Hiring Women and the Moral Inversion of Economics
24th September 2014
Alex Tabarrok underlines some contradictions.
In my post on why economics is detested I quoted Arnold Kling:
The intention heuristic says that if the intentions of an act are selfless and well-meaning, then the act is good. If the intentions are self-interested, then it is not good.
In contrast, economics evaluates an act not by its intentions but by its consequences. Since “bad” intentions can lead to good consequences (“as if by an invisible hand”). It’s not surprising that economists often praise what others denounce.