>Does morality hold a role within Economics?
>They say the American Dream is an economic one. But can we achieve economic prosperity without morals?
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>They say the American Dream is an economic one. But can we achieve economic prosperity without morals?
Battison's Blog 
>We probably can't, but even if we could, it doesnt mean we should. Morals should infringe upon every subject.
>"Should" is conditional. Do you think it's a matter of definites? Do you think the financial crisis proved that without morals financial workers will always always push short term risky solutions on people that really don't look likely to be able to afford the solutions?
>well, even without morals, the unfortunate results could have been calculated, and more reserved and responsible lending/action taken in order to avoid the current situation (which is bad for everyone.)This would not need to take morality into account as lenders would be more reserved in order to secure their own future (not because they dont want poor people in debt)
>by 'should' i meant it takes a 'better' kind of person to impose morality on their work ethic. 'should' can be taken to mean 'the right thing to do (which is also, of course, subjective, but a majority would argue for certain moral 'truths')
>e.g. dont kil. While this is not completely catagorical, it can be applied generally to most areas.
>I completely disagree on the existence of any moral objectivitiies. You can only say 'this group of people believes we shouldn't kill certain species under certain conditions', but not don't kill at all (e.g. most people permit killing insects, for meat, during war, for self-defence etc).Getting back to the question though: can people take the 'right' long-term decisions without recourse to morality? It is a well known fact that many people in the financial services suffer from myopia i.e. they look mainly at short-term returns. This is why recessions often hit investors hard, because people are eager to take short-term boom time growth rates and chart them into the long term, whereas the existence of economic cycles makes this rather silly.So I would agree with your proposition that it takes a certain kind of person to act effectively within economics without recourse to morality. After all not everyone suffers from myopia. So it's short-sighted and immoral people that we want to keep out of the financial services…. damn! I think we failed there…