Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: According to classical liberalism, markets are instruments for the mutually advantageous voluntary exchange of goods and services among individuals who have conflicting interests. Some critics have used a virtue ethics understanding of behavior in markets to call for moral limits to markets because this classical view does not respect the internal value of human practices and the intrinsic motivations of individuals. In response, Luigino Bruni and Robert Sugden have offered a virtue ethics defense of markets, thereby “reclaiming virtue ethics for economics.” We argue that their account needs further elaboration and clarification before it is possible to assess the soundness of their virtue-theoretic understanding of markets.
Institution: Vanderbilt University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,290
OpenAlex ID: W4410808683