The Purpose of Life in Economics : Weighing Human Values Against Pure Science

This book is a compilation of economic views on the purpose of life. It follows a unique approach, starting with propositions from diverse fields that act as governing laws of the purpose of life in economics, then guiding the reader through the physical, philosophical, and psychological views of the purpose of life, as economics and economic theories can find their roots in all these areas. The book concludes with the purpose of life presented through economic doctrines (from the pre-classical, to classical, to neo-classical schools of economic thought), through the lens of economic development, and from the perspective of several religious doctrines. Lall Ramrattan is an Instructor at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He has served as an associate editor of The American Economist, and holds a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research, USA. Michael Szenberg is Distinguished Professor of Economics at Touro University, USA. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Lubin School of Business at Pace University, USA. He is recipient of many awards, including the 2013 John R. Commons Award, and he served as the editor, Emeritus, of The American Economist (1973-2011).-- Provided by publisher Preface 6 Contents 12 List of Figures 18 List of Tables 19 1 Introduction and the Consciousness as the Purpose of Life 20 Introduction 20 Some Basic Views of the Purpose of Life 23 David Hume (1632–1704) on Religion and Philosophy 27 Hume’s Proposition: Theists & Sceptics Theories 28 Corollary I: Hume’s Passion vs. Reason 33 Specification of Hume’s Model: H1...H4 34 On Passion 34 On Constraints 36 On the Functional Relationship 37 Corollary II: Hume’s Imagination vs. Reason vs. Feelings 40 The Implication of Hume’s System and its Elements for the Purpose of Life 41 The Influence of Hume on Adam Smith 43 Consciousness as the Purpose of Life 46 Existence of Consciousness 48 Some Main Propositions on Consciousness 49 Early Proposition of Cognition [Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430)] 49 On Properties of Peace 52 Propositions on Revelation [Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)] 54 Saint Thomas on Fate 56 Saint Thomas’s “Five Ways” Application of Reason 57 Saint Thomas on Economics 58 Main Cognitive Proposition [René Descartes (1596–1650)] 60 Phenomenal Propositions [Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1726/27)] 62 Proposition on Understanding and Ideas [John Locke (1632–1704)] 63 Main Perception Proposition [Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz (1646–1716)] 66 Main Categorical Imperative Proposition [Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)] 67 Main Phenomenological Proposition [Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (1859–1938)]: Stream of Consciousness—Past, Present, and Future 69 Some Individual Propositions of Consciousness 70 Proposition I [Daniel Dennett]: Multiple Drafts Model 70 Proposition II [Francis and Oldie Click]: The Astonishing Hypothesis 71 Proposition IIa [Francis Crick and Christof Koch]: Neural Basis of Consciousness 72 Proposition III [David Chalmers]: Great Divide 72 Proposition IV [John Searle]: The Chinese Room Argument: The Behavioral and Rain Science 72 Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics 73 Proposition V [Amit Goswami]: Monistic Idealism 74 Proposition [Deepak Chopra]: Consciousness Is Non-Local: Consciousness Is Not in the Brain and Not in the Body Has no Location in Space and Time 74 Consciousness in Economics 74 Chapters’ Outline 75 References 77 2 Scientific, Philosophical, and Psychological Views of the Purpose of Life 84 Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543) and Galileo Galilei’s (1564–1642) Views 85 Copernicus’s Revolution Implied a Purpose 86 Einstein’s Notion of Science 88 Mathematical Methods of Science 89 Scientific Method for the Purpose of Life 93 Efforts to Rescue the Degeneration Materialists Side of Economics by Quantum Theory 96 Quantum Theory and Economics 97 Schrodinger’s Wave Function and Consciousness 98 Promises of Quantum Theory 102 Science and Materialism 106 Understanding Physical vs. Economic Universes 107 Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) 108 John Searle’s View of Consciousness 108 Gilbert Ryle’s Dualism and Spirituality 109 Daniel C. Dennett on Consciousness 110 Matter is Mind and Vice Versa 111 Terrence Deacon and Jeremy Sherman on Life on Earth 112 Means to Ends in Economics 113 Life Came from Matter 114 The