Reason, Morality, and Skill

Abstract

Some economists argue that modern industrial societies must respond to ecological challenges by learning to live with diminishing economic growth. Yet it also seems that low growth societies are doomed to struggle with problems of social instability caused by economic recession, unemployment and a decline in social entitlements. In “Reason, Morality and Skill” John Stopford draws on Ancient Greek economic thought, including Aristotle’s views on the natural limitation of wealth, to discuss the problem of human flourishing in ecologically challenged societies. Economic capability theorists, influenced by the work of Sen and Nussbaum, have recently argued that the transition from a growth driven economy focused on consumption to a stable low growth economy requires us to redefine prosperity as capability development “within limits”. Stopford argues that to understand prosperity in this way we need to reexamine the role of skill in the development of capabilities. The marginalization of skill has become a systematic feature of modern industrial and consumer societies. Yet certain kinds of skill, exemplified in the work of the autonomously productive craftsman, are necessary to the development of the bounded capabilities that low growth societies need to foster.