Reconciling Homo Economicus and John Dewey’s Ethics
Author(s)
White, Mark D.
Abstract
This paper attempts to incorporate the ethics of John Dewey into the neoclassical model of rational choice. I show that while it may be possible to modify the preference-satisfaction model of homo economicus in order to include many aspects of Dewey’s ethics, there are some issues, such as his concepts of the continuity of action, time horizons, and the social nature of the individual, that prove much more difficult to combine with the economic model of human behavior. [Note: Frank Ryan’s response to this article is also in the SSL.]
