Oskar Engländer, Die Erkenntnis des Sittlich-Richtigen und die Nationalökonomie. I–II (1914)

Engländer’s two-part methodological study examines moral knowledge as both an aid to explaining economic conduct and a foundation for economic policy. Drawing on Franz Brentano’s account of evident ethical judgments, it asks whether economics can understand motives or justify recommendations without knowledge of what is morally right. Explanation and prescription remain distinct, but theoretical economics is not thereby independent of ethics.

Part I begins with the psychological requirements of explanation. Economics must consider motives actually operative in conduct, including moral convictions: the investigator’s neutrality does not establish the moral indifference of economic actors. Engländer nevertheless defends beginning with self-interest when explaining fundamental market phenomena. This starting point depends on morality’s compatibility with self-regarding conduct, not on its insignificance:

Wir fanden die Lösung des Problems — Wirksamkeit sittlicher Motive einerseits, Notwendigkeit, vom Selbstinteresse auszugehen, andererseits — in der Vereinbarkeit des Selbstinteresses mit sittlichen Erwägungen.

English translation: We found the solution of the problem — the efficacy of moral motives on the one hand, the necessity of proceeding from self-interest on the other — in the compatibility of self-interest with moral considerations.

Concern for one’s own welfare can be ethically legitimate, while exchange ordinarily offers each participant an advantage. Moral considerations therefore need not oppose exchange, profit, interest, rent, or wages as such. Self-interest can explain their general existence without implying that economic agents lack moral motives.

Engländer rejects shortcuts that leave this compatibility unexplained. An “economic principle” merely restates the problem if it means maximizing personal advantage against others. Likewise, isolating self-interest does not establish when other motives can safely be disregarded. The decisive distinction concerns whether these motives counteract self-interest:

Soweit dagegen ein grundsätzliches Gegenwirken nicht stattfindet, wird man das neben dem Selbstinteresse wirkende Motiv erst dann zu berücksichtigen haben, sobald und soweit ein Gegensatz eintritt.

English translation: Where, on the other hand, no fundamental counteraction takes place, the motive operating alongside self-interest will have to be taken into account only as soon as, and in so far as, an opposition arises.

This qualification limits the initial model. Mutual advantage does not mean that every increase in one participant’s gain benefits the other. Particular prices and distributions may depend on moral restraints, especially under unequal bargaining conditions. Duty, loyalty, and solidarity also matter in employment relations, cooperatives, strikes, and collective provision.

Actual conduct remains the explanatory object. Engländer’s stronger claim is that correct ethical judgment helps economics understand moral convictions themselves, since prevailing beliefs derive, however imperfectly, from primary evident judgments:

Aus der Notwendigkeit, Motive zu berücksichtigen, ergibt sich somit für die theoretische Nationalökonomie auch die Notwendigkeit, Motive vom Standpunkte einer sittlich-richtigen Erkenntnis zu beurteilen und damit die Notwendigkeit dieser Erkenntnis selbst.

English translation: From the necessity of taking motives into account there follows, for theoretical economics, the necessity also of judging motives from the standpoint of a knowledge of what is morally right, and thereby the necessity of this knowledge itself.

The relationship is reciprocal. Ethics needs economic knowledge to assess consequences and distinguish enduring principles from rules whose justification depends on historical circumstances.

Part II addresses the standards of scientific policy. Existing political goals, private enrichment, and economic development cannot independently justify recommendations. Calling a development progressive presupposes a criterion of improvement; invoking common welfare does not determine which goods matter or how competing claims should be resolved.

The critique of justice sharpens this difficulty. Causal accounts of productive contribution cannot directly establish entitlements. Economic imputation concerns productive resources, whereas distributive claims concern persons; complementary inputs also resist a uniquely determined division of their joint product. Moral merit likewise supplies no unconditional rule for allocating economic goods. Distribution requires attention to consequences: equality may increase benefit through diminishing marginal utility, while unequal rewards may encourage useful production. Neither arrangement is justified solely by abstract desert.

Engländer instead grounds policy in objective ethical judgments concerning intrinsic goods, including pleasure, knowledge, and aesthetic experience. The practical task is to choose the best attainable outcome under given circumstances. This standard does not mechanically prescribe an economic system or fixed degree of intervention. Economic investigation must establish feasible alternatives and compare benefits, harms, distributional effects, and consequences for future generations. Changing assessments of interest prohibitions illustrate this dependence on circumstances.

The study combines ethical objectivity with resistance to deriving policy from moral principles alone. Ethics supplies evaluative standards; economics investigates motives, possibilities, and consequences. Their cooperation is necessary both for adequate explanation and for scientifically defensible practical recommendations.