Normative and Descriptive Aspects of Social Justice and Welfare: The Homo Economicus in a Critical Perspective

Aspectos normativos e descritivos da justiça social e do bem-estar: o homo economicus em perspectiva crítica

Abstract

The homo economicus is a representative agent built on preferences’ axioms and on the notion of utility maximization that is still widely incorporated into economic models. However, there is a vast literature in political philosophy and social psychology showing that human beings act according to different socially shared norms of justice and perceive justice in multiple descriptive dimensions. Based on these contributions, the paper aims to place homo economicus in a critical perspective, particularly concerning its (in)ability to represent individuals in situations involving some deliberation about descriptive and normative conceptions of social justice and welfare. It is observed that there is great heterogeneity between normative approaches concerning the degree of incorporation of descriptive aspects of justice. In particular, utilitarianism provides one of the less comprehensive frameworks, while the multidimensional normative perspectives of justice embody distributive, procedural, and interactional dimensions of descriptive justice and propose a broader conception of social welfare.