Income - Income in Philosophy and Ethics

Income in Philosophy and Ethics

Throughout history, many have written about the impact of income on morality and society. Saint Paul wrote 'For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil:' (1 Timothy 6:10 (ASV)).

Some scholars have come to the conclusion that material progress and prosperity, as manifested in continuous income growth at both individual and national level, provide the indispensable foundation for sustaining any kind of morality. This argument was explicitly given by Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, and has more recently been developed by Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman in his book The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth.

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Famous quotes containing the words income, philosophy and/or ethics:

    There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.
    Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946)

    How does Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements! Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sun-set and moon-rise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Indeed the involuntary character of psychiatric treatment is at odds with the spirit and ethics of medicine itself.
    Kate Millett (b. 1934)