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The papers collected here were written for the second biennial Wirth conference on Austrian Economics. The Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies sponsored the conference in cooperation with the University of Toronto in Mississauga. The conference was held from 17 to 18 October 2008 in Mississauga. The Wirth Institute has a natural home in Edmonton on the campus of the University of Alberta, which is a leading center for Central European Studies. The fact that the Institute has received support not only from government of Austria, but also from the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia reflects its historically minded recognition of the unique intellectual milieu of the Habsburg Empire. This intellectual milieu lasted beyond the breakup of the empire right through to the Anschluss in 1938. It is this milieu that shaped the Austrian school of economics and helped shape the context for the conference.

This chapter incorporates gender consciousness into critiques of the rational actor model by revisiting Carol Gilligan's account of moral development. Economics itself, led by the insights from game theory, is reexamining trust, altruism, reciprocity, and empathy. Behavioral economics further explores the implications of a more robust conception of human motivation. We argue that the most likely source for a comprehensive theory will come from the integration of behavioral economics with behavioral biology, and that this project depends on the insights from evolutionary analysis, genetics, and neuroscience. Considering the biological basis of human behavior, however, and, realistically considering the role of trust, altruism, reciprocity, and empathy in market transactions requires a reexamination of the role of gender in the construction of human society.

First, we revisit Gilligan, and argue that her articulation of relational feminism faltered, in part, because she could not identify the source of the stereotypically feminine. Second, we consider the ways in which the limitations of the rational actor model meant that law and economics could also not resolve the relational concerns that Gilligan raised. Third, we discuss the rediscovery of gender that is emerging from the gendered results of game theory trials and the new research on the biological basis of gender differences. Finally, we conclude that incorporating the insights of this new research into law and the social sciences will require a new methodology. Instead of narrow-minded focus on the incentive effects in the marginal transaction, we argue that reconsideration of stereotypically masculine and feminine traits requires an emphasis on balance.