Goods and Persons, Reasons and Responsibilities

Abstract
Purpose: An exploration of themes that interconnect six studies in environmentally and socially sustainable human development.
Findings: As humanity threatens to undermine its habitat, a social economics returns to core concepts and themes that became expunged from neoclassical economics: serious examination of persons, seen as more than given points of desire; a broadened perspective on types of good, including a non-neoclassical conception of public goods as publicly deliberated priority goods that are not well managed through free markets and ‘common goods’ as shared bases vital for everyone; study of what commodities and goods do to and for people; a central role for public reasoning about which are public priority goods, rather than using only a technical definition of a public good; an acceptance of notions of ethical responsibility and responsibilities concerning the provision and maintenance of public priority goods determined through public reasoning; and attention to institutional formats for such deliberation. Amongst the greatest of public priority ‘goods’ are the concepts of common good and responsibility.
Research Implications: The findings reinforce the agenda of socio-economics for central attention to the mutual conditioning of economy, society, polity, and environment, including analysis of the sociocultural formation of economic actors and of ideas of ‘common good’.
Originality/value: Cross-fertilization of theorization with cases from Costa Rica, Kenya, Nepal, Thailand, Rwanda, sub-Saharan Africa and global arenas.