John Hicks’s Farewell to Economic Welfarism

doi:10.1017/9781108882507.008

7 - John Hicks’s Farewell to Economic Welfarism

How Deeply Rooted and Far Reaching Is His Non-welfarist Manifesto?

from Part II - Developing Modern Welfare Economics

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 March 2021

Kotaro Suzumura

Edited by

Roger E. Backhouse ,

Antoinette Baujard and

Tamotsu Nishizawa

Show author details

Roger E. Backhouse: Affiliation:
University of Birmingham and Erasmus University Rotterdam
Antoinette Baujard: Affiliation:
Université de Lyon et Université Jean Monnet à Saint-Étienne
Tamotsu Nishizawa: Affiliation:
Teikyo University Japan

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Summary

John Hicks played a crucial role at birth of the “new” welfare economics founded on the informational basis of interpersonally non-comparable and ordinal utilities. Toward the end of the 1950s, however, Hicks took a bold step by declaring his farewell to the welfarist informational basis of normative economics altogether. The purpose of this paper is to gauge the depth and reach of Hicks’s farewell to the welfaristic approach to normative economics.

Keywords

Welfare economics new welfare economics social welfare cardinalism ordinalism ethical values rights utility welfare equality freedom consequentialism non-consequentialism welfarism non-welfarism

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Type: Chapter
Information: Welfare Theory, Public Action, and Ethical Values
Revisiting the History of Welfare Economics
, pp. 159 - 185

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108882507.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2021

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