ECON 261 - Philosophy of Economics

Economics plays a central role in many forms of contemporary decision-making and economic methods are now applied to understand human behaviour in a wide range of areas beyond just money and finance. Historically, philosophy and economics have been closely intertwined through a shared interest in questions about what how to make a better world a better place, how to conceptualize what "better" means, and how to measure our successes and failures. Through consideration of readings by economists and philosophers, students in this course will consider conceptual, methodological, foundational, and ethical issues in economic theory and practice. Is economics a science? How do economic models work? Is the representation of humans as rational and self-interested a false description or a useful idealization? How do ethical values come into play in economic reasoning and policy-making? By encountering a range of different perspectives on these matters, students will learn to develop, possibly change, and to intelligently defend their own opinions about how economics functions and how it should be used.