Every Fall term the cohort who is in its second year organizes three student-led seminars on each of the Orphan Disciplines: 1) Ethics and Cosmology, 2) Economics and Finance, and 3) Law and Governance.  This year the seminars are conducted by cohort 3, and those who have been assigned to the Ethics and Cosmology orphan discipline are now conducting, every Thursday afternoon, a course entitled Ethics and Cosmology for a Mutually Enhancing Human-Earth Relationship. This course consists in five modules, each focused on a different topic and led by a different student-instructor. Several guest speakers have been invited, and this post is about the contribution kindly given by Prof. Herman Daly, the guest speaker on Module 1: The Relationships among Ethics, Economics and Society.

Prof. Daly’s contribution consisted in a series of questions and answers on his debated paper Ethics in relation to Economics, Ecology and Eschatology*, a paper that has been described as controversial by Daly himself, and that indeed has made different, contrasting opinions emerge from the different participants in the discussion.

One of the core points of Module 1 of this seminar is to stimulate autonomous reflection and self-reflection, first inviting the students to reflect on a topic by themselves and note their personal answers, and then asking to read the provided materials and reflect on them. For this reason, in order not to influence your opinions, this post ends here: Think autonomously about the relationships among Ethics, Economics, Ecology and Eschatology, have a look at the paper and the recorded conversation**, and build your own opinion on Prof Daly’s paper and on this topic! 😊

*  Daly, H.E. (2016). Ethics in Relation to Economics, Ecology and Eschatology, in DeMartino, G. F., & McCloskey, D. N. (Eds.). (2016). The Oxford handbook of professional economic ethics. Oxford University Press.

** The conversation is available on the E4A’s new YouTube channel, at this link.