Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book starts by recognizing that in the beginning economics was considered to be a part of the study of moral philosophy. Its main contention is that there is an important class of public policy concerns for which the standard model of economic behavior, typically referred to as neoclassical economics, fails to provide adequate guidance due to the inadequacy of its guiding normative presuppositions as well as its assumptions respecting human motivations and behavior. The book focuses on the ethical thought of an epoch of the ancient Greek world called the Hellenistic period. Historians of economic thought often cite Aristotle as the ancient thinker who had most to say about economics. Hellenistic philosophy quite naturally reflects the political economic instability of its era.