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2003-2004 Huckabay Teaching Fellowship Proposal
by Paul Glezen

“In the last century, moral philosophy inspired some of the best economics, and more recently economics, with its theory of rational choice, has helped to inspire some of the best moral philosophy.  Nonetheless, in recent times the two subjects have not been property taught together.”  (Mancur Olsen, 1996)

 , “. . . A closer contact between ethics and economics can be beneficial not only to economics but even to ethics.”  (Amartya Sen, 2002)

 “These matters inevitably constitute a delicate conversation between two separate perspectives, economics and bioethics, each with markedly different sets of analytic tools.  It is vital that bridges be built between them.”  (Paul Menzel -- on the allocation of scarce medical resources, 1999)

 Course Title:  Economic Theory and Moral Philosophy

 1.  Proposed Project

There is a long-standing, though sometimes quiet, conversation between economists and philosophers about an issue of importance to each -- the relationship between ethics and economics.   In order to facilitate this conversation, we seek to develop a course on ethics and economics designed to illuminate the connections between economic theory and moral philosophy. The benefits of such a course are described below. 

 First, this course should help students to get more out of their other philosophy courses.  At present we offer 12 undergraduate level courses in the domains of ethics and of social or political philosophy. Students taking these courses, however, are often unaware of the extent to which the philosophical theories have been influenced by the conversation between ethics and economics.  Understanding this history will help students to interpret key works in their proper historical context.  In addition, our proposed course focuses on concepts that play important roles in each of our currently offered courses.  An explicit aim of this course is to present the material in a way that makes clear the role that these concepts play in our other ethics and social or political philosophy courses.  We want to help our students to integrate material from different courses.

 Second, the department has recently increased its commitment to applied ethics. (UIF grant: 4-6 new hires in applied ethics)  Because so many policy issues involve both ethical and economic considerations, it is important that students in our newly established Program on Values know how to assess such issues and to communicate their insights to audiences from different disciplines.  To be clear, the goal of the course is not to evaluate particular policies. The emphasis here is on providing some of the foundational skills and conceptual understanding needed to engage in critical reflection of any policy.  For example, by the end of the course students should be able to take a social policy like Oregon’s health-care rationing plan and to be able to identify the ethical assumptions underlying its use of economic frameworks to guide allocation decisions.  Stress will be placed on conceptual issues and evaluative questions that are often overlooked or dismissed when policies are studied strictly from the perspective of only one of the two disciplines.  We will examine several “real-life” policy issues, but mainly for purposes of illustrating connections between economic theory and moral philosophy.

 Third, we would like to motivate students to take concepts from moral philosophy and economic theory and relate them to courses offered outside this department. (We see the course as appealing not only to economics and philosophy majors but to anyone interested in policy evaluation.)  The proposed course, we hope, will better equip them to do this.   We see the concepts located at the intersection of economics and moral philosophy as “switchboard” concepts – they serve as points of contact for a wide range of topics and discussions in social policy.  Thus we think this course would be valuable for any student taking courses related to the evaluation of social policy.  We are excited about some of our strategies for accomplishing this goal. 

 2. Course Content:

If received, the Huckabay Fellowship will be used to design and teach a course on economic theory and moral philosophy during the 2003-2004 academic year.  Though Paul Glezen will teach the course only once, the goal is to develop a template -- both in terms of content and pedagogy – for a course that can become a regular part of the department’s curriculum. The following is a preliminary sketch of four main points of emphasis. 

                Part One -- History of the Conversation:    We feel it is important for students to know why we are asking the questions that we do and how the meaning of the questions we ask changes over time.  Thus, the first part of the course will be devoted to a brief historical survey of the relationship between moral philosophy and economic theory.   Not only will this provide students with an understanding of the history of a particular conversation, but it will provide an excellent illustration of how theory develops and of the need to interpret theoretical questions in a historical, or conversational, context. (about 2 weeks)

                Part Two -- Core Concepts:  In this part of the course we will examine concepts and issues that are central to both moral philosophy and economic theory. (i.e., the “switchboard” concepts: rationality, well-being, value, efficiency, fairness etc.)  We shall compare the importance, interpretation and role of these and concepts in both moral and economic theory. (about 4 weeks)

                Part Three -- Economic Methodology and Policy Evaluation:  Social choice theory and game theory – largely developed by economists and decision theorists – have influenced many important discussions about distributive justice.  The extent of their influence, however, is often under-appreciated by philosophy students.  This section of the course would be devoted to explaining the basics of social choice theory and game theory, and to evaluating how these formal economic techniques might helpfully illuminate the moral analysis of problems in social policy.  (about 4 weeks)

                Pedagogy:  Students will be asked to choose two concepts discussed in this class and then to find another course where each concept is discussed.  They will need to compare the definition and use of the concept in the different settings.  Student findings will be presented throughout the course at the appropriate time. The main goal is to encourage students to make connections between different courses and to underscore the centrality of the concepts at the intersection of ethics and economics.

 3. Summary of Course Goals: After taking this course, students should be able to: (a) identify the ethical and economic components of key premises in public policy proposals; (b) identify ways in which important philosophical conversations have been influenced by economic theory and vice-versa; (c) describe the differences between standard economic and philosophical understandings of concepts important to both disciplines; (d) be prepared to engage more fully in policy conversations in a variety of academic contexts.

4. Design Challenges: Dr. Woody and I will work together on the following items: (a) structuring the course content to compliment existing philosophy courses; (b) selecting reading materials; (c) identifying effective teaching strategies; (d) formatting the course so that it will be easy for others to benefit from the lessons we learned – this could involve compiling a brief “teacher’s manual” on CD (to be kept in the department’s course syllabus files).

5. Assessment:  The impact of the course will be assessed in the following ways: (a) Students will be asked to provide feedback throughout the course using WebQ; (b) Assignments will be designed to provide evidence of student’s understanding of the material; (c) Paul will be observed twice throughout the course, both by Dr. Woody and by a fellow graduate student; (d) Paul will keep a teaching journal and will meet with Dr. Woody every three weeks to discuss issues of teaching and content; (e) The services of CIDR will be used during both development and instruction phases of the project. 

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