded so this might be quite obvious to them, but this may not be the case for many economists that have had little exposure to philosophy.
The course also stressed Hume’s is-ought problem and how, to quote John Stuart Mill, “Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof”. This is to say that we have to make our value judgements outside of the realm of positive economics, which is not something a lot of economists fancy doing, even though they must.
I admit I haven’t looked at your syllabus in (much) detail and it’s possible that the above wouldn’t fit in that well. Overall though I feel quite passionate about there being a greater focus on ethics/philosophy in economics and applaud your inclusions of normative uncertainty and population ethics, but wonder if there should be more preliminaries in this vein. If there is any interest in this then feel free to get in touch as I am potentially interested in making some resources on all of this (possibly including a youtube video).
Thanks for this, I think it’s great!
I would like to (tentatively) suggest that it might be good to cover some basic ethics in the very first week, even before prospecting for gold.
When I did my MSc in Economics at University College London I completed an optional course called “Ethics in Welfare Economics” which started off by making the distinction between positive and normative economics and stressing that it is necessary to make value judgements about what has intrinsic value in order to make normative statements about what should be done. This sounds really simple but I still think it’s important to discuss, if only briefly, because I think a surprising number of economists don’t actually appreciate this.
For example, some people who study economics will think it important to maximise economic growth without ever asking the question, why? Why is it important to maximise economic growth? Is it because economic growth is intrinsically valuable? Is it because economic growth is simply instrumentally valuable insofar as it helps promote something else that has intrinsic value e.g. happiness? If the latter, the causal link between economic growth and happiness should be examined before we actually endorse maximising economic growth. EAs are quite philosophically-minded so this might be quite obvious to them, but this may not be the case for many economists that have had little exposure to philosophy.
The course also stressed Hume’s is-ought problem and how, to quote John Stuart Mill, “Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof”. This is to say that we have to make our value judgements outside of the realm of positive economics, which is not something a lot of economists fancy doing, even though they must.
I admit I haven’t looked at your syllabus in (much) detail and it’s possible that the above wouldn’t fit in that well. Overall though I feel quite passionate about there being a greater focus on ethics/philosophy in economics and applaud your inclusions of normative uncertainty and population ethics, but wonder if there should be more preliminaries in this vein. If there is any interest in this then feel free to get in touch as I am potentially interested in making some resources on all of this (possibly including a youtube video).