Decision Theory and Social Ethics: Issues in Social Choice 1978 Edition Contributor(s): Gottinger, H. W. (Editor), Leinfellner, W. (Editor) |
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ISBN: 9027708878 ISBN-13: 9789027708878 Publisher: Springer OUR PRICE: $94.05 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: September 1978 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Sociology - General - Social Science | Methodology - Gardening |
Dewey: 301.11 |
LCCN: 78018513 |
Series: Synthese Language Library |
Physical Information: 351 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Ethics, as one of the most respectable disciplines of philosophy, has undergone a drastic and revolutionary change in recent time. There are three main trends of this development. The first trend can be described as a tendency towards a rigorous formal and analytical language. This means simply that ethics has created beside its own formalized set- theoretical language a variety of new formalized, logical and mathemati- cal methods and concepts. Thus ethics has become a formalized meta- or epidiscipline which is going to replace the traditional concepts, principles and ethical methods in the realm of social sciences. It is clear that a formalized form of ethics can be used more easily in social, economic and political theories if there are ethical conflicts to be solved. This first trend can be regarded as a conditio sine qua non for application in, and imposing ethical solutions on, social scientific theories. The second trend may be characterized as an association- or unification-tendency of a formalized and analytical ethics with decision theory. Decision theory as a new interdiscipline of social sciences is actually an assemblage of a variety of subtheories such as value-utility theory, game theory, collective decision theory, etc. Harsanyi has called this complex of subtheories a general theory of human behavior. Analytical or formal ethics is actually using this general theory of human behavior as a vehicle simply because this theory deals from the beginning with conflict solution, i. e. |