“In a Space of Questions”: A Reflection on Religion and Economics at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century
通过道德哲学家查尔斯·泰勒的视角，探讨现代经济分析中的功利主义价值观与宗教非功利价值观之间的冲突，并回顾托克维尔与穆勒的关系，最后以行为经济学为例说明经济学可超越功利最大化来考虑更广泛的伦理关切。
Efforts to consider economic life from a religious perspective almost always run headlong into the conflict between utilitarian values, which are the cornerstone of modern economic analysis, and religious values, which are almost uniformly nonutilitarian. This essay looks at this conflict of values through the work of the moral philosopher Charles Taylor. While acknowledging the power of utilitarian analysis, Taylor shows that it treats only a subset of what is central to our ethical concerns. The essay looks back to the relationship between Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill and their views of the nature of economic analysis to try to see some of the power of Taylor's distinction. The essay concludes by looking at recent work in behavioral economics as evidence that economists can consider broader criteria than utility maximization in examining economic behavior. Only if economics can move beyond strict utilitarian analysis can it fully engage with the broad range of ethical concerns that underpin religious belief.