John Broome who is at present visiting Princeton, is a reader in economics at Bristol University. He is the author of The Microeconomics of Capitalism.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognises that climate change is a moral problem or, to use its cautious language, it ‘raises ethical issues’. The authors of the IPCC’s recent Fifth Assessment Report therefore included two moral philosophers. I am one of them. I have been a member of the IPCC’s Working Group 3 since 2011.
Welfare economics is concerned with what economic arrangements we should have, and what governments should do in economic matters. It is about right and good in economics. So it is a branch of ethics, the study of right and good in general. There is no dividing line between theoretical welfare economics and practical ethics.
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