A virtue ethics critique of ethical dimensions of behavioral economics: Comments from a behavioral economist

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12205
• Published date: 01 June 2020
• Date: 01 June 2020
• Author: Jeffrey A. Livingston

Bus Soc Rev. 2020;125:261–268.

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INTRODUCTION

In “A Virtue Ethics Critique of Ethical Dimensions of Behavioral Economics,” Professor Daryl Koehn

presents a series of strong condemnations of the value of the field. In this comment, I offer responses

to many of these criticisms, but also point out facets of her criticism that behavioral economists should

take seriously.

Insights from virtue ethics form the basis of many of Professor Koehn's arguments. I will not argue

with the application of virtue ethics or any of the arguments that arise from its application since I have

Received: 18 May 2020

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Accepted: 21 May 2020

DOI: 10.1111/basr.12205

VERIZON LECTURE

A virtue ethics critique of ethical dimensions of

behavioral economics: Comments from a behavioral

economist

Jeffrey A.Livingston

© 2020 W. Michael Hoffman Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden,

MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.

Department of Economics, Bentley

University, Waltham, MA, USA

Correspondence

Jeffrey A. Livingston, Department of

Economics, Bentley University, 175 Forest

Street, Waltham, MA 02452, USA.

Email: jlivingston@bentley.edu

Abstract

In “A Virtue Ethics Critique of Ethical Dimensions of

Behavioral Economics,” Professor Daryl Koehn criticizes

the field of behavioral economics. She argues that behav-

ioral economists ignore many important factors that affect

how people make decisions, that their results are derived

from experiments where subjects make choices in overly

restrictive, artificial, and thin contexts that do not capture

the richness of reality, and that the approach brings up psy-

chological motivations that affect behavior in a piecemeal,

ad hoc way that does not capture the overall tapestry of the

factors that influence the choices that we make. In this com-

ment, I offer responses to many of these criticisms, and note

where I think we have common ground.

KEYWORDS

behavioral economics, virtue ethics