Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- PART I THE WAR OF IDEAS
- 1 From Hume to Hayek Economic philosophy and the role of ideas in social action
- 2 The scientific challenge to economic philosophy, I Physicalism and the birth of the ‘man–machine’ doctrine: La Mettrie
- 3 The scientific challenge to economic philosophy, II Economics and the rise of ‘economic man’: Jevons and Edgeworth
- 4 Economic man and man–machine Some logical parallels and contrasts between the two concepts
- 5 The logic of the economic situation Complex societies and the choice of conduct–enforcing mechanisms
- 6 The passions of the imagination, I Hume and Adam Smith on the sub–rational determinants of belief
- 7 The passions of the imagination, II Hume and Adam Smith on the psychology of the economic agent
- Conclusion to part I
- PART II PATTERNS OF MISUNDERSTANDING
- Conclusion to part II
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - The logic of the economic situation Complex societies and the choice of conduct–enforcing mechanisms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 April 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- PART I THE WAR OF IDEAS
- 1 From Hume to Hayek Economic philosophy and the role of ideas in social action
- 2 The scientific challenge to economic philosophy, I Physicalism and the birth of the ‘man–machine’ doctrine: La Mettrie
- 3 The scientific challenge to economic philosophy, II Economics and the rise of ‘economic man’: Jevons and Edgeworth
- 4 Economic man and man–machine Some logical parallels and contrasts between the two concepts
- 5 The logic of the economic situation Complex societies and the choice of conduct–enforcing mechanisms
- 6 The passions of the imagination, I Hume and Adam Smith on the sub–rational determinants of belief
- 7 The passions of the imagination, II Hume and Adam Smith on the psychology of the economic agent
- Conclusion to part I
- PART II PATTERNS OF MISUNDERSTANDING
- Conclusion to part II
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The limits of economic philosophy may be classified as external and internal. In this chapter I shall discuss the nature of the external limits facing the individual agent as he attempts to live up to his beliefs and opinions in ordinary life. The basic proposition is that only a limited segment of our economic actions is in effect open to the influence of our goals and values. The argument here, as I will try to show, springs from the distinction between voluntary and involuntary actions. Only voluntary actions are in principle amenable to conscious control and, for this reason, susceptible of being altered by the agent's beliefs and deliberations. Involuntary actions lie outside the range of willful and purposeful interference by those who perform them.
The best illustrations of involuntary actions are the myriad of automatic adjustments and organic processes taking place in the human body which are entirely closed to conscious volition. The wide range of bodily occurrences of this kind – from blushing, ageing and heart–beating to the restoration of the oxygen level in the blood to normal (through an increase in the rate of breathing) when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air is raised – have been the source of wonder to biologists and disquiet to some philosophers.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Beliefs in ActionEconomic Philosophy and Social Change, pp. 68 - 80Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991