The concept of ethical consumption is typified by two characteristics: ①voluntary and active involvement of the consumers themselves in societies, ②the use of practical markets. In this context, the economic and social thoughts of M. Gandhi and E. F. Schumacher are key sources of ideas. Voluntary behaviours have the potential to make people aware of their responsibilities and develop areas of creativity to improve societies. Simultaneously, consumption can also be utilised to support and promote economic independence of producers by using markets. On the other hand, these voluntary behaviours also pose a number of unavoidable limitations on market use. There are three aspects to this issue: (1) the free-ride problem; (2) the guarantee of consequential ethics in free competitive markets, and (3) difficulties in setting uniform ethical standards. However, recent studies to addressing pro-social preferences and behaviours, including ethical consumption, have not been able to completely address these issues. Neither have ethics based on deontology and consequentialism also been able to provide an explanatory basis. However, if voluntary behaviours are focused, the concept of virtual ethics has the potential to provide answers to these problems.

（特集：日本における環境経済学の到達点と課題（2） = Achievements and Challenges of Environmental Economics in Japan (2)）

一橋大学大学院経済学研究科

2018-01-31

Japanese(jpn)

departmental bulletin paper

VoR

10.15057/29065

AA12162457

一橋経済学

11

2

1

17

11巻2号 (2018.1)

https://hdl.handle.net/10086/29065