The impact of the concepts of human nature on the methodology of humanistic economics and religious motivated streams of economics (Buddhist, islam and christian)

Abstract

The shape of the economics depends on the concept of human nature, which builds main assumptions of any economical school. This set of assumptions is made about the individual (his/behavior, motives, meaning), interactions with the natural and supernatural powers (worldview) and other people (social world) and provides foundations to the economics. The chapter focuses on the influence of this concept on its methodology and methods of the economics. This impact is presented here on the example of humanistic economics, which is here understood widely, including approaches developed within particular world religions as: Buddhism, Islam and Christian. The method applied to this research is a content analysis of the most important texts created within the humanistic economics and directions of economics motivated by world religions. To reach this goal, the following steps will be conducted: firstly, the concepts of human nature will be defined and categorized; secondly, the main levels and dimensions of the concept of human nature in the humanistic tradition will be presented, and thirdly the influence of such understanding of the human being on the methodology, methods and main theories within those denominations of economics will be discussed. The analysis proved that main orientations of these schools of economic could be explained by the changed assumptions about the human nature.