E L Khalil
Biographic Data
| ID | 6006 |
|---|---|
| NAME | E L Khalil |
| GIVEN NAMES | E L |
| FAMILY NAME | Khalil |
| SIGNATURE | KHALIL E L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Doha Institute for Graduate Studies |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0510-447X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 52 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 53 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 52 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Aspiration and Tranquility: Two Types of Happiness
This paper advances two distinctions concerning satisfaction. First, happiness differs from well-being. Happiness is the by-product satisfaction experienced by the decision maker (DM) when reflecting on her well-being through contextual comparison. Second, there are two forms of contextual comparison and, consequently, two types of happiness. The distinction follows the temporal orientation of the context: the DM may evaluate current well-being e…
Anxiety and rationality: Allais paradox, procrastination, Keynesian expectations, and other anxiety-based deviations from rationality
This paper proposes that there is a set of behavioral deviations from standard rational choices that differs from the rest of the deviations. This set is characterized by anxiety-based choices that are truly non-rational, whereas the rest consists of deviations that are actually rational once we take into consideration the role of reference points. This paper registers that the behavioral sciences literature conflates anxiety-based deviations wit…
Faust and Job: The Dual Facets of Happiness
This paper advances two interrelated theses. As for the first thesis, it distinguishes well-being, on the one hand, from happiness, on the other hand. As for the second thesis, it differentiates between two important facets of happiness: what this paper calls “happiness-as-tranquility” and “happiness-as-aspiration”. Actually, in order to differentiate the two facets of happiness, we first need to distinguish happiness from well-being. This is the…
Who Is Afraid of Love? Adam Smith and the Rational Analysis of Bonding
For Smith, love inextricably involves negative feelings, what this paper calls “bonding cost”. The bonding cost can be moderate. However, it can easily become excessive, taking the form of turbulent emotions, obsessions, vulnerabilities, and ego‐centrism. Hence, it is no wonder that Smith is highly critical of love. However, paradoxically, Smith also embraces love, as it nurtures individual development and family warmth. Should we therefore concl…
Does the state usher in a special stage in history? Probing the Dawn of Everything: A new history of humanity
In The Dawn of Everything , David Graeber and David Wengrow suggest that almost all modern features of social structures— cities, religious rituals, kingships, accounting practices, rational arguments, private property, and so on—date to epochs prior to the neolithic revolution. They question the characterisation of the introduction of agriculture as a ‘revolution’. This paper distils Graeber and Wengrow's contribution into two core theses. The f…
The Scope of Justice Dilemma
What is the determinant of the scope of justice? Should rules of justice that regulate the interactions of the members of my society be extended to cover how such members interact with outsiders, entities that fall outside the boundary of my society? Two major approaches—namely, the deontological/contractarian and the utilitarian—offer their answers. Although their answers differ, they are universal in the sense that they do not draw a boundary b…
Questioning the ‘subjective well-being’ concept: Distinguishing wellbeing and happiness
Taxonomy of Cooperation and Reciprocity: Beyond Interdisciplinary Social Science Imperialism
The literature on cooperation acknowledges different forms of cooperation and their corresponding forms of reciprocity. This paper goes further and shows that most of these different forms are indeed distinct types; hence, the terms “cooperation” and “reciprocity” are portmanteau. This paper proposes a taxonomy of ten types: i) quid pro quo; ii) intertemporal allocation; iii) altruism; iv) formal obligations (justice); v) informal obligations (re…
Blasphemy laws contra defamation laws: An anomaly facing rational choice theory
The standard rational choice theory is based on utilitarian grounds and, consequently, treats all preferences (utilities) as commensurable. Hence, it should treat substantive pain, that is, the loss of reputation/income resulting from defamation, as equivalent to dignity loss, that is, the loss of sense of worthiness/morale resulting from blasphemy such as slurs and insults. However, theory faces an anomaly: it cannot explain why those countries …
Dignity entitlements contra property rights: Are all preferences reducible to a single metric
Standard rational choice theory assumes away any difference between goods: a box of tomatoes (or its opposite, rotten tomatoes) is treated in the same way as esteem (or its opposite, indignity), as both can be reduced to a single-metric function (benefit). Such treatment of all goods and, corollary, preferences as comparable, i.e. as belonging to a single-metric function, has been questioned by non-economists, moral philosophers, and non-standard…
The cost of love: Solving the gift anomaly
Friendship‐and‐love affords bonding that satisfies what can be called “transcendental preferences”—in contradistinction of “substantive preferences” afforded by, for example, food, clothes, and shelter. Substantive preferences involve ordinary “substantive cost,” whereas transcendental preferences involve “bonding cost” that includes heartaches, obsession, and emotional turmoil. What about the cost of gifts such as flowers, time, and other carrie…
