Disappearance of Accountability and Sympathy in Economics, and the Possibility of Their Restoration

경제학에서 책임과 공감의 실종 및 그 복원 가능성

  • 최정규 (경북대학교 경제통상학부)
  • Received : 2015.03.02
  • Accepted : 2015.03.20
  • Published : 2015.03.31

Abstract

This study investigates the history of economics for answering how the discipline originating from a sub-discipline of moral philosophy ended up being an amoral science. I show that economic theory, at its first stage of development, has retained a place in which morality could play a role within liberalist framework, but has removed the very place as it developed into its current image. I argue that it is the Walrasian paradigm that completed this amoralizing process in economics. One theoretical assumption of complete contract in the Walrasian paradigm, creates the institutional environment where economic agents are free from any moral consideration. I show that if the assumption is relaxed, the problem of economic agents' morality should reappear in the stage. Accepting the assumption of incomplete contract opens a way to restore the room for economic agents' moral considerations in economic discourses. Finally I breifly survey the recent discussions on the role of sympathy in economics.

본 연구는 도덕철학의 한 분과학문으로 출발한 경제학이 그 발전과정에서 어떻게 탈윤리적 학문으로 자리 잡게 되었는지를 학설사적으로 살펴보고자 하는 시도이다. 경제이론에서, 혹은 더 큰 틀에서는 자유주의 내에서 도덕성의 위치를 확보하기 위한 여러 시도들을 살펴볼 것이고, 그러한 시도들에도 불구하고 도덕적 고려가 설 자리가 점점 사라져가는 과정을 추적해보면서, 그것이 왈라스적 패러다임, 즉 완전한 계약 패러다임의 성립과정과 병행되었음을 이야기할 것이다. 완전한 계약이라는 가정이 폐기되는 순간 경제주체의 비도덕성이 문제의 전면에 등장하며, 이는 다시금 경제학에서 도덕적 논의를 복원해낼 필요성과 가능성을 제시해주는 것임을 확인할 것이다. 그리고 마지막으로 경제학에서 도덕감정의 역할을 재조명하고자 하는 최근의 시도들을 간략히 검토할 것이다.

Keywords

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