Search for Extraterrestrial Life 114 Language: Sentence and Propositional Concerns 115 On the Denotation of “Means to Achieve Ends” 117 On Proposition: Meaning vs. Purpose 118 A Theory of Meaning 119 On Carnap’s L-Language 120 Russell’s Theory of Meaning and Denotation 120 Psychological Purposes of Life 122 Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) 122 Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) 123 Carl Jung on Synchronicity 125 Carl Jung on the Meaning 126 Victor Frankl (1905–1997) 127 Behaviorism 129 John Broadus Watson (1878–1958) 129 Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904–1990) 130 Skinner on Beyond Freedom and Dignity 135 References 136 3 Economics Purpose of Life 142 Topical Aspect of Holism in Economics 144 The Pre-classical Schools 144 Mercantilism 144 Physiocracy 146 Assumptions 148 Same Propensity to Spend: (0.5) for All Classes 148 Landlords Different Propensity to Spend: q for Agriculture and (1−q) for Manufacturer 149 Analysis of Prejudice for Luxury 149 The Classical School 150 Adam Smith (1723–1790) 152 Rev. Thomas R. Malthus (1766–1834) 154 David Ricardo (1772–1823) 155 John S. Mill (1806–1873) 155 The Marginalists 156 William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) 157 Leon Walras (1834–1910) 157 Carl Menger (1840–1921) 159 Neoclassical Economists 159 John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) 161 Economic Domain of the Purpose of Life: Life-Information Space 163 In Search of a Completeness Theorem for Lord Robbins’s Definition of Economics 165 Introduction 166 Consistency of Robbins’s Completeness Theorem 169 On the Logic of Language in Robbins’s Definition 170 On the Denotation of “Means to Achieve Ends” 172 Robbins on Scarcity as a Driver of His Definition 174 Conclusion 176 F. A. Hayek’s Rule-Following and Purpose Seeking Propositions 177 Introduction 177 Hayek’s Rule-Following Proposition 177 Hayek’s Purpose-Seeking Proposition 178 Hayek on Homeomorphism and Correspondence Relations 180 A Collection of Hayek’s Symbols and Their Relationships 183 Conclusion 190 Two Propositions of Robert Heilbroner (1919–2005): Stage Theories of Social Problems and Business and Moral Decay 190 Introduction 191 Proposition I: General Social and Economic Proposition 192 Proposition II: The Main Proposition About Business and Moral Decay 195 Main Proposition: Heilbroner 196 Textual Justification of the Proposition 197 Moral Decay in the Proposition 198 Business Decay in the Proposition 200 Modern Attempts at a Dominant Model for Capitalism 205 The Place of Heilbroner’s Proposition in HET 206 Initial Condition of Motion for Heilbroner’s Proposition 206 Population 210 On Capital 212 On Political, Economic, and Market (PEM) 214 On the Stationary State 215 Other Arguments for Decay 219 Other Arguments on the Stationary State 220 Conclusion 223 References 224 4 Economic Development and the Purpose of Life 233 Development Plan, Variables, and Models 234 Harrod-Domar Model 235 Neoclassical Growth Model 239 Choice of Techniques 240 The Neutrality Hypothesis 241 Poverty and Development 244 A Unified Model of Poverty 245 A Specialization of the Meta-Graph Model 247 The Domain Set of Figure 4.2 247 The Image Set of Figure 4.2 248 Mapping Between Capability and Function Sets 249 On the Mapping of Figure 4.2 252 Dynamics of Change and Invariance Through Graph Theory 254 Dynamic Application to Developing Countries 255 A Brief Background on the Schools Represented in Figure 4.2 257 The Utilitarian Perspective 258 Tversky and Kahneman Utility Perspective 259 Libertarian Perspective 259 John Rawls’s Perspective 260 Marxian Perspectives 262 Amartya Sen’s Perspective 263 Reference 265 5 The Religious Purpose of Life 270 Islam 270 Islam and the Law 272 Sufism 274 Hinduism 276 The Vedas 276 Mīmāṁsā School of Jaimini and Vyasa 277 Nyāya School of Gautama (Second Century CE) 277 Vaiśeṣika School of Kaṇāda (Second Century CE) 278 Sāṃkhya Philosophy 278 Śaṁkara Non-dualistic System 282 Rāmānuja (Twelfth Century CE): Qualified Non-dualism 284 Madhva (Twelfth Century CE) on Dualism 285 Judaism 286 Maimonides (1138–1204) 287 Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) 289 Albert Einstein (1879–1955) 293 Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) 294 Hypotheses on Judaism 295 Christianity 296 Propositions About Christianity 297 Buddhism (ca. 500 BCE) 305 Some Novelties, Old vs. New Buddhism 306 Main Contributors to Buddhism 307 Nāgārjuna (Second Century CE) 308 Chandrakirti (ca. 600–650) 309 Propositions of Buddhism Schools 309 References 310 Bibliography 315 Index 341