The Utility Incommensurability Thesis: The Analytics of Preferences à la Adam Smith
This article identifies friendship-and-love as an input that produces what this article calls “transcendental utility”. Such input differs from substantive inputs—e.g., food and clothes—that produce what economists call “utility” and what this article dubs “substantive utility”. While there is a link between transcendental and substantive utilities, the main thesis of this article is that the two utilities are incommensurable. The article’s contr…
Is happiness independent of income? Set point theory à la Kahneman
The income–happiness nexus is paradoxical. One dataset shows that happiness tracks income, while another shows that, in rich countries, happiness does not. This paper focuses on the limits of set point theory (known also ‘hedonic treadmill’ or ‘hedonic adaptation’) to solve the income–happiness paradox. To keep it manageable, it focuses on Daniel Kahneman's attempt to solve the paradox. He first employs his distinction between ‘the experiencing s…
Refined tastes, coarse tastes: Solving the stratification-of-goods enigma
The "Stratification-of-Goods" expresses social ranking where the lower status group consumes almost exclusively coarse goods such as Rambo films while the upper status group consumes almost exclusively refined goods such as Shakespearean plays. The Stratification-of-Goods is an enigma for the social welfare function (SWF)-which also applies at the level of the individual utility function. It is an enigma because it makes SWF and individual utilit…
Does Friendship Stem From Altruism? Adam Smith and the Distinction Between Love-Based and Interest-Based Preferences
Friendship-and-love expresses musings about well-being—while the object of the musings, i.e., “well-being,” is the economist’s substantive satisfaction. Insofar as altruism is about well-being and not the musings, it cannot be subsumed under friendship-and-love. However, what is the basis of the difference between the economist’s substantive satisfaction and friendship-and-love? The answer can be found in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, …
The parallelism of cognitive economy and physiological economy: A rationality-based dual process theory
Researchers recognize the affinity of habits-as-heuristics and habits-as-routines. This paper argues that the affinity should not be surprising, as both kinds of habits are the outcome of rational choice. The paper finds that the dual process theory, once reconstructed as based on rational choice, reveals that the affinity runs deep, as three-fold parallelism: i) the cognitive economy responsible for habits-as-heuristics parallels what this paper…
Is technological/institutional diversity primarily the outcome of the quest after freedom and identity: Interrogating The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity ⋆
In The Dawn of Everything, Graeber and Wengrow (G–W) demonstrate the diversity of social structures, coined here “technological/institutional regimes” (TIRs), of the past 14 millennia. While G–W recognize the role of economic/ecological determinants, but only at secondary approximation. At first approximation, the motor behind the diversity of TIRs are two motives: i) the quest after freedom; and ii) the quest after cultural identity. This articl…
The information inelasticity of habits: Kahneman’s bounded rationality or Simon’s procedural rationality
Why would decision makers (DMs) adopt heuristics, priors, or in short “habits” that prevent them from optimally using pertinent information—even when such information is freely-available? One answer, Herbert Simon’s “procedural rationality” regards the question invalid: DMs do not, and in fact cannot, process information in an optimal fashion. For Simon, habits are the primitives, where humans are ready to replace them only when they no longer su…
A theory of instrumental and existential rational decisions: Smith, Weber, Mauss, Tönnies after Martin Buber
This paper proffers a dialogical theory of decision-making: decision-makers (DMs) are engaged in two modes of rational decisions, instrumental and existential. Instrumental rational decisions take place when the DM views the self externally to the objects, whether goods or animate beings. Existential rational decisions take place when the DM views the self in union with such objects. While the dialogical theory differs from Max Weber’s distinctio…
Other-Regarding Preferences: The Poverty of the Self/Other Dichotomy
The category “other-regarding preferences” is a catch-all phrase based on a self/other dichotomy. While the self/other might be useful when the motive is self-interest or altruism, it fails when the motive involves bonding. This article identifies three motives that involve bonding: i) the preferences regarding friendship and community; ii) the preferences that amalgamate communal bonding with self-interest; and iii) the preferences for distincti…
Is the Adulation of the Rich-and-Powerful Derived from Benevolence? Adam Smith and the Distinction Between Aspiration and Interests
What is the source of the adulation of the rich-and-powerful? It cannot be benevolence. But then what is the criterion that delineates adulation from benevolence? This paper argues that the criterion resides in the set of inputs of the utility function: Does the set includes only interests, i.e. bundles of goods and resources? If so, the product is benevolence. But if the set includes aspiration, i.e. the desire to attain some imagined higher sta…
Wellbeing and Happiness
Exploitation and Efficiency
