September 3, 1999

The Revival of Moral Inquiry in the Social Sciences

By ALAN WOLFE

Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, was a moral philosopher. Yet economics, more than any other social science, has modeled itself on the technically proficient, mathematically oriented, and objective methods of the natural sciences. That is why the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Amartya Sen in 1998 was so significant. Sen not only studies such issues as hunger and suffering -- once thought to be the province of theologians -- but also urges economists to pay

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