著者

山崎 聡

出版者

The Japanese Society for the History of Economic Thought

雑誌

経済学史学会年報 (ISSN:04534786)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.43, no.43, pp.38-51, 2003 (Released:2010-08-05)

参考文献数

38

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This paper is intended as an investigation of the relation between Pigou's ethics and his welfare economics. For this purpose, I shall introduce the basic ethical knowledge that originated with J. S. Mill. This knowledge provides the structure of ethics. On the whole, ethical theory has three elements, which include the facts about moral phenomena, fundamental principles, and practical principles (criteria). As it seems that the first does not require further explanations but the latter two do, some comments shall be appended to each of the latter. First, the fundamental principle is the ultimate grounds upon which all moral judgments will be prescribed. Because the fundamental principle supplies all concrete or applied practical criteria with their foundations of justification, its attributes must be quite abstract. At the same time, the fundamental principle is the ultimate end. That justification is based on usefulness to this ultimate end. Secondly, the practical criteria are concrete applications of the fundamental principle. The latter is so abstract that we cannot in practice use it as a criterion for moral judgment. The fundamental principle is, however, the ultimate criterion as well as the ultimate ground. Therefore we must embody the fundamental principle in some particular lines. There is, however, no absolute or unique embodiment (i. e., a practical criterion), for the best criterion may differ case by case.From my interpretation of Pigou, what corresponds to the fundamental principle explained above is Pigou's theory of value: welfarism (i. e., ideal utilitarianism). Pigou says that welfare is composed of states of conscious life, each of which has intrinsic value, and that welfare is a complex whole. What should be noted is that as Pigou's theory of value (the fundamental principle) abstractly defines ultimate ends and criteria of moral judgments, it is impossible for us to make any judgments in practical concrete cases according to the fundamental principle. Therefore we must substantiate the fundamental principle for practical circumstances. Pigou, recognizing that point sufficiently, embodies welfarism in his economic theory; he considers economic welfare to be a concrete goal and defines propositions of production and distribution as means to that goal. This is one type of practical criteria. I would like to emphasize that because Pigou's original intention was to promote each individual's welfare ultimately, maximizing the total social economic welfare (a typical utilitarian prescription) is no more than one expedient for the former. Accordingly, considering the ultimate end, we can see that it is possible to choose another practical criterion instead of economic welfare. For instance, justice in distribution could be fully supported by Pigou's fundamental principle (welfarism), to which little attention has been given. Put another way, in Pigou's system, the principle of justice or right is not independent of the principle of utilitarianism; more accurately, the former is subordinate to the latter. In fact Pigou's national minimum theory, which implies distributive justice, is prescribed from his utilitarian point of view.