Reconciling homo economicus and John Dewey’s ethics 223 Journal of Economic Methodology ISSN 1350-178X print/ISSN 1469-9427 online © 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/1350178032000071093 Journal of Economic Methodology 10:2, 223–243 June 2003 Reconciling homo economicus and John Dewey’s ethics Mark D. White 1 Abstract This paper attempts to incorporate the ethics of John Dewey into the neoclassical model of rational choice. I show that while it may be possible to modify the preference–satisfaction model of homo economicus in order to include many aspects of Dewey’s ethics, there are some issues, such as his concepts of the continuity of action, time horizons, and the social nature of the individual, that prove much more difficult to combine with the economic model of human behavior. Keywords: rationality, ethics, John Dewey, preferences Homo economicus, the central concept of neoclassical microeconomics and rational choice theory, has come under criticism from many quarters. One of the more enduring and intriguing lines of criticism comes from the institutional school, followers of Thorstein Veblen and others, who in turn were inspired by the American pragmatist philosophers, including Charles Sanders Peirce, Williams James, and Veblen’s contemporary, John Dewey. If one looks at Veblen’s critiques of neoclassical economics and its concept of the individual more closely, one will see many parallels with Dewey’s thought, in particular his ethics. The purpose of this paper is to examine John Dewey’s ethics in detail and explore the compatibility of his ethics with the standard model of economic choice; not only may this help neoclassical economists answer the institutionalists’ criticisms, but will also enrich the ethical basis of rational choice itself. Many of the issues Veblen had with the neoclassical view of the indi- vidual were centered on the hedonistic psychology on which economics is based, in particular the calculating nature of such a theory of choice: In all the received formulations of economic theory . . . the human material with which the inquiry is concerned is conceived in hedonistic terms; that is to say, in terms of a passive and substantially inert and immutably given human nature ... . The hedonistic conception of man is that of a lightning calculator of pleasures and pains, who oscillates like a homogeneous globule of desire of happiness under the impulse of