Keynes and the British Humanist Tradition: The Moral Purpose of the Market (Routledge Studies in the History of Economics)

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Well-connected in academia, business and government, John Maynard Keynes was one of the most influential economic theorists of the twentieth century. It appears that his theories will be just as important for the twenty-first. As Keynes himself explained, his ideas throughout his life were influenced by the moral philosophy he learned as an undergraduate. Nevertheless, the meaning and significance for Keynes of this early philosophy have remained largely unexplored.

Keynes and the British Humanist Tradition offers an interpretation of Keynes� s early philosophy and its implications for his later thought. It approaches that philosophy from the perspective of the nineteenth century intellectual context out of which it emerged. The book argues that roots of Keynes � s early beliefs are to be found in the traditions of the Apostles, the very famous secret society to which he and most of his teachers belonged. The principles of Keynes’s philosophy can be seen in such writers as John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick, but the underlying ideas have been obscured by changing fashions in philosophy and thus require excavation and reconstruction.

This book will be of interest to students and researchers in the history of economics, in particular the thought of John Maynard Keynes, especially his ethics, politics and economics.

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Keynes and the British Humanist Tradition: The Moral Purpose of the Market (Routledge Studies in the History of Economics) Review

Andrews had the potential to make an important contribution by presenting a somewhat original and important analysis and viewpoint that has been generally overlooked when dealing with J M Keynes's thought-his great emphasis on the importance of ethics and morals in economic decision making and policy making.Keynes's views can be seen to be similar in many respects to Adam Smith's views in Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments(TMS,1759,1st edition;1790,6th edition).Andrews indirectly brings this connection into focus by discussing the connections between Edmund Burke's political and economic views on political decision making and policy and Keynes's views.Burke was very clear that his views can be traced back to Smith.
Andrews does a good job in showng that there was a clearcut emphasis on ethics and morals that can be traced back from Keynes through Marshall,Sidgwick,John Stuart Mills,Burke and Smith .Andrews shows that the connections between Moore and Keynes,as well as Keynes's allegiance to Moore's ethical positions in most cases,which involved basic Christian beliefs( dressed up as a Moorist " religion"),were,in fact,nothing more than a continuation of what Andrews calls the British Humanist Tradition .This tradition was antithetical to all organized religion and rejected Christian theology while accepting a Christian philosophy based on Plato and Aristotle as interpreted by Augustine ,Aquinas,and the Scholastic philosophers of the School of Paris.It is quite easy to demonstrate the close connection between the emphasis on the 7 virtues of Aquinas and Adam Smith's 5 virtues.The missing virtues of faith and hope were removed by Smith because of their close connection with Catholic Theology.Smith also would refer to the "Schoolmen" or the " Scholastics ", instead of to Aquinas directly in the TMS, because of his antipathy to Catholic Theology.This part of Andrews book is worth 5 stars.Unfortunately,from p.65 on Andrews completely falls apart and bases his assessment of the worth of Keynes's contributions to probability and decision theory through the foggy and cloudy bifocals of the two very poor Frank P Ransey reviews of Keynes's A Treatise on Probability made in 1922 and 1926.

Andrews fumbles the ball completely when it comes time to assess the role of Keynes's logical theory of probability.Keynes correctly demonstrated the important role of intuition in allowing a decision maker to discern a degree of similarity/dissimilarity in probability assessments. The role of intuition in anchoring the process of pattern recognition and analogical reasoning to create new knowledge has been demonstrated to be crucial by cognitive scientists and cognitive psychologists since the early 1970's.Keynes's views on the importance of intuition are accepted as valid and sound.Unfortunately,Andrews,and the economists he relies on,such as Carabelli,Runde,O'Donnell,Fitzgibbons,Bateman,and John Davis,have no familiarity with this basic scientific analysis or understanding of the fact that Keynes's theory of probability,not mathematical probability, is based on the original interval estimate approach of George Boole.Ramsey had no idea about what Keynes was doing in the TP. This is where one gets the silly and stupid Ramseyian claims about Keynes's " strange,mysterious,non numerical ,noncomparable " probabilities that do not obey the mathematical laws of the probability calculus.

