ABSTRACT
Traditional studies on natural law and justice have been eclipsed by the development of a conception of economic science which, clumsily and mechanically, has tried to apply a methodology originally formed for the natural sciences and the world of physics to the social sciences. According to this conception, the ‘differentiating’ characteristic of economic theory would consist of the systematic application of a narrow criterion of ‘rationality’, so that both individual human action and economic policy at a general level would be considered to be determined by calculations and valuations of costs and benefits through a maximization criterion which supposedly made it possible to ‘optimize’ the attainment of the ends pursued on the basis of given means. According to this approach, it seemed obvious that considerations relative to ethical principles as guides for human behaviour lost relevance and significance. In effect, it seemed that a universal guide for human behaviour had been found and, at its different levels (individual and social), it could be put into practice by applying a simple criterion of maximization of the beneficial consequences derived from each action, without the need, therefore, to adapt any kind of behaviour to pre-fixed ethical rules. Science had apparently thus managed to eliminate considerations related to justice and make them obsolete.
