ABSTRACT
Both men eschewed hedonism and rejected crude nineteenth-century laissezfaire liberalism. They both emphasized the role played by spirited, visionary capitalists in promoting capitalist development and maintaining economic stability. Both recognized the limits to the rational use of the hedonic calculus in economic decisions. For both, ethics and economics were interrelated at several levels. The interrelation informed their visions of the human potential and ‘progress’, both social and economic, and, therefore, influenced their approach to public policy. Ethical presuppositions led them to take seriously public duty and guided their activities and projects as economists. Though politically both Marshall and Keynes can be considered utilitarians, because they took the ultimate aim of public policy to be the well being of the people, neither man considered utilitarianism an adequate ethical theory, because it does not adequately account for human motivation.
