Journal of the History of Economic Thought

Table of Contents - June 2012 - Volume 34, Issue 02  

Articles

EXPLORING HAWTREY’S SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY THROUGH HIS UNPUBLISHED BOOK, RIGHT POLICY

TOSHIAKI HIRAI*

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct and evaluate, among other issues, Hawtrey’s social philosophy.

Hawtrey’s system as a whole is composed of the two distinct and yet interrelated subsystems: philosophy and social philosophy. The former has three components: the theory of evolution and rationalization; the theory of aspects; and Moorean ethics. The latter has two components: his conception of society in general; and his perception of capitalistic economy as one type of society.

We then examine three problematic elements connected with Hawtrey’s system: epistemology in Hawtrey and Moore; plus products and the market; and the ruler and the public.

Footnotes

* Sophia University. The present paper can be traced back to Hirai (2009). It is greatly revised, thanks to invaluable comments from, among others, Prof. T. Hashimoto (Hokkaido Univ., Japan) at the JSHET Conference (Keio Univ., Japan, May 2009), Prof. N. Aslanbeigui (Monmouth Univ., US), and Prof. J. Davis (University of Amsterdam [Netherlands] and Marquette University [US]) at the HES Conference (Univ. of Colorado Denver, US, June 2009); and Prof. R. Backhouse (Birmingham Univ., UK) and Prof. R. Sandilands (Univ. of Strathclyde, UK) at the UK-HET Conference (Univ. of Manchester, UK, September 2009).

The largest improvement, however, occurred in response to the two anonymous referees’ comments, for which I would like to express much gratitude. Any possible errors are mine.