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In Defence of Ethinomics

Ethical theory is not for the meek. Battles rage between unmoving Absolutists and the cagey adherents of Moral Relativism. Radical Sceptics craftily undermine the Realists’ foundations, while Emotivist theoreticians dodge the categorical arrows of Deontologists. Existentialists let fly the “essential truth” that the Prescriptivists have no stable moral compass, while Subjectivists wail that hell gapes for the stark and grim price-taggery of Utilitarian Scholars. No weak-kneed namby-pambies, ethical theorists: neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down.1 We are hardy stock; fired in the crucible of academic combat and unafraid to grind our axes on the works of our detractors. We shall fight in the libraries; we shall fight in the lecture theatres. We shall fight in the archives and in the pages of scholarly journals. We shall never surrender. My latest stratagem in the Wars of Ethical Theory is to advance the Utilitarian cause under the banner of economics. My claim is that economic theory forms a clarifying lens through which the rules constraining lawyers’ professional conduct can be viewed. Indeed, I contend that micro-economics provides the best available method of assessing ethical norms. The theory behind that claim, and my overall defence of the application of economics to the regulation of lawyers’ professional conduct, is set out in my recent book, whimsically entitled Legal Ethics.2 That book is reviewed in the present forum by three admirable professors of law and ethics: David McGowan, Duncan Webb and Alice Woolley. My present purpose is to respond to those reviews, and in particular to dispel some of the misconceptions and prejudices upon which two of those reviews appear to be based. Before engaging my reviewers, I wish to thank the editors of this journal for providing a battle-ground for this particular ethical skirmish. Specifically, I would like to thank Professor Bradley Wendel for selecting reviewers, enforcing deadlines, sending inspirational missives and conceiving the idea for this forum in the first place. I would also like to thank Professors Julian Webb and Kim Economides for supporting this symposium from the beginning. Of course, I extend copious thanks to Professors McGowan, Webb and Woolley for taking the Legal Ethics, Volume 8, No. 1