2018年经济学人 自由交流:利益交易无需考虑“道德问题”?(2)（在线收听）

Though studies show that telling people that payment encourages organ donations increases support for legalising payments, other examples work in the opposite way.

尽管研究表明，告诉人们付款鼓励器官捐赠增加了对合法化支付的支持，但其他例子却恰恰相反。

Giving women information about the health and safety benefits of legalising prostitution seems to reduce support for legalisation—perhaps because women worry about the consequences of applying a cost-benefit approach to areas relating to their status within society.

向妇女提供有关合法卖淫的健康和安全利益的信息似乎减少了对合法化的支持——这也许是因为妇女担心在与社会地位有关的领域运用成本收益分析法的后果。

Do the right thing

做正确的事

Not all economists avoid ethical considerations entirely.

并非所有的经济学家都完全不考虑道德问题。

Jean Tirole, another Nobel prizewinner, devoted a chapter of his recent book, “Economics for the Common Good”, to “the moral limits of the market”, for example.

例如，另一位诺贝尔奖得主让·梯若尔在其最近出版的著作《公共利益的经济学》中，用了一个章节来描述“市场的道德界限”。

He says economists should respect society’s need to set its own goals, then help devise the most efficient ways to attain them.

他说，经济学家应该尊重社会需要设定自己的目标，然后帮助设计最有效的方法来实现目标。

But, as Beatrice Cherrier of the Institute for New Economic Thinking argued in an essay addressing Mr Roth’s lecture, these questions are fundamental to economics.

但是，正如新经济思想研究所的碧翠丝·切里尔在一篇发表于罗斯先生讲座的文章中所指出的那样，这些问题是经济学的基础。

The hard sciences deal much better with the ethical implications of their work, she says.

她说，硬科学及其工作的伦理含义处理得更好。

And moral concerns affect human behaviour in economically important ways, as Mr Roth found to his frustration.

正如罗斯先生发现的那样，道德问题在经济上影响着人类的行为。

To be useful, economists need to learn to understand and evaluate moral arguments rather than dismiss them.

要想发挥作用，经济学家需要学会理解和评价道德论点，而不是摒弃它们。

Many economists will find that a dismal prospect.

许多经济学家将会发现这是一个令人沮丧的前景。

Calculations of social utility are tidier, and the profession has fallen out of the habit of moral reasoning.

社会公用事业的计算变得更加复杂，职业已经脱离了道德推理的习惯。

But those who wish to say what society should be doing cannot dodge questions of values.

但那些想说社会应该做什么的人不应避开价值观的问题。