Hausman and McPherson discuss Larry Summers's memorandum Essay

Hausman and McPherson discuss Larry Summers's memorandum - Essay Example Even though Summers and Pritchett argued the â€Å"aside† on the memo as a sarcastic inference, the â€Å"aside† generated worldwide uproar and criticisms. In the book Philosophy of Economics, Hausman and McPherson debate the Summers Memo, lamenting the idea that health-impairing pollution could not be promoted or shifted to LDCs. This paper discusses one of Hausman and McPherson objections to summers arguments. In the essay ‘The Philosophical Foundations of Mainstream Normative Economics’, Hausman and McPherson suggest that the three paragraphs in Summers memo presented a scientific argument while the last paragraph highlighted moral objections. However, according to Hausman and McPherson, the entire â€Å"aside† was essentially a moral argument, which is significant to the relationship between market evaluation and welfare. By isolating welfare and preference satisfaction, and then leaning on the relationship positive economics establishes between preferences and market prices. Consequently, the Summers memo established a link between premises regarding costs and demands and conclusions regarding the specific outcomes that augment welfare (Hausman and McPherson 233). According to Hausman and McPherson the uproar instigated by the Memo signified objection to its conclusions. On page 232, they outline five objections discussing why the World Bank should not encourage the migration of pollution to LDCs. The first objection states that encouraging ‘dirty’ industries to shift to LDCs might cause more total pollution. Specifically, compared to LDCs, industrialized countries have better incentives, superior administrative ability, and extensive resources to implement pollution regulations. The second objection is that even though individuals in the industrialized economies and LDCs would agree to the migration of pollution to the third world in exchange for suitable compensation, the exchange may be discriminating. Notably, in such an

Arts and Humanties Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Arts and Humanties - Assignment Example Of many options, a decision that yields the maximum net happiness is considered justified from the perspective of utilitarian ethics. Utilitarian ethics denies gay marriages to be legalized because the only happiness generated by the legalization of gay marriages is the happiness of the gay couple while its negative implications on the society are numerous including lack of the gay couple to produce babies in the society with an already negative rate of birth, drop in the number of men available to women for marriage, transgression of the limits imposed by religion, spread of such dreadful diseases as AIDS in the society, and dissatisfaction of the families of the gay couple in a vast majority of cases. So utilitarian ethics provides an answer to the question; should gay marriages be legalized? Arts and Humanities are worth-studying not only because they are distinct fields of study with their respective significances but also because they have the tendency to sharpen an individual’s skills in other fields of science including social sciences and mathematics. For example, looking at a painting showing the architecture of classical Rome speaks volumes about the classical Roman culture, social perceptions and values knowledge of which facilitates drawing a connection between their present and past and understanding their history. Likewise evaluating different solutions to a problem with the help of ethical theories enhances an individual’s critical analysis skills which in turn improve his/her performance in research and other fields of science. Quran or Bible must not be categorized as literature because they were not written as literature in the first place (Winters, 2011). Literature, by definition, is a kind of art of writing that gets published. There is an author who writes text and gets it published. Neither Quran nor Bible was created by a human being. Both Quran and Bible are a compilation of the verses created by God Almighty and recited by the  Holy Prophets.