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(2018) Human action, economics, and ethics, Dordrecht, Springer.
An obvious starting point is to recognize that humans have needs to meet. For to speak of economic reality is to speak of needs. The close relationship between ethics and economics becomes apparent as soon as one examines, explains or interprets the rich reality of individuals, manifested in and through their actions. Eating, drinking and clothing ourselves are needs essential to a person. But what is not so essential is how they are met. In other words, there is no necessity in the way that we meet our needs. We are released from imperative stimuli by an interposing of the world of values, feelings, projects, etc. between stimuli and our response to them. We have built a world not only of stimuli but also of ideas governing our action. We find that economic reality is manifested in individual action within a particular society and culture. It is in living together and in a common partaking in values, beliefs and knowledge that the structures of means and ends constituting the stuff of economics take shape.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-73912-0_2
Full citation:
Aranzadi, J. (2018). Economic reality and human action, in Human action, economics, and ethics, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 5-7.
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