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 in, income, philosophy and/or ethics:

    The bread-winner must toil as in the fruitless effort of a troubled dream while the expenditure of an uneducated wife discounts the income in the lack of understanding to discern the broad possibilities of an intelligent economy.
    Anna Eugenia Morgan (1845–1909)

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

    The late PrĂ©sident de Montesquieu told me that he knew how to be blind—he had been so for such a long time—but I swear that I do not know how to be deaf: I cannot get used to it, and I am as humiliated and distressed by it today as I was during the first week. No philosophy in the world can palliate deafness.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)