The Handbook of Teaching Ethics to Economists is a welcome and robust contribution to the ongoing project of integrating ethics more thoroughly with economics. As editors Ioana Negru, Craig Duckworth, and Imko Meyenburg explain, “The leading purpose of this Handbook is to challenge [the] view” that “ethics has no place” in the “morality-free zone” of economics (p. 1). Unsurprisingly, then, the reader will find robust and varied treatments of many of the major points of discussion in economics and ethics. To efficiently use space, three themes will briefly be summarized here, with some comments on how such developments relate to the teaching of ethics to economists. I have selected themes of particular interest to me, but the reader will find an impressive plurality of perspectives, ranging from grassroots economics to Marxist and Keynesian thought, plus appeal to virtue ethics, deontological ethics, and even African communitarian ethics. The editors are to be commended for the breadth of this project, and hopefully I will be forgiven for the selectivity of themes treated.

To my mind, some of the most insightful discussion focuses on Kaldor-Hicks efficiency, a purportedly objective test of public policy which considers a policy change superior to current circumstances if gains for winners are more than enough to compensate those who lose as a result of the policy. In chapter 3, George DeMartino helpfully notes that not all harms are “reparable via compensation” (p. 39), such as the loss of a child due to inability to pay for medical treatment. DeMartino distinguishes between monetary transfer and compensation; the former may express apology/condolences without expectation of welfare replacement. In chapter 17, Mark White rightly identifies the criterion as “operationalized utilitarianism” since it entirely ignores deontological ethics and rights. The volume provides ample materials to rethink standard welfare economics.

Unsurprisingly, chapters repeatedly emphasize theories of rationality and homo economicus. Several authors provide helpful alternative frameworks. Félix-Fernando Muñoz and María-Isabel Encinar propose a shift to an action plan approach, which considers motivations including goals and ethics, rather than the standard “logic-of-choice” approach that focuses only on utility maximization. Malcolm Brady and Marta Rocchi urge faculty to teach not only a utilitarian decision logic, but also a “decision logic of appropriateness” in which managers consider “well-defined rules, routines, standard operating procedures (SOPs), checklists, [and] heuristics.” Both proposals offer plausible tools for business application that would yield considerably enlarged space for ethical decision-making in the economy. As Giancarlo Ianulardo and Aldo Stella note, economics tends to be associated with homo economicus and utility maximization, despite frequent critique, partly due to classroom expectations and available textbooks. Classroom-ready alternatives to utilitarian rational choice theories can play an important role.

Having admitted the importance of the classroom in furthering the goal of better integrating ethics and economics, let me digress briefly to reflect upon the pedagogical dimensions of the project. The volume is a handbook of teaching, and as such many chapters provide concluding remarks on how the preceding content relates to pedagogy. Sometimes, the provided pedagogical reflection has more to do with philosophy of teaching than the classroom itself, as is the case in Wilfred Dolfsma’s interesting chapter on accounting as applied ethics or Michelle Meixieira Groenewald’s defense of teaching economic pluralism. I was initially taken aback by the relative lack of content from the science of teaching compared with other pedagogical works. The absence is not universal, with occasional treatments of learning theory (e.g., Dewey, Bloom, and Piaget on p. 116), but the clear focus on ethics over pedagogy is noteworthy. In the end, the realism of Huei-chun Su and David Colander partly convinced me that I was wrong to expect the form of pedagogical content I sought:

Given economics’ history, and the lack of training graduate students get in ethics, the thought that the economics profession is going to incorporate ethics in what they teach in the introductory course is a pipe dream. For those of us who think ethics are important to economics, the best we can hope for is some mention of its importance to applied policy and perhaps one lesson on it (p. 244).

The science of learning does not change dramatically across disciplines, but the content taught does. Since the current challenge in economics is a lack of ethical content being taught, a focus on smaller lessons is prudent. This volume provides exceptional single lessons in economics and ethics that would have certainly improved my undergraduate economics education. Those interested in more general pedagogical guidance would do well to consult standard texts like Susan Ambrose et al.’s How Learning Works (Josey-Bass, 2010). The book offers clear value for the classroom.

The Handbook of Teaching Ethics to Economists also regularly addresses the positive economics/normative economics distinction and the closely related fact/value distinction. This distinction helps explain how the academy wound up in a situation of the sort identified by Su and Colander. A common claim is that focus on utilitarian rational choice—such that economics partly became the science of studying preferences—resulted in an inevitable distinction between positive and normative economics. As Dennis Badeen explains, “The absolute distinction between positive and normative economics places economics and ethics in distinct disciplinary silos. Additionally, in actual pedagogical practice, normative economics is seldom, if ever, taught to undergraduates” (p. 114). While there is general agreement across the volume regarding weaknesses to the Kaldor-Hicks compensation thesis and critiques of homo economicus with its utilitarian rationality, the authors exhibit greater divergence in their treatment of the fact/value distinction. For example, Su and Colander accept a “temporary separation of science and ethics” and thus the validity of the positive/normative distinction (p. 250). Jamie Morgan worries that the distinction results in a false sense of neutrality, hiding genuine political assumptions.

Such divergences of opinion on how facts relate to values, or ethics to economics (the two pairs are not perfectly correlated), raise a challenge that seems unresolved within this pluralist project. Granting the importance of multiple frameworks in economic and political discussions—Groenewald writes an exceptional chapter arguing for pluralism from a utilitarian, deontological, virtue, and African communitarian perspective—the book would benefit from more direct engagement between authors on points of disagreement. Otherwise, the viewpoints considered could be conceived as preferences, with economics-and-ethics charged with a factual or positive mapping of ideological options, leaving resolution of disputes to the normative sphere of pure ethics, or perhaps even rendering such disputes pointless as in Lionel Robbins’ classical treatment of the fact/value distinction.

Somewhat hopefully, then, the work concludes with a fine essay by John Davis reflecting on the methodology of teaching a complete ethics and economics course. Davis reflects on lessons learned regarding textbook selection and classroom management, but his most interesting insight comes when he recognizes that a class assumed to be full of critiques of the prevailing rational choice model led to a problem of self-selection, where the class was populated primarily by students already critical of economic orthodoxy. Davis’s solution was to craft a syllabus, classroom environment, and set of assignments that sought to foster the skills necessary for citizens in “pluralistic, democratic life” (p. 297). Students debated important ethical issues and learned in assignments to advocate for ethical positions from an interested standpoint rather than merely from a position of neutrality. As someone steeped in virtue ethics, I find this focus on fostering virtue through classroom practices to be a strong prescription. After all, new content on the ties between economics and ethics taught merely as information to be digested disinterestedly could still imply a distinction between factual analysis of the positive science of economics and the purportedly merely subjective dimensions of ethical commitment. As several authors themselves suggest, as noted above, when this distinction prevails, economics will always be divided from ethics. Davis’s chapter is thus particularly welcome, and as one of his former students I can personally attest that the teaching philosophy works.

My suggestions for furthering the discussion ought not be taken to lessen the real accomplishment of this volume. Each chapter makes a substantive and interesting contribution to a complicated and underdeveloped debate, focusing especially on questions of the integration of ethics and economics, but not without some genuine pedagogical resources. The range of perspectives assembled is impressive, though as a specialist in religious ethics I would have enjoyed seeing chapters from scholars writing within the perspectives of larger world religions. Perhaps the most impressive part of the work is how it balances technical treatments with lucid explanation of economic concepts, something this ethicist particularly appreciated. The Handbook of Teaching Ethics to Economists should be on any good research library’s shelves, and specialists in economics, economic ethics, and ethics would do well to acquire this fine work. I am thankful that I did.