Let us take any historical or contemporary economic society. Would economic efficiency become better if such society erects and enforces institutions that prohibit its members from the exploitation of excludable groups that can be defined by race, ethnicity, etc.? This question actually makes no sense. One must first identity the boundary of society, i.e., who make up the objective function. Irrespective of how one defines efficiency, one cannot …
The Temper Tantrums of Nations: Why Would Weak Nations Challenge Hegemonic Nations
In March 2005, riots erupted in South Korea against Japan in reaction to Japan’s claims of sovereignty over some rocky uninhabited islets (0.23 km 2 ). What explains the moral outrage against Japan, the severity of which could have erupted into a military conflict? Such outrage is a puzzle for two reasons. First, the probability that South Korea could defeat Japan is nil, especially since the US-Japan alliance dominates the US-South Korean allian…
An anatomy of authority: Adam Smith as political theorist
Authority for Smith arises ironically from the desire to attain a high station in life. Given that most people fail, they 'free ride': they identify their ego with high-ranking agents, through 'vicarious sympathy'. Vicarious sympathy gives rise to status and, if combined with utility, would occasion political allegiance, the basis of political order (an invisible hand argument). Smith's theory challenges liberal political theory (of the classical…
What is altruism
Rationality and social labor in Marx
Textual exegesis is used to show that Marx's concept of social labor is transhistorical, referring to a collective activity of humans as a species. The collective nature of labor is suspended in capitalist production because of the anarchic character of market relations. But the suspension is skin deep: The sociality of labor asserts itself in a mediated manner through the alienated empowerment of goods with value. This is commodity fetishism, wh…
What is Economic Action? From Marshall and Robbins to Polanyi and Becker
In the past three decades economics has entered a new phase in its development. The new stage did not involve a revolutionary change of basic tools as occurred with the triumph of neoclassical economics at the turn of the twentieth century and Keynesian economics in the post World War II era. Rather the recent mutation involves the introduction of economic tools of analysis into areas which have traditionally been part of contiguous disciplines. …
Has Economics Progressed? Rectilinear, Historicist, Universalist, and Evolutionary Historiographies
Research Article| March 01 1995 Has Economics Progressed? Rectilinear, Historicist, Universalist, and Evolutionary Historiographies Elias L. Khalil Elias L. Khalil Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (1995) 27 (1): 43–87. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-27-1-43 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Elias L. Khalil; Has Economics Progre…
Is technological/institutional diversity primarily the outcome of the quest after freedom and identity: Interrogating The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity ⋆
In The Dawn of Everything, Graeber and Wengrow (G–W) demonstrate the diversity of social structures, coined here “technological/institutional regimes” (TIRs), of the past 14 millennia. While G–W recognize the role of economic/ecological determinants, but only at secondary approximation. At first approximation, the motor behind the diversity of TIRs are two motives: i) the quest after freedom; and ii) the quest after cultural identity. This articl…
The information inelasticity of habits: Kahneman’s bounded rationality or Simon’s procedural rationality
Why would decision makers (DMs) adopt heuristics, priors, or in short “habits” that prevent them from optimally using pertinent information—even when such information is freely-available? One answer, Herbert Simon’s “procedural rationality” regards the question invalid: DMs do not, and in fact cannot, process information in an optimal fashion. For Simon, habits are the primitives, where humans are ready to replace them only when they no longer su…
Friedrich Hayek's Theory of Spontaneous Order: Two Problems
Is the Adulation of the Rich-and-Powerful Derived from Benevolence? Adam Smith and the Distinction Between Aspiration and Interests
What is the source of the adulation of the rich-and-powerful? It cannot be benevolence. But then what is the criterion that delineates adulation from benevolence? This paper argues that the criterion resides in the set of inputs of the utility function: Does the set includes only interests, i.e. bundles of goods and resources? If so, the product is benevolence. But if the set includes aspiration, i.e. the desire to attain some imagined higher sta…
Exploitation and Efficiency
Let us take any historical or contemporary economic society. Would economic efficiency become better if such society erects and enforces institutions that prohibit its members from the exploitation of excludable groups that can be defined by race, ethnicity, etc.? This question actually makes no sense. One must first identity the boundary of society, i.e., who make up the objective function. Irrespective of how one defines efficiency, one cannot …
The Temper Tantrums of Nations: Why Would Weak Nations Challenge Hegemonic Nations
In March 2005, riots erupted in South Korea against Japan in reaction to Japan’s claims of sovereignty over some rocky uninhabited islets (0.23 km 2 ). What explains the moral outrage against Japan, the severity of which could have erupted into a military conflict? Such outrage is a puzzle for two reasons. First, the probability that South Korea could defeat Japan is nil, especially since the US-Japan alliance dominates the US-South Korean allian…
The Scope of Justice Dilemma
