Rumplestatskin — Economics is applied morality

Utilitarianism is the moral foundation of economics. The idea of the greatest good for the greatest number is intuitively appealing. But applying a utilitarian framework relies on value judgments about the desires, and a comparable measure of their intensity, of every individual. Some of the defining debates in economics over the past century have centred around the measurement and comparability of utility between individuals.

Thus any application of economics requiring estimation of costs or benefits is applying a judgment about the worthiness of competing desires of the population at large. That judgment is necessarily a moral one.

Utilitarianism is a subset of consequentialism (outcome-based), which is one of the major divisions of ethical theory along with deontology (rule-based), rights, natural law, divine injunction, casuist (case study), situational (love is higher than law), and virtue (character-based) ethics. Ethics is a subset of axiology or value theory, and also an aspect of theory of action.

Conventional economics simply assumes away millennia of debate and controversy over the relationship of the normative, prescriptive, and descriptive, as if economics is exempt from such considerations. However, the normative and prescriptive is built into human affairs and ignoring it simply creates hidden assumptions and unacknowledged biases.

Macrobusiness
Economics is applied morality
Rumplestatskin