| AQ-228774-15 | Education Programs: Enduring Questions: Pilot Course Grants | University of North Carolina, Asheville | NEH Enduring Questions Course on Morality and Material Progress | 6/1/2015 - 5/31/2018 | $22,000.00 | Robert | Charles | Tatum | | | | University of North Carolina, Asheville | Asheville | NC | 28804-3251 | USA | 2015 | Economics | Enduring Questions: Pilot Course Grants | Education Programs | 22000 | 0 | 21091.25 | 0 | The development and teaching of a new undergraduate seminar on the relationship between morality and material progress.
Modern mainstream economics portrays itself as an amoral, positive science. Yet, issues of morality cannot be separated from issues of material well-being and progress. In fact, the moral philosopher Adam Smith is widely understood to be the "father of economics" precisely because he explained how the virtue of rational self-interest can improve material well-being in a free-market economy. Sixty-two years before Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations" though, Bernard de Mandeville depicted self-love in "The Fable of the Bees" not as a virtue, but rather as a vice that nonetheless brings about material progress. This raises the question: Can the good life be lived in both moral and material terms? Historic thinkers have answered this question in many different ways. Accordingly, the course I seek to develop through this grant will examine the various answers to this question over the ages.
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