What is the determinant of the scope of justice? Should rules of justice that regulate the interactions of the members of my society be extended to cover how such members interact with outsiders, entities that fall outside the boundary of my society? Two major approaches—namely, the deontological/contractarian and the utilitarian—offer their answers. Although their answers differ, they are universal in the sense that they do not draw a boundary b…
Questioning the ‘subjective well-being’ concept: Distinguishing wellbeing and happiness
Is happiness independent of income? Set point theory à la Kahneman
The income–happiness nexus is paradoxical. One dataset shows that happiness tracks income, while another shows that, in rich countries, happiness does not. This paper focuses on the limits of set point theory (known also ‘hedonic treadmill’ or ‘hedonic adaptation’) to solve the income–happiness paradox. To keep it manageable, it focuses on Daniel Kahneman's attempt to solve the paradox. He first employs his distinction between ‘the experiencing s…
The Gift Paradox: Complex Selves and Symbolic Good
Symbolic utility involves appreciation and esteem and expressed by symbolic products (gifts), while substantive utility entails ordinary welfare satisfied by substantive products. For neoclassical theory, both utilities are symmetrical or fungible and, hence, substitutable along the uni-dimensional utility function. If they are substitutable, though, why would agents be judged as “crass” if they intentionally remind the recipient of the cost of t…
Institutions, Naturalism and Evolution
The paper recasts old and new institutionalist economics (OIE and NIE) in light of naturalism. While OIE views institutions as 'paradigms' which define the nature of the actor, NIE views institutions as 'conventions' which act as insubstantial traits, i.e. products of optimization subject to constraint. While the two conceptions are different, they are not alternatives: each one is a special theory limited to one kind of institution. In addition,…
Respect, admiration, aggrandizement: Adam Smith as economic psychologist
Institutional theory of the firm? Extension and limitation
I try to argue that the new institutional theory of the firm provides fruitful insights into the question of the market/firm continuity. However, it should not be oversold as the sole foundation of the theory of the firm. In light of the institutional perspective, it is possible to uphold the market/firm continuity thesis while repudiating the exchange paradigm á la Alchian and Demsetz. An extended institutional approach could support the continu…
Organizations, Naturalism, and Complexity
The paper discusses the ontological aspect of naturalism by recasting the debate between reductionist and functionalist views of organization. Crude naturalism advocates the reduction of organizational goals to the presumed preconstituted preferences of its members, while antinaturalism maintains that the organization has an individuality to the extent that the behavior of members is a function of organizational goals. The paper argues that both …
Nonlinear Thermodynamics and Social Science Modeling: Fad Cycles, Cultural Development and Identificational Slips
The paper argues that the application of nonlinear dynamics borrowed from thermodynamics for the study of the evolution of institutions amounts to an identificational slip. While the paper welcomes the importation of techniques from the natural sciences, thermodynamic feedback is simply an inappropriate technique for the study of evolutionary change. Thermodynamic feedback is only appropriate for the study of social dynamics like mob behavior, st…
Marxism: Philosophy and Economics
Other| September 01 1986 Marxism: philosophy and economics Thomas Sowell. New York: William Morrow, 1985. Pp. 281. $15.95. ELIAS KHALIL ELIAS KHALIL Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (1986) 18 (3): 541–543. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-18-3-541 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation ELIAS KHALIL; Marxism: philosophy and economics. …
Sir James Steuart vs. Professor James Buchanan: Critical notes on Modern Public Choice ∗
Principles, rules and ideology
(1989). Principles, rules and ideology. Forum for Social Economics: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 41-54
Beyond Self-Interest and Altruism: A Reconstruction of Adam Smith's Theory of Human Conduct
I attempt a reconstruction of Adam Smith's view of human nature as explicated in The Theory of Moral Sentiments ( TMS ). Smith's view of human conduct is neither functionalist nor reductionist, but interactionist. The moral autonomy of the individual, conscience, is neither made a function of public approval nor reduced to self-contained impulses of altruism and egoism. Smith does not see human conduct as a blend of independently defined impulses…
Entropy law and exhaustion of natural resources Is Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's paradigm defensible
Rationality and social labor in Marx
Textual exegesis is used to show that Marx's concept of social labor is transhistorical, referring to a collective activity of humans as a species. The collective nature of labor is suspended in capitalist production because of the anarchic character of market relations. But the suspension is skin deep: The sociality of labor asserts itself in a mediated manner through the alienated empowerment of goods with value. This is commodity fetishism, wh…
Entropy law and Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's paradigm: A reply
Marx’s Understanding of the Essence of Capitalism
(1992). Marx’s Understanding of the Essence of Capitalism. History of Economics Review: Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 19-32.
