The opposing views in the scholarly debate on evidence-based policy (EBP) have recently been labeled ‘rationalist’ and ‘constructivist’, where the former are positive to EBP and the latter are not. This framing of the debate is suboptimal, as it conflates critical positions that should be kept separate. This article suggests Weiterlesen…
Germany’s approach to solving the Eurozone crisis is supposedly based on the ideas of Walter Eucken (1891-1950), the founder of ordoliberalism. In this and other contexts, Eucken’s work has been described as being in direct opposition to that of John Maynard Keynes. Our paper aims to clarify and differentiate the Weiterlesen…
Friedrich Hayek devoted the later part of his career to investigating the legal rules required for the existence of a free society. The subject of Daniel Nientiedt’s paper is Hayek’s treatment of legal positivism, which he thought was the most important intellectual movement responsible for the decline of liberal institutions Weiterlesen…
Ecological sustainability issues, including the desire to ameliorate climate change impacts upon economic, social and political systems, figure prominently in twenty-first-century public discourses. Despite growing community agreement over the need to avert the worst effects of climate change, a perceived lack of political progress in advancing multilateral climate-change policy is Weiterlesen…
Public reason theories are characterized by three conditions: constructivism, representation, and stability. Constructivism holds that justification does not rely on any antecedent moral or political values outside of the procedure of agreement. Representation holds that the reasons for the choice in the model must be rationally explicable to real agents outside the model. Weiterlesen…
Should the norms of honor cultures be classified as a variety of morality? In their paper „Two of a kind: Are norms of honor a species of morality?“, NOUS member John Trasher and Toby Handfield address this question by considering various empirical bases on which norms can be taxonomically organised. Weiterlesen…
Contrary to the claims of some of his critics, James Buchanan was an ardent democrat. In his paper “ Democracy Unchained: Contractualism, Individualism, and Independence in Buchanan’s Democratic Theory“ NOUS member John Trasher argues that Buchanan’s conception of democratic governance organized by a contractually justified constitution is highly distinctive because Weiterlesen…
This is the first-ever English translation of Carl Menger’s The Errors of Historicism in German Economics. Originally published in 1884, the book is Menger’s second major contribution to what became known as the Methodenstreit between him and Gustav Schmoller. Menger writes The Errors of Historicism in German Economics as a response to Schmoller’s Weiterlesen…