Erik Angner, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Philosophy and Economics
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Email: angner@uab.edu

An Assistant Professor since August 2005, my interests fall in the history and philosophy of social science, broadly construed. However, I have a special fondness for economic sciences and their relationship to moral and political philosophy. I came to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) from the University of Pittsburgh, where as a result of mission creep I received two Ph.D.’s: one in History and Philosophy of Science and one in Economics.

At UAB, I divide my time between the Department of Philosophy [Philosophy] and the Department of Finance, Economics, and Quantitative Methods [FEQM]. I serve as Director of the new interdisciplinary Program in Philosophy and Political Economy [PPE], which is a joint effort between these two departments. In addition, I have appointments in the Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and Education [COERE] and the Minority Health and Research Center [MHRC], and serve on the Ethics Committee of Children's Hospital [CHSYS].

In my more philosophical moments I study notions of rationality and well-being, and how they can be illuminated by recent advances in decision theory and behavioral decision research. Much of my research involves exploring the philosophical assumptions implicit in contemporary social and behavioral science, and what reflection on these assumptions can tell us both about the assumptions themselves and the nature of the scientific enterprises of which they are part. I am especially interested in what the recent enthusiasm for so-called subjective measures of well-being – that is, measures designed to represent individuals' happiness, satisfaction, and so on – and the "science of happiness" – the body of work inspired by these measures – might entail for the way in which we conceptualize, value, measure, and pursue well-being.

In more historical moments I like to explore issues related to the origins of modern social, political and economic thought. In particular, I have spent a great deal of time exploring the political philosophy of Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992). I have published several papers on the nature, origin and implications of his theory of cultural evolution, which on all accounts is central to his project. More recently, I published a book – titled Hayek and Natural Law (Routledge, 2007) – which argues that Hayek's work should be seen as continuous with the Natural Law tradition.

There are sociological moments too, in which I am primarily interested in the role played by economists and other social scientists in the articulation, implementation and evaluation of public policy. Thus, in a recent paper I study the role of some Western economists in the Russian post-Soviet reforms of the early 1990's. Drawing on psychological research on cognitive biases, I argue that economists acting as experts in matters of public policy are likely to suffer from significant overconfidence, and that the consequences can be dramatic.

In my empirical work I study the causes and correlates of happiness. I am particularly interested in the relationship between happiness and health, on the one hand, and poverty, on the other. There are, of course, many ways to measure both health and poverty; as a result, much of my work involves exploring how different measures of health and poverty relate to one another and to happiness. The empirical work informs my philosophical, historical and sociological studies of subjective measures of well-being and the science of happiness / positive psychology, in that it has given me a far deeper understanding of the origins and nature of these measures, as well as their strengths and limitations.

At the moment, I am writing a series of articles on welfare measurement, contrasting more traditional economic measures with the now rather popular subjective measures. With George Loewenstein, I am writing a book manuscript with the preliminary title Foundations of Behavioral Economics, which is to be published by Princeton University Press. With a team based in the School of Medicine here at UAB, I am involved in two ongoing studies on happiness and health status (among other things) in various populations in Alabama. Finally, with a team of UAB economists, I am running experiments intended to shed light on people's decisions to volunteer their time.

I serve on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Economic Methodology and The International Review of Economics.

Angner, Erik (2005) Subjective Measures of Well-Being: A philosophical examination (Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh). [Fulltext]

Angner, Erik (2004) An Attempt to Understand the Nature and Origin of Hayek's Transformation (Dept. of Economics, University of Pittsburgh). [Fulltext]

Cobaugh, Daniel, Erik Angner, et al. (in press) "Racial Differences in Inability to Afford Medications: The Alabama Nonsteroidal Antiinflammatory Drug Patient Safety Study," American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy.

Angner, Erik (2006) "Economists as Experts: Overconfidence in theory and practice," Journal of Economic Methodology 13(1): 1-24. [Fulltext (subscription required)] [Penultimate draft]

Angner, Erik (2004) "Revisiting Rawls: A Theory of Justice in the light of Levi’s theory of decision," Theoria 70(1): 3-21. [Penultimate draft]

Angner, Erik (2004) "Did Hayek Commit the Naturalistic Fallacy?," Journal of the History of Economic Thought 26(3): 349-361. [Fulltext (subscription required)] [Penultimate draft]

Angner, Erik (2002) "Levi’s Account of Preference Reversals," Economics and Philosophy 18(2): 289-304. [Fulltext (subscription required)] [Penultimate draft]

Angner, Erik (2002) "The History of Hayek’s Theory of Cultural Evolution," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 33(4): 695-718. [Fulltext (subscription required)] [Penultimate draft]

Lindahl, Gabriel, Erik Angner, Urban Rosenqvist, and Ragnar Westerling (2002) "Viktigt med bra kunskapsunderlag för besparingsförslag i vården," Läkartidningen 99(13): 1482-1484. [Fulltext (in Swedish)]

Angner, Erik (in press) "The Politics of Happiness: Subjective vs. economic measures as measures of social well-being," in Lisa Bortolotti (Ed.) Philosophy and Happiness (New York: Palgrave). [Penultimate draft]

Angner, Erik (in press) "Subjective Measures of Well-Being: Philosophical perspectives," in Harold Kincaid and Don Ross (Eds.) Handbook on the Philosophical Foundations of Economics as a Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Angner, Erik (in press) "The Philosophical Foundations of Subjective Measures of Well-Being," in Luigino Bruni, Flavio Comim, and Maurizio Pugno (Eds.) Capabilities and Happiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press) [Penultimate draft]

Angner, Erik and George Loewenstein (in press) "Behavioral Economics," in Uskali Mäki (Ed.) Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 13: Philosophy of Economics (Amsterdam: Elsevier). [Penultimate draft]

Loewenstein, George and Erik Angner (2003) "Predicting and Indulging Changing Preferences," in George Loewenstein, Daniel Read, and Roy Baumeister (Eds.) Time and Decision: Economic and psychological perspectives on intertemporal choice (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), pp. 351-391.

Tubaro, Paola and Erik Angner (2008) "The Future of History of Economics: Young scholars’ perspective," Journal of the History of Economic Thought 30(1): 81-84. [Manuscript] [Fulltext (subscription required)]

Angner, Erik (2006) "Response to Caldwell and Reiss's 'Hayek, Logic, and the Naturalistic Fallacy,'" Journal of the History of Economic Thought 28(3): 371-373. [Fulltext (subscription required)]

Angner, Erik (2002) "Book Review: Friedrich Hayek: A biography, by Alan Ebenstein (Palgrave 2001)," Economics and Philosophy 18(2): 381-385. [Fulltext (subscription required)]

Angner, Erik (2002) "Oärlig kritik," Dagens Nyheter, 24 October, p. B2. [Fulltext (in Swedish)]

Angner, Erik (under review) "The Evolution of Eupathics: The historical roots of subjective measures of well-being." [Manuscript]

Angner, Erik (under review) "Are Subjective Measures of Well-Being 'Direct'?"

Angner, Erik, Jeroan Allison, et al. (under review) "Health and Happiness among Older Adults: A community-based study."

Angner, Erik, Michael Miller, et al. (under review) "Health Literacy and Happiness: A community-based study."

205-934-4805, or
205-934-8771 (direct)