In What Sense Must the Sciences be Grounded in Ethico‐ Religious Values?

Part I The International Conference on “Epistemological Foundations of Social Theory” was an intriguing step in the project of establishing a new ‘ethico‐economic’ paradigm. The conviction that a ‘value‐free’ economics is no longer adequate for understanding or living within the world we inhabit, motivated participants: the vision of such an economics is failing fast because it is rooted in a divorce between economics and the enriching influences of the other social sciences, philosophy and religion. And this divorce means economics works with a distorted representation of human nature, and consequently inhibits the achievement of social justice. Discussion and debate at the Conference clarified and explored that conviction, showing it to be a reasoned premise for an argument rather than an assumption. Successfully articulating the argument for an alternate vision of ethico‐economics, is, however, no easy task.