Are “good samaritan” laws desirable? A note
Is Poincaréan nonlinear dynamics the alternative to the selection theory of evolution
Recycling of matter
Understanding origins: Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life, Mind, and Society
Understanding Origin: An Introduction J.-P. Dupuy, F.J. Varela. Origins: A View from Literature R. Girard. Part I: Violence: The Origin of Social Order. Supplement to Apocalypse: Girard and Derrida A.J. McKenna. A Morphogenetic Hypothesis P. Dumouchel. Girard and the Origin of Culture P. Livingston. Part II: The Origin of Money: Symbols and Texts. The Origin of Money A. Orlean. Primitive Money, Modern Money J.-J. Goux. Part III: Evolution and the…
Institutional theory of the firm? Extension and limitation
I try to argue that the new institutional theory of the firm provides fruitful insights into the question of the market/firm continuity. However, it should not be oversold as the sole foundation of the theory of the firm. In light of the institutional perspective, it is possible to uphold the market/firm continuity thesis while repudiating the exchange paradigm á la Alchian and Demsetz. An extended institutional approach could support the continu…
Organizations, Naturalism, and Complexity
The paper discusses the ontological aspect of naturalism by recasting the debate between reductionist and functionalist views of organization. Crude naturalism advocates the reduction of organizational goals to the presumed preconstituted preferences of its members, while antinaturalism maintains that the organization has an individuality to the extent that the behavior of members is a function of organizational goals. The paper argues that both …
Individual separateness or universal scheme: A note on neo-darwinian vs. non-darwinian evolutionary social science
Has Economics Progressed? Rectilinear, Historicist, Universalist, and Evolutionary Historiographies
Research Article| March 01 1995 Has Economics Progressed? Rectilinear, Historicist, Universalist, and Evolutionary Historiographies Elias L. Khalil Elias L. Khalil Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (1995) 27 (1): 43–87. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-27-1-43 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Elias L. Khalil; Has Economics Progre…
Nonlinear Thermodynamics and Social Science Modeling: Fad Cycles, Cultural Development and Identificational Slips
The paper argues that the application of nonlinear dynamics borrowed from thermodynamics for the study of the evolution of institutions amounts to an identificational slip. While the paper welcomes the importation of techniques from the natural sciences, thermodynamic feedback is simply an inappropriate technique for the study of evolutionary change. Thermodynamic feedback is only appropriate for the study of social dynamics like mob behavior, st…
Respect, admiration, aggrandizement: Adam Smith as economic psychologist
What is Economic Action? From Marshall and Robbins to Polanyi and Becker
In the past three decades economics has entered a new phase in its development. The new stage did not involve a revolutionary change of basic tools as occurred with the triumph of neoclassical economics at the turn of the twentieth century and Keynesian economics in the post World War II era. Rather the recent mutation involves the introduction of economic tools of analysis into areas which have traditionally been part of contiguous disciplines. …
Friedrich Hayek's Theory of Spontaneous Order: Two Problems
Is Justice the Primary Feature of the State? Adam Smith's Critique of Social Contract Theory
Sentimental fools: A critique of Amartya Sen’s notion of commitment
Institutions, Naturalism and Evolution
The paper recasts old and new institutionalist economics (OIE and NIE) in light of naturalism. While OIE views institutions as 'paradigms' which define the nature of the actor, NIE views institutions as 'conventions' which act as insubstantial traits, i.e. products of optimization subject to constraint. While the two conceptions are different, they are not alternatives: each one is a special theory limited to one kind of institution. In addition,…
Is Adam Smith Liberal?
Smith's theory of authority is nonliberal both in the classical liberal sense of Locke and Buchanan and in the social liberal sense of Bentham and Marx. Smith distinguishes civil contract from political contract: While the state protects rights à la civil contract, its differentia specifica is the political contract, which involves authority and allegiance. Allegiance is neither an involuntary act nor the product of choice à la civil contract. Al…
What is altruism? A reply to critics
Economics (31 works) · Philosophy (28 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Economic Theory and Institutions (24 works) · Epistemology (24 works) · Law (21 works) · Political science (21 works) · Positive economics (17 works) · Psychology (17 works) · Social Psychology (14 works)