Adam's Fallacy : : A Guide to Economic Theology / / Duncan K. Foley.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada)
• VerfasserIn: Foley, Duncan K.,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2009]; ©2008
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (288 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Acknowledgments --; Contents --; Preface --; 1. Adam's Vision --; 2. Gloomy Science --; 3 . The Severest Critic --; 4.On the Margins --; 6. Grand Illusions --; Reading Further --; Appendix --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9780674027077; 9783110756067; 9783110442205
• DOI: 10.4159/9780674027077
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Duncan K. Foley.

This book could be called "The Intelligent Person's Guide to Economics." The title expresses Duncan Foley's belief that economics at its most abstract and interesting level is a speculative philosophical discourse, not a deductive or inductive science. Adam's fallacy is the attempt to separate the economic sphere of life, in which the pursuit of self-interest is led by the invisible hand of the market to a socially beneficial outcome, from the rest of social life, in which the pursuit of self-interest is morally problematic and has to be weighed against other ends.