Naturalisation of Normative Economics

Abstract

It is almost taken for granted among economists that the ultimate goal of public policy is to provide society with more “welfare”, and the concept of welfare as well as the general strategy how to improve it is roughly the subject of studies of normative economics. The naturalisation of normative economics is an attempt to analyse the “ultimate goal of public policy” from the perspective of human cultural evolution. The “ultimate goal” is one of the “cultural variants” which may be subject to Darwinian analysis and may or may not be adaptive in given circumstances. The most important problem which is posed here is whether such analysis could be helpful in establishing that “ultimate goal” and thus to contribute to normative economics and resolve the “normative problem” (as it is rephrased in the philosophy of law). Three fundamental issues which seem to constitute the strong limits of the naturalization of the normative problem are highlighted:1.Naturalistic ontology does not overcome the “naturalistic fallacy” indicated by Hume and Moore.2.The epistemological perspectives in the naturalistic accounts are confused. Different normative postulates may be formulated from the individual perspective and from the perspective of the respective group, while the Darwinian analysis seems to privilege the population.3.The genetic algorithm with endogenous fitness function seems to be non-susceptible to “mathematical close-up”. Even if we know the initial normative order, there are limits to finding a shortcut in order to predict the future value of the fitness function. In other words, the predictability of the future social order is fundamentally restricted.