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is intellectually and, at times, technically demanding. It will not
please those who suppose that a pure heart is sufficient license to
speak with authority on moral matters. But the best of this new an–
alytical work is refreshingly free of dogma and itself displays a seri–
ousness of moral purpose that keeps technical innovation properly
subordinate to genuine illumination. No one would want to claim
that this relatively formalized mode of ethical discourse ever could or
should supplant more literary and informal modes. But Sen's work
does demonstrate that formal reasoning in ethics is by no means con–
demned to utilitarian or other crudities.
*
These three theorists, Sen, Schelling, and Hirschman, are, in
different voices and with different techniques, pointing the way to an
economics that would incorporate within itself a richer conception of
the person and a broader framework of moral assessment of social
policies and institutions. The goal of this work is by no means the
overthrow of existing economic theory. None of these thinkers is, by
temperament or argument, a revolutionary. Economics has, in any
event, never lacked for critics who stand outside it and urge its over–
throw. What is unique and intriguing about these theorists is that,
starting from positions of influence and respect within the economics
profession, they are urging its enrichment and modification - and,
significantly, they are doing their urging not so much through meth–
odological preachment as through the example of work that trans–
cends the limitations they identify .
An economics that developed in the directions these thinkers
anticipate need not give up its hard-won claims to analytical detach–
ment. Indeed, by probing more deeply the complexities of personal
and social choice, such a study could plausibly claim to have gained
at once in scientific reputability and in moral seriousness.
Such an economics would, moreover, still retain a substantial
place for the preference-maximizing view of choice and for the util–
itarian mode of social evaluation. But the place would be precisely
that of a simplification, a special case, a partial view. What eco–
nomics would lose through acknowledging the limitations of that
view would be its claims to
decisiveness
and
completeness.
Neoclassical
actors lack, in their personal conduct, the
human
traits of am–
bivalence, hesitation, and doubt. And utilitarian social evaluation is
