Abstract
One aspect of the critical problem concerning competing mechanistic and teleological interpretations of the structure of social scientific theories in general, and CCT in particular, which raises especially important questions about normative presuppositions, is that of the “functional” structure of certain theories. Significantly, the implications of the use of functional terms in everyday discourse has also played an important role in arguments defending and attacking the affirmation of a “fact-value” or “is-ought” separation in ethical theory itself. This chapter will begin, therefore, with an attempt to show that the analysis of functionalist language within ethical theory helps to clarify the issue of the “value-impregnation” of functionalist theories of human behaviour. Following upon this task will be an elucidation of the functionalist structure of explanations of consumer behaviour provided by CCT, and an appraisal of the explanatory and normative adequacy of placing such a structure within a general systems theory.
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References
See, for instance, P. Geach, “Good and Evil”, in Analysis, Vol. 17 (1956), pp. 33–42.
See e.g., R. M. Hare, “Geach: Good and Evil”, Analysis, Vol. 18 (1957), pp. 10212.
See C. G. Hempel, “The Logic of Functional Analysis”, in his Aspects of Scientific Explanation, pp. 297–330 for a useful general survey of the concepts and structure of functionalist theories.
For the classic source of systems theory see L. von Bertalanffy, General Systems Theory (New York: G. Braziller, 1968). A recent overview is provided in George J. Klir, Facets of Systems Science (New York: Plenum Press, 1994). For a philosopher’s perspective, see C. W. Churchman, The Systems Approach and its Enemies (New York: Basic Books, 1978). For an example of a mechanistic approach to systems see James G. Miller, “Introduction” in Chicago Behavioural Sciences Publications No.1: Profits and Problems of Homeostatic Models in the Behavioural Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954). For an affirmation that mechanistic structures are inappropriate to explain the behaviour of “higher level” systems such as individual agents and social groups, see E. Laszlo, System,Structure and Experience (New York: Gordon and Beach Science Publishers, 1969), Chap. 1.
For the claim that system approaches to economic theory are based primarily on an analogy with mechanistic systems, see P. Mirowski, More Heat than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature’s Economics, and see the articles by A. J. Cohen, D. W. Hands, B. Barnes, M. N. Wise, “Review Symposium” on Mirowski’s book in Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 22, No. 1, March 1992, pp. 78–141. See also, G. Pikier, “Utility, Theories in Field Physics and Mathematical Economics, 1I and II”, K. Boulding, “General Systems Theory ¡ª The Skeleton of a Science” in his Beyond Economics (Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press, 1968), especially pp. 95–97, and F. H. Knight, On the History and Method of Economics, Chap. VIII.
L. von Bertalanffy, General Systems Theory, p. 55. See note 4 to Chapter 4 above.
Again, see F. Machlup, “Equilibrium and Disequilibrium” for a discussion of the concept of equilibrium in economic theory.
1bid., p. 54.
See Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, Chap. IV, sec. 6 for an analysis of this difficulty for hedonistic explanations generally.
See for example, R. Leftwich, The Price System and Resource Allocation, 3rd edn., (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966), p. 67.
As suggested, for instance, by J. Rothenberg, “Values and Value Theory in Economics”, pp. 227f and p. 237; or by the philosopher D. Braybrooke, “Economics and Rational Choice”, p. 455.
An influential case in point is I. D. M. Little, A Critique of Welfare Economics, Chaps. 1 and 2.
W. J. Baumol, Economic Theory and Operations Analysis, pp. 204–05.
Ibid., p. 205.
Such as Little, A Critique of Welfare Economics, Chap. 2.
See Mark Blaug, Economic Theory in Retrospect, p. 356.
Again, Little, A Critique of Welfare Economics, Chap. 2, will be taken as a representative case of such economic behaviourism.
Ibid., p. 25.
See p. 44 above.
Little, A Critique of Welfare Economics, p. 29.
See K. Boulding, “Some Contributions of Economics to the General Theory of Value”, Philosophy of Science,Vol. 23, no. 1, 1956, p. 6.
Little, A Critique of Welfare Economics, p. 35.
Ibid., p. 42ff.
In economic language, such a situation is known as the problem of “interdependent utility functions”. See L. D. Schally “Interdependent Utility Functions and Pareto Optimality”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 86, 1972, pp. 19–24.
Little, A Critique of Welfare Economics, p. 44.
See, on this issue, the classic discussion of emulative consumption in J. S. Duesenberry, Income, Saving and the Theory of Consumer Behaviour (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949), Chap. 3, sec. 5, pp. 28–32. And see E. J. Mishan, “The Growth of Affluence and the Decline of Welfare”, p. 271.
See pp. 46f. above.
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Hodgson, B. (2001). Functionalism and the “Systems Approach”. In: Economics as Moral Science. Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04476-6_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04476-6_7
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