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The “Improvement of Mankind”: William Stanley Jevons and Carl Menger on Decision Making and Learning

In: Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including A Symposium on Carl Menger at the Centenary of His Death

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  • Sandra J. Peart

Abstract

This paper examines William Stanley Jevons’s approach to human “improvement” in comparison with that of Carl Menger. In Jevons’s view, people are relatively static when left to their own devices. Thus, to “attack” the “citadel of poverty” they must be improved by those who know what is “best” for them. Menger’s view of people as planners, by contrast, is one in which people are capable of improving themselves. Jevons was a social reformer who placed great faith in education, and painful training and instruction, broadly defined, as key mechanisms of reform. Less frequently acknowledged but no less important, Menger also foresaw “the improvement of mankind” from within, as consumers came to better understand how best to attain their wants and needs over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Sandra J. Peart, 2021. "The “Improvement of Mankind”: William Stanley Jevons and Carl Menger on Decision Making and Learning," Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, in: Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including A Symposium on Carl Menger at the Centenary of His Death, volume 39, pages 9-22, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:rhetzz:s0743-41542021000039b002
    DOI: 10.1108/S0743-41542021000039B002
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