Ethics: the Discursive Regime that Evolved to Govern the Irreducible Duplicities between the General and the Specific

This paper looks at the epistemological history of the opposition between general systematic knowledge and specific observations, and its relation to ethics in the philosophy and methodology of economics. Ethics is the study of human choice—an absolute decision in relative ignorance—and as such it is a choice arena for examining the complex relationship between absolutes and relatives. This is because ethics is structured by the tensions between the inside—the subjective self with its interpretations and interests—and the outside, the other, to which we cannot have direct access, and therefore must be conceived in ideal form as a general law. Historically, ethics is the discursive regime that has evolved to deal with issues of irreducible duplicities that are an integral part of rational thought. Throughout the rich history of economic thought, ethical considerations are paramount whether they function as a foundation, logic, political agenda, or as a metaphysical " other " against which rational thought is defined.