In The New Statesman and Nation magazine of October 3,1931 Keynes managed to both recognize Ramsey's intellectual abilities while at the same time demonstrating the very limited special case nature of Ramsey's Bayesian,Subjectivist theory of mathematical probability, a theory of probability that is the foundation for neoclassical economics rational actor model of decision making originally constructed on Jeremy Bentham's rational calculator.Without this theory neoclassical economics collapses.Keynes states: " Formal logic is concerned with nothing but the rules of CONSISTENT (Keynes's emphasis)thought....The application of these ideas to the logic of probability is very fruitful.Ramsey argues,against the views which I had put forward,that probability is concerned,not with objective relations between propositions but...with degrees of belief,and he succeeds in showing that the calculus of probabilities(the addition and multiplication rules for disjunction and conjunction used in all basic tree diagrams and conditional probability calculations-author's insert)simply amounts to a set of rules for ensuring that the system of degrees of belief(not rational degrees of belief-author's insert)which we hold shall be a CONSISTENT(Keynes's emphasis)system.Thus the calculus of probabilities belongs to formal logic...So far I yield to Ramsey-I think he is right.But in attempting to distinguish ' rational' degrees of belief from belief in general he was not yet,I think,quite successfully.It is not getting to the principle of induction merely to say that it is a useful mental habit.Yet in attempting to distinguish a 'human' logic from formal logic on the one hand and descriptive psychology on the other, Ramsey may have been pointing the way to the next field of study when formal logic has been put into good order and its HIGHLY LIMITED (author's emphasis)scope properly defined ".

Keynes is being very polite.However,shorn of all of the polite verbiage Keynes is saying the following-Ramsey's theory assumes that all probabilities MUST be exact,precise ,unique,definite,linear ,additive,single number answers.I demonstrated in the A Treatise on Probability in 1921, in chapters 3,5,10,15,17,20,22 ,and 26, that the vast majority of probabilities are interval estimates or ordinal comparisons that DO NOT satisfy the purely formal mathematical laws of the probability calculus.Frank Ramsey never grasped this fundamental fact.Only the probabilities in some scientific fields(physics,chemistry,biology,physical and life sciences), where there is a great amount of relevant data exhibiting great weight,and the standard deviation(standard error of the estimate) can be used as a proxy to measure the weight of the evidence,w,would Ramsey's theory be applicable.It is not applicable, in general, in all of the social sciences and liberal arts,economics,finance,business,education,or everyday practical decision making.Ramsey's theory is thus highly limited,though impressive from a purely formal,technical,mathematical view.

Andrews' claim ,that Keynes rejected his own theory of probability in a eulogy published by Keynes in 1931(pp.65-70,108-113), doesn't make any sense since Ramsey's theory is a very special case of Keynes's when the upper and lower probability limits are equal.He completely omits the relevant discussions made by Keynes in Keynes's eulogy concerning the calculus of probabilities.Andrews apparently has swallowed the Ramsey critique hook,line ,and sinker.Andrews's assessment of Keynes's 4 page eulogy is strikingly similar to a recent assessment made by John Davis,who has been making similar claims for over 20 years.Davis claims that:

" There is no doubting that he made important contributions to probability theory early in his life,though he is now widely regarded as being mistaken on this in important respects,as he himself agreed" (Davis,2009,History Of Political Economy,p.209).

Davis further claims that Keynes sought ".. to resolve Keynes's dilemma in accepting Ramsey's criticisms of his own work while believing Ramsey's own view insufficient ".(p.210).

It is obvious from my analysis above that Davis's bizarre claims are false.

I recommend buying the book for the first 64 pages.However,the buyer must be willing to purchase a book for his private library that is of a Jeykll and Hyde character.

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