Ethics and Economics

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

In this course, we will study the different views about the free market. Adam Smith defends the free market whereas Marx attacks it. We will also demonstrate that an efficient free market needs government interventions. Hence, we will argue that economics theory needs three crucial concepts: private, public and merit goods. We will spend time to discuss the complications in the provision of the non-private goods like public and merit goods. We shall study feminist theoreticians, libertarian authors, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Islamic authors and their views about economics. We will address a current situation and demonstrate that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia elevates national defense to a very important merit good where the government has the right and duty to intervene in the free market and make national defense an important merit good.