Individualismo, egoismo, etica ed economia

This paper attempts to go deeper into foundational issues of contemporary ethics and economics such as: the departure of XX century mainstream economics from Adam Smith’s broad view of human nature, where empathy plays a crucial role, to embrace the unpleasant, greedy homo economicus, the philosophical underpinnings of which can be traced back to Machiavelli and Hobbes (via Bentham); the (unnecessary) link between self-interest and rationality such that rational self-interested humans may turn out to be social idiots; the contrast between homo oeconomicus, homo cooperans and homo moralis; the negative effects of the generational egoism that underlies the economistic (neoliberal) approach to climate change and to the assessment of policies aimed at facing global warming; the difficult coexistence of markets and incentives with goods that should not have a price. In the past hundred years or so many economists went a long way to firmly separate their discipline (which mainly deals with markets and incentives) from ethics. However, Markets need morals, which cannot be made by markets.