5/2/19

Are Moral Questions Really Economic Questions?

I am somewhat unhappy with the association of morality with economics. It seems somewhat primitive to base moral question on economic questions regarding allocation of resources. It seems that Wright's exchange theory of non-zero sum relations is the preferred alternative for the 1% so that's the way moral psychologists line up as sycophants.
Maybe that is a bit harsh. It does seem that Ayn Rand's theory of objective value is regaining popularity now, and that says something for Allan Greenspan, the Austrian School of Economics and others that might consider moral philosophy to be informed by economics and vice versa. It’s a nice materialist paradigm said with Marx’s objective theory of labor value to compare favorably to Rand's objective theory of value. Crank realist-empiricists can all be happy together with neo-objectivism. Can that be worse than supply--side economics or supply-side morality?
Her theory of value apparently is based on needs for survival like water being objectively valuable. For humans though moral questions should run deeper intellectually than biophysical requisites for existence. Ecological economics textbooks today tend to have objective theories of value for empirical, natural resources, yet though natural ecosystem sustainability have objective value within Rand's paradigm and that of science it is challenging to say that Wall Street has objective values concerning the ecosphere of the world such that restoring it is of the highest value and a new yacht is of far lower value to investors.
From my point of view value theory is entirely subjective. That is human beings determine what of the world is valuable, and that is a matter of education. If the well being of others was the highest value and the heart of a social value system; altruism, then it would seem that all the other issues would be resolved with good faith and determination.
Of course one would have the problem of determining what is good, yet that may be simpler than determining what the prime lending rate should be to control inflation yet increase employment expansion though the ecosphere is being degraded from over-use.
The problem of morality at a distance runs into logic question right away. One cannot verify the need for or the effect of intervention in helping someone at a distance instead of up close. One may not be happy or trusting about giving $10 to some African relief organization as questions about what really happens to the money arise. I think though that if one could actually identify a particular individual in Africa that ten dollars would actually directly benefit meaningfully then far more people would intervene with a contribution.
How can one rescue a drowning swimmer thousands of miles away- fly like superman or teleport? Really, such questions are not practical and practical reason matters.

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