Villanova University Legal Working Paper Series
Villanova University School of Law Working Paper Series
Utility, The Good and Civic Happiness: A Catholic Critique of Law and Economics
Article comments
The final version of this draft will appear in the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies.
Abstract
This paper contrasts the value maximization norm of welfare economics that is central to law and economics in its prescriptive mode to the Aristotelian/Aquinian principles of Catholic social thought. The reluctance (or inability) of welfare economics and law and economics to make judgments about about utilities (or preferences) differs profoundly from the Catholic tradition (rooted in Aristotle as well as religious faith) of contemplation of the nature of the good. This paper also critiques the interesting argument by Stephen Bainbridge that homo economicus bears a certain affinity to fallen man, and that law and economics thus provides appropriate rules for a fallen world. From a Catholic perspective, the social vision of neo-classical economics and its progeny (welfare economics and law and economics) rests on a concept of human autonomy and a utilitarian concept of pleasure inconsistent with the Aristotelian and Aquinean concept of virtue and the conception of civic happiness articulated by Antonio Genovesi and other Catholic economists.
Subject Area
Law and Economics, Law and Society
Recommended Citation
Mark A. Sargent,
"Utility, The Good and Civic Happiness: A Catholic Critique of Law and Economics"
(April 2005).
Villanova University Legal Working Paper Series.
Villanova University School of Law Working Paper Series.
Working Paper 32.
http://law.bepress.com/villanovalwps/papers/art32
No readers' reactions have been posted for this article. To submit one, copy the URL for this article (http://law.bepress.com/villanovalwps/papers/art32) and click here.