A Study of Biological Methods in Economics : Smith, Marshal and Veblen Reconsidered

通过对亚当·斯密的本能概念、查尔斯·达尔文的社会本能、阿尔弗雷德·马歇尔对进化生物学的关注以及凡勃伦对经济科学进化方法重要性的不懈强调的详细考察，可以看出：人类与其他动物的比较研究是在启蒙时期哲学和科学革命的强烈影响下开始的，在这一革命过程中，自然史即生物学的研究取得了长足的进步。林奈和布丰在这场科学革命中发挥了重要作用，艾萨克·牛顿也是如此。林奈和布丰的著作开启了对人的科学认识的道路。大卫休谟对社会或社会行为中人性的理解显然是顺应了这一时代潮流，斯密的《道德理论》也是如此 ...更多信息 情感是。达尔文的进化论，特别是《人的体面》，彻底推翻了启蒙时代建立的自然神学对人性的理解。他的本能复合概念，即自我保护本能（自爱）和社会本能（互惠利他主义），是真正的突破。两位经济学家马歇尔和凡勃伦表现出了积极的反应。马歇尔以其对经济生物学的强烈诉求而闻名，但他在《经济学》中却未能将社会发展的制度或生物学理论明显地纳入其理论结构。凡勃伦则成功地抓住了劳动本能和模仿本能两种本能，并将制度的进化过程清晰地描绘为人类社会本能的不断释放，即人性的积累过程，但对自我保护的一面却轻描淡写。在这个意义上，我们可以说亚当·斯密的理论是最进化的理论，因为他的整个讨论都是在自爱和互惠利他主义的基础上展开的。少

Minute investigations on Adam Smith's Concept of instinct, Charles Darwin's social instincts, Alfred Marshall's attentions on the evolutionary biology and Thorstein Veblen's persistent emphasis on the importance of evolutionary methods of economic sciences elucidated the following fact.Comparative research between the human being and other animals, began under the strong influences of philosophical and scientific revolution in the period of enlightenment, eliminated the simple machinery understanding of man. In the revolutionary process, the studies of natural history that is biology showed great progress. Carolus Linnaeus and Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon played the important role in this scientific revolution as well as Isaac Newton. Works of Linnaeus and Buffon opened the way to the scientific understanding of human being. David Hume's experiments to understand human nature in a society or social conducts is obviously in this stream of the times, and so Smith's The Theory of Moral … More Sentiments is.Thoroughly overthrow of natural theological understanding of human nature established in the era of enlightenment was done by Darwin's theory of evolution, especially by The Decent of Man. His composite conception of instincts, that is, of the instinct of self-preservation (self-love) and social instinct (reciprocal altruism), was the true breakthrough. Two economists, Marshal and Veblen showed the positive reaction. While Marshal has been famous for his strong appeal to the economic biology, he failed to incorporate the institutional or biological theory of social development into his theoretical structure distinctly in his Economics. Veblen, on the other hand, succeeded to grasp to two kinds of instinct as the instinct of workmanship and emulation, and depicted clearly the evolutionary process of institutions as a successive release of social instincts of human being, that is an accumulative process of human nature, although the side of self-preservation was treated lightly. In this sense, we can say that Adam Smith's theory is the most evolutionary one, for his whole discussion is developed upon self-love and reciprocal